A widely used approach in Norway to limit youth mob culture and violence has long been exported. Now look for it in Germany, following the July 22 attack in Munich by a teenaged victim of bullying.
Month: August 2016
Oscar-winning Hollywood hunk Leonardo DiCaprio pulled out of hosting a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last week, saying there was a problem with the timing. Well, kind of. The FBI needed to question DiCaprio about his apparent links to two suspects accused of embezzling a sovereign fund in Malaysia, Swiss newspaper Le Temps […]
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Dilma Or No Dilma
All signs say this is the end of the line for Dilma Rousseff. Both O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo, two of Brazil’s main newspapers, report that she will lose today’s vote in the Senate and will be impeached. Many are hoping the decision, which arguably has more to do with Dilma’s perceived ability […]
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Poles Of Attraction
The nine totem poles in Vancouver’s Stanley Park were impressive both for the carvings, and the height. For some perspective, my wife Claudine, in the foreground, was about 5ft7.
Most Indians are vegetarians. But omelets, a colonial legacy, remain popular in India.
Decades of civil war have ravaged Colombia’s environment and undermined opportunities at oil exploration. Now with peace looming, big and small firms alike are ready to pursue the government’s “sustainable” energy plan.
Abnormally high temperatures triggered the outbreak of anthrax on Yamal peninsula. It’s not the only disease that roiled Russia this summer.
Terrorism and social networks contribute to the exacerbation of a general feeling of fear, as recent incidents in New York and the South of France have shown.
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Italy’s Perilous Fault Lines
As mourners gather today at a funeral for at least 200 of the 292 victims of the Aug. 24 quake in central Italy, the initial search for survivors has been replaced by the grim final task of recovering bodies and identifying the dead. As has happened in the wake of natural disasters in the past, […]
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Rhinoceros And Champagne
On the Zambezi, the upper end of which begets the mighty Victoria Falls, I went on a half-day cruise. There was amazing fauna to observe from the deck, and champagne to drink from the boat’s open bar. Hey rhinos, here’s looking at you …
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Why Erdogan Is Soft On ISIS
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Turkey’s government and the media that support it have an odd attitude when it comes to violent acts carried out by ISIS: It’s as if the “cultural/ideological dialects” of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government somehow malfunction. For starters, the government has a hard time condemning the vicious massacres carried […]
In big and small companies alike, security risks have entered a whole new era.
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A New Kind Of Space Race
The quest for the final frontier is still very much on. But rather than the Cold War-era space race between the two governments of the United States and Soviet Union, the competition now has many players, both public and private. The public sector these days includes China, which recently announced plans to send an unmanned […]
O Globo, Aug. 29 Brazil’s suspended president, Dilma Rousseff, will address the Senate today as part of the final moments of her trial before a vote on her impeachment tomorrow. Rousseff studied each and every senator in detail last week “to have something up her sleeve if she gets attacked,” Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported […]
Is simulation turning people into escapists, wonders this Argentinian philosopher and science-fiction expert.
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Floating Business
I bought a nice bedspread from one of these Uru women, sitting in the sun on a islet in Lake Titicaca. They sure get enough practice: The Uru people wove the islets themselves, using dried reeds.
Foreign journalists have flocked to Amatrice after the Aug. 24 earthquake, focusing on the spaghetti all’amatriciana dish that the town was famous for. But this is no time for folklore.
This is the third and final installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing In Palestine.” Read Part 1: Keeping Secrets and Part 2: Where Are You From? -Essay- I meet Saber in a cafeteria in central Jenin, just after noon. He welcomes me with a vigorous hug, the kind that people give to friends they haven’t […]
Social network searches have become common practice among police forces. But now victims, too, are searching online for offenders. What is legal, and what isn’t?
Sociologist Ernest Meccia explains how Argentina — one of the first countries in the world to introduce gay marriage — accepted and even embraced homosexuality.
BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Public Security has weighed into a national debate about citizens filming police actions with an attention-grabbing video of its own. The video, released last month, confirms the public’s right to film or photograph police with the caveat that citizens must “not affect the execution of normal law enforcement.” It also […]
Patrick Jan barely scratches out a living. He is too busy making his childhood dream come true.
Aleksei Arbatov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyzes Kremlin’s foreign policy and offers an inside look at where international relations are headed.
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Italy Quake, Once The Dust Has Settled
Two days after an earthquake tore through central Italy, the dust is settling on the razed buildings, and the hope of finding survivors in the rubble is fading away. The first burials of victims took place this morning, only hours after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared a state of emergency for the worst-hit areas and […]
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Making Peace — Video Quote Of The Day
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Fishing Fashion
I’ve already told you about the fishermen’s wives of Nazaré, and the seven petticoats they’d wear traditionally in this Portuguese town. The fishermen“s costumes are just as interesting. Although granted, they do look a little bit like pajamas.
Climate change is drying up the Earth and making Bolivians search for new livelihoods in Latin America’s poorest country.
CHINON — Serge Desazars’ bodyguards are very hairy. Hip-Hop, a two-year-old Springer, jumps whenever a new visitor arrives. Serge lets out a smile, surreptitiously materializing on the unemotional farmer’s face. Hip-Hop is clearly too playful for this former international director for the clothing brands Petit Bateau, Céline and Holland & Holland. Desazars, who abandoned carpeted […]
La Repubblica, Aug.25 At least 247 people have died and 368 were injured in the devastating 6.2-magnitude earthquake that struck in the early hours of Wednesday. Small towns and villages were destroyed in the mountainous area where the regions of Umbria, Lazio and Le Marche meet in central Italy. The horror of the quake was […]
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — Decades of civil conflict and the formation of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could be attributed in part to the struggle for land in this Latin American nation. That’s why land was one of the most important issues in FARC’s peace negotiations with the government. A historic deal was […]
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The Edge Of The World
Though definitely not the most impressive watefalls I got to see, the Gullfoss cataract (not far from other popular Icelandic landmarks like Þingvellir or the “father of all geysers“) gives the eerie impression that the water disappears into the earth.
LANZHOU NEW AREA This city is supposed to be the diamond’s on China’s Silk Road Economic Belt a new metropolis carved out of the mountains in the country’s arid northwest. But it is shaping up to be fool’s gold, a ghost city in the making. Lanzhou New Area, in Gansu province, embodies China’s twin dreams of catapulting its poorer western regions into the economic mainstream through an orgy of infrastructure spending and cementing its place at the heart of Asia through a revival of the ancient Silk Road. Hundreds of hills on the dry, sandy Loess Plateau were flattened by […]
-OpEd- As I walk through central London, I see many women wearing burqas passing me by. And as I’ve always felt in that sort of situation, I was uncomfortable. Physically and morally uncomfortable. They say you’re not supposed to feel such things. Nor to write about them. What right, indeed, do I have to impose […]