Publico — Oct. 6, 2016 “We all win” reads the front-page headline of Lisbon-based daily Publico on Thursday, after Portugal’s former Prime Minister António Guterres was chosen to become the next UN secretary general. After what was largely considered an unremarkable tenure by outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, commentators are hoping for better results […]
Month: October 2016
PARIS — Can we one day live in a world where there’s zero trash? A German chemist named Michael Braungart believes it is possible. He encourages companies to put a complete end to waste in The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance, a book he co-wrote with U.S. architect and designer William McDonough. “The […]
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Parisian Prestige
The Sorbonne University, in the center of Paris, is the second oldest university in the world. No, not behind Oxford — behind Bologna. I took this shot of the Chapelle Sainte Ursule de la Sorbonne more than 50 years before my grandson and partner-in-crime went to one of the university’s branches, just a few hundred […]
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On This Day – October 6
PORTO ALEGRE — Sitting on the bed in her white hospital gown, Jéssica Almeida was devouring a hamburger. But the scene is deceiving. In total, the 17-year-old spent a month in the hospital and lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Such weight loss, which might indicate malnutrition, is common among hospital patients in Brazil, and it […]
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Abortion Back On World Agenda
SPOTLIGHT: ABORTION BACK ON WORLD AGENDA The recurring battle over abortion was bound to resurface in the U.S. presidential campaign, becoming what the Los Angeles Times called “one of the most personal, intense” moments of last night’s debate between the respective running mates of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both Republican vice presidential candidate Mike […]
After a chilly first encounter, President Mauricio Macri and Pope Francis, both from Argentina but from different ends of the ideological spectrum, are set to meet again.
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Forbidden Fun
I was lucky enough to see some of the world’s greatest treasures at a time when there were few fences and rarely entrance fees. But even when there were limits, like here in Hadrian’s Villa near Rome, they were of little concern for my daughter Cécile.
In France, more than 23,000 people live in a room of smaller than nine square meters, many in the capital. But to rent out such small spaces is illegal.
“Seven killed in Dominican Republic and Haiti as rainfall continues” writes the Dominican Republic’s daily El Caribe on its Wednesday front page as Hurricane Matthew — the most powerful Caribbean hurricane in years — devastated parts of the two countries that coexist on the same island. With winds up to 230 km/h (145 mph), torrential […]
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On This Day – October 5
“If only the world’s shattered people carried a sign, a small mark of Cain so that we could be gentler with them, maybe smile a bit more — not to pity them, but to console …”
SAN FRANCISCO — A billboard for a new housing complex being built in San Francisco caught people’s attention last spring. Its sales-pitch slogan? “From the low 1,000,000s.” Some may have chuckled at the absurdity, but the price of the new units reflects the current reality of the market. The median price of a house in […]
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From Brexit To Bogota, What’s Next?
The first instinct is to make the connection. During the referendum in the UK back in June, the cooler heads, the let’s-try-to-work-together folk, the conventionally wise were supposed to win. But, in the end, the people advocating for Britain to “Remain” in the European Union lost. And those calling for Britain’s exit, or “Brexit,” prevailed. […]
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Demon Door
Meet Thotsakan, a demon from the Hindu epic Ramakien guarding one of the entrances to Bangkok’s Wat Arun Buddhist temple.
The massive march in Warsaw and other protests against Poland’s proposed strict new anti-abortion law is a revolutionary moment in what it means to be a Polish woman.
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On This Day – October 4
-Essay- BERLIN — My body is that of a man but I am a woman and I want to live my life as a woman. In our minds, our bodies define who we are. We are either male or female. This belief makes me a person that should not exist. I did not question this […]
There are various reasons the wage and wealth gap is growing, but in Europe’s strongest economy it makes no sense to blame the global marketplace.
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That Darker Paris Reality
SPOTLIGHT: A DARKER REALITY IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS Paris has always had a dark side. Uprisings, demonstrations, even revolution…the streets of Paris have been awash in blood time and again over the centuries. In far more recent months, terror attacks, floods and strikes have stamped the City of Light as the standing capital of […]
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On This Day – October 3
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — Colombians have now had their say, voting Sunday to reject the peace deal signed between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), intended to end more than 50 years of fighting in the country. The No vote triumphed against all odds it seems, against […]
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Palm Color
The Palmeral of Elche in southeastern Spain is the biggest palm grove of its kind in Europe. Its shades of green made it the perfect place for me to experiment with color film for the first time.
MARINDUQUE — Elisa Hernandez dips her yellow blouse into the Boac River’s rushing water and then slaps it up against the shoreline’s gray stones. The 73-year-old used to earn a living washing her whole community’s laundry this way. “We felt at home in this river … It was so clean, we played in it and we used to catch a lot of fish here too,” she says. But that all changed in March 1996, when a drainage pipe inside a copper mine burst about 20 kilometers upstream. Millions of tons of toxic mine waste, including lead and arsenic, flooded into […]
BUENOS AIRES — This city wants to make itself a kinder, friendlier place for the elderly, with plans to improve urban infrastructure and promote common-sense practices to help reduce accidents inside homes. Taking its lead from the World Health Organization (WHO), which has pushed in recent years for more user-friendly cities and better conditions for […]
SKARA — As Bert Karlsson enters the refugee center’s cafeteria, dark-haired boy greets him with a “Hey!” The four-story building called Stora Ekeberg is just one of many refugee centers started by Karlsson’s Jokarjo AB group, which respond to Sweden’s burgeoning need to house refugees. This center is reaching its capacity of 570 people. “Here, […]
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On This Day – October 2
CAIRO — Two months ago I set out to reserve a hotel room in the Egyptian city of Minya for a work trip. A quick and easy task, I thought. I called more than 10 hotels but they all told me they were fully booked. I was surprised because Minya is not exactly Egypt’s prime […]
Who are we? A referendum in Hungary raises fundamental questions in the West about how the fear of otherness turns culture into a weapon in the hands of populists.
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On This Day – October 1
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