Month: July 2016
PARIS — For more than three years now, the French startup Qwant has been trying to prove that a search engine can be efficient and profitable while respecting the privacy and anonymity of users. After a slow and difficult start, Qwant is finally taking off. Six months ago the search engine had 8 million visitors. […]
SPOTLIGHT: FRENCH CONSOLATION France needed this win badly. It has been a grim 18 months, with major terrorist attacks, a crippled economy and record floods, and the country yearned for the kind of unifying victory that sports can provide. And so an edgy kind of optimism reigned ahead of kickoff at the European Soccer Championship […]
BALI — In the Indonesian resort island of Bali, music hasn’t always been political. But news of a Dubai-style development has galvanized local musicians and artists. The development involves reclaiming 700 hectares of Benoa Bay in southern Bali to make way for a string of artificial islands complete with resorts, shopping centers, theme parks and high-end apartments. A consequent tolak reklamasi or “reject reclamation” movement has inspired protest songs like one by the folk band Nosstress. Copok, a singer and guitarist for the local band The Bullhead, explains why residents are against the development. “They will put culture on the […]
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Waiting For The Rice To Dry
Rice is a staple food on the Indonesian island of Java. The country is one of the world’s biggest producers, and cultivating it means a lot of work for both men and women. But during the drying stage, there’s not much to do but wait.
Jornal de Notícias, July 11th “IT’S OURS!” reads Monday’s front page of Lisbon daily Jornal de Notícias, featuring Portugal’s national soccer team celebrating their victory at the Euro 2016 tournament, with coach Fernando Santos lifting the cup. Claiming its first ever European title, Portugal beat host country France 1-0 at Paris’s Stade de France, on […]
BEIJING — Beijing recently announced that it would start to recognize a selection of French wines in China, a country where counterfeiting of prominent French wine brands is common. The announcement, made at the G20 agricultural ministers meeting in China, is a victory for France. China will now recognize 45 Bordeaux wines that have the […]
The Swiss Amish in the United States are keeping alive a vocal art passed down from their ancestors in Switzerland and eastern France. Both a symbol of identity and entertainment, yodeling was also a source of inspiration for American country music.
Can practitioners of Islam also believe in the ideals of a secular state and democracy? A Turkish academic poses the question and finds some interesting answers.
Cooked in Asia for centuries, this protein-rich marine plant is making its way onto our plates.
A sad bit of irony to the deadly assault on police Thursday night is that the Dallas police department had made great strides in reducing cases of excessive use of force.
PARIS — Try to imagine that an intelligent robot is out to kill you. It remembers all your passwords and has access to all your data. Equipped with facial recognition technology, it can identify you wherever you go, even though you have no idea what it looks like. This nightmare is actually possible. Drone assassins […]
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Military Ceremony — Video Quote Of The Day
COLÓN ISLAND — As the world continues to bury itself in plastic bottles, a few pioneers are coming up with clever ways to put all that refuse to good use. One of those people is Canadian innovator Robert Bezeau, who decided after a visit to Panama to build an entire plastic-bottle village — presumably the […]
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Summer Rinascimento
Students were parading through the streets of Perugia in central Italy, wearing full Renaissance robes in the July sun.
“Ambush,” reads Friday’s front page of The Dallas Morning News, after rooftop snipers reportedly shot 11 police officers during an otherwise peacefull protest against recent police killings of African-Americans in other U.S. cities. By early Friday, five of the officers shot were reported to have died, with one civilian also wounded in the shooting clearly […]
Just go, leave everything behind and relax. We sent our reporter to Jodhpur, India’s blue city, where he is desperately trying to disconnect with all his worldly stress.
LAUSANNE — Imagine a brain the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen. Now imagine that this brain can spontaneously generate an electric charge, just like a human brain could. Well, imagine no more because this tiny human brain replica, a so-called mini-brain, actually exists. Over the past five years, techniques to manufacture these […]
SPOTLIGHT: A PUTIN THINK TANK IN BERLIN Far from both the Transatlantic chattering about Brexit, and the simmering war in Ukraine, a new “Research Institute” was quietly christened in the capital of Germany last week. The “Dialogue of Civilizations” think tank moved its headquarters from Vienna to central Berlin, which German historian Karl Schlögel writes […]
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China’s Grand Soccer Ambitions
The last time China made a World Cup appearance in 2002, the team lost all three group matches and went out without a single goal. While Chinese fans are mad about soccer, their own national team rarely gives them reason to rejoice. But there are grand pl
Dongfang Zaobao (Oriental Morning Post) — July 7, 2016 This Thursday edition of Shanghai-based Dongfang Zaobao features emergency forces at work in the Yangtze River basin, with the headline “Flood emergency! President Xi deploys Disaster Relief Forces.” At least 120 people are dead or missing, and an estimated 16 million people have been affected by […]
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Sad Roadside Attraction
A few tourists were willing to give this man a couple of rupees to be allowed to approach and touch his chained baby elephant.
The latest in the perilous liaisons between pro-Russian Germans and Vladimir Putin is taking the propaganda war on the West to a whole new level with a think tank relocated to Berlin.
ISTANBUL — Since Turkey made conciliatory moves towards Russia and Israel last week, critics have pointed to the inconsistencies between what has been said before and what is being said now. But that is not the real issue here: The real issue is about the roots, the true nature and the costs of these changes […]
Panamanian holding a drone — Photo: UN Food and Agriculture Organization Members of Panama’s 12 indigenous nations are embracing a cutting-edge technology — drones — in an effort to protect their ancestral lands. Roughly 7.4 million hectares of rainforest cover more than half of Panamanian territory, but it is rapidly disappearing, some estimate by as […]
SPOTLIGHT: UK IRAQ WAR REPORT BASHES BLAIR After seven long years, the Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the Iraq war was released this morning. As anticipated, the report, which was initially supposed to be concluded in 2011, is very critical of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and of how he led Britain into the […]
Le Canard enchaîné first ever and latest front pages France’s legendary satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné is celebrating its century-long existence, and the Internet is not about to write its obituary. “The Chained Duck” — canard is both French for “duck” and the slang for “newspaper,” — was first published on July 5, 1916. On […]
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Dated In Palmyra
Hanging bunches of dates, a parked motorcycle, leisurely locals: This was part of what I saw in Palmyra, beyond its famous ruins, during a visit to Syria long before the civil war sadly changed the beautiful scenery.
To understand why design is important, take a look at Silicon Valley. Forty-two design firms in the U.S. technology hub have been bought up since 2004. About half these acquisitions were made this past year alone. The 25 startups that got the most venture capital financing were founded by designers. Google snapped up the two-person […]
Regular shelling from all sides has made it too dangerous for students to go to school in the Syrian city of Aleppo, so a group of volunteer teachers decided to open their own.
For Chile’s former president, Ricardo Lagos, peace between Bogota and leftist FARC guerrillas could signal a new path well beyond the borders of Colombia — though a post-Brexit Europe may be hard to reach.
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Bloody Ramadan, China Floods, Final Hu
SPOTLIGHT: A DEADLY END TO A DEADLY RAMADAN The latest terror news bulletin flashed from one of Islam’s holiest sites, the Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in the city of Medina. Two days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan, the mosque was struck yesterday by a suicide bomber, killing four security guards and wounding […]
BEKAA — It’s a typical wine tasting at the Château Marsyas in the beautiful Bekaa region of Lebanon. We are trying a French Cabernet after tasting a Merlot and Shiraz. Bottles and glasses are scattered on a wooden table in the heart of the winery, which houses a dozen stainless steel vats and hundreds of […]
Extra, July 5th The Tuesday edition of Brazilian newspaper Extra features a picture of policemen, occupying a portion Rio de Janeiro’s international airport Tom Jobim to protest unpaid salaries as security fears rise a month before the Summer Olympics are set to open. “It is horrible,” reads the front-page headline, a quote from Rio Mayor […]