The Facebook founder’s recent self-important manifesto reads like comedy, until we see how it pushes us toward a different kind of authoritarianism.
Month: February 2017
South Korean fried chicken franchises are popping up all over the country. Tight competition is squeezing owners.
-Analysis- It’s every Indian mother’s worst nightmare. Would the son she proudly sent abroad wind up in harm’s way in a foreign land? Parvatha Vardhini’s son reassured her that he was safe and secure in the U.S., even as hate crimes rose in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. After his body was flown back […]
Hipsters beware: beards have been on the list of unusual taxes.
Massive use of antibiotics in animal farming and for the treatment of common ailments is helping create incurable infections.
Restrictive and sometimes contradictory rules continue to govern issues of marriage and — heaven forbid — divorce for Egyptian Christians.
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One Unfriendly Canadian
Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies varies widely in elevation, climate, and plant life, making it the perfect place to catch (from a respectable distance) an incredible diversity of wildlife in their natural habitat. That was one grouchy-looking bighorn sheep. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
PARIS — There’s no fixed running time for the Academy Awards ceremony. If you live on the East Coast, and are not a night owl, you may very well have not made it last night to Best Picture. It’s usually not that big of a deal, with some arguing that the Hollywood show has become […]
Companies and universities in Argentina are encouraging naps to boost the productivity and mood of students and workers.
The tiny European country has improved its position as a post-Brexit business destination by reforming its fiscal rules and digital environment.
While the EU seeks an agreement with Libya to halt the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean, the prospect of a better life elsewhere is what all in rural Ethiopia talk about.
-Analysis- WARSAW — For the Polish government, coal is nothing to worry about. Sixteen Polish cities exceeded the annual limit of days with smog in the first two months of this year alone. And still, the government hasn’t taken any steps to restrict poisonous coal dust or remove the fossil fuel from the market. Coal […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — For many months on the campaign trail, Donald Trump sent a clear message about his fellow Republicans: Ideologically, I’m not one of them. This wasn’t just true on trade, but also on safety-net programs that protect, among others, low-income whites. President Trump, he said, won’t let people die in the streets and […]
-OpEd- It’s hard to say no to the prospect of free money. Imagine: Regardless of your activity (or lack thereof), you get your share of the “universal income,” of the nation you call home. Several hundred dollars or more, paid every month into your bank account — not to compensate your labor or reward some […]
Rio de Janeiro-based O Globo daily’s front page offered a snapshot of the contrasts of today’s Brazil. While top story reported on a troubling new unemployment trend, as an estimated 2.3 million of the country’s jobless now take at least two years to find work, the newspaper also featured a centerpiece photograph of the flurry […]
We all have favorite songs we listen to again and again. But there are few things as entertaining as hearing our favorite singers belt their hit tunes in another language. Love “Heroes’ by the late David Bowie? How about listening to it again … in German? Or the Johnny Cash classic “Ring Of Fire” in […]
Beyond the Filippino leader’s inciting vigilante killings of drug dealers, Colombian leaders who have long battled the narcotics trade might study his other ideas.
Imagine receiving a check from the government every month. The concept of guaranteed basic income for all citizens has been gaining prominence around the world, leading to referendums and national political debate in several countries. Known by different names, a policy of “universal basic income” (UBI) is a form of government assistance where every citizen […]
The Thyon tourism office rents innovative ‘tiny houses’ to ski vacationers: 56 square feet, fun and environmentally friendly. But it’s not so simple.
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Selling With A Smile
Of the many vendors at the numerous markets I’ve visited through the years, the women selling herbs in Jakarta were probably the ones with the biggest smiles. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
As his words and public gestures confirm, Francis is a people’s pope, not a populist, and as genuine as he is popular with ordinary folk.
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A Woman’s Biggest Enemy Is Womanhood
Our author attends a women’s conference in Berlin, and reaches a brutal conclusion about the very idea a ‘being a woman.’
Uber is a company built around maximizing customer service and experience — sometimes at any cost. Critics note that the price is paid by those providing the labor, the army of modestly paid freelance drivers around the world who have no guaranteed income and few if any job benefits and protections. But it seems, the […]
MOSUL — Ziyad loaded his wife and three children in the big German sedan that used to serve as his taxi between Baghdad and Mosul. That was in June 2014. The jihadists had just captured Iraq’s second-largest city and Ziyad, built like a late-career wrestler, with a big smile and spoiled teeth, was fleeing towards […]
-Analysis- MUNICH — The recent attacks on the Internet would be great material for a movie. But it would be more a horror film than action flick — and it could be a low-budget production since the victims could just be you and me. No need to pay high-priced movie stars. The screenplay would go […]
PARIS — Researchers are on the hunt for the perfect bee. Today, pesticides, mites, viruses and other parasites decimate tens of millions of colonies of pollinators on the planet. Researchers are now trying to select genes from bees that would build colonies resistant to external attacks. Doing so would help save natural pollination, which is […]
WASHINGTON — Back in October, Shannon Coulter was doing some late-night browsing on the Nordstrom website. Before long, the small-business owner had a nagging feeling about the department store’s line-up of Ivanka Trump apparel and shoes — a brand she couldn’t help but see in a different light amid the unfolding events of the presidential campaign. Just days earlier, news had broken of the explosive Access Hollywood footage in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women without their consent. “Something changed for me when the Trump tapes came out,” Coulter recalled in an interview. “Those words were just ringing in […]
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Headed West
This was beyond a cross-country summer trip. From my hometown in eastern France, I had to drive across the whole country, heading for Britanny. I then carried on westward to the Finistère department. Then hopped on a boat for about an hour and voilà: I got to the small and picturesque island of Ouessant (Ushant), […]
Bolivian president Evo Morales has been criticized for his supposed ‘cult of personality.’ But he is no Donald Trump.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled a remarkable 28 years, and counting. As the successor to Islamic Revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader’s mix of pious rigor, domestic authority and geopolitical cunning have long kept him a step ahead of his rivals, at home and abroad. Rumors that his health was […]
ELEFSINA — Greece must repay 7 billion euros of debt by July. But, as has been the case since 2011, the country will not be able to honor its debt without first receiving the credit promised by the International Monetary Fund and the members of the eurozone in July 2015 (86 billion euros). Athens’ creditors […]
CAIRO — After Asmaa Hamdy’s release from prison, where she spent three years, she began the desperate search for her fiancé who had disappeared shortly before she was let out. A dentistry student at Al-Azhar University, Hamdy was one of the students arrested by police following the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. […]
With dire economics and the Trump immigration crackdown, the situation is fluid in the troubled Mexican border city.
Introducing deep thoughts to early child education can pay off later.
First with Obama and now with Trump, the U.S. is making space for a second imperialist power on the American continent, China.
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Good Morning, Mr. Andersen
You will find many statues of the legendary 19th-century local fairy tales author Hans Christian Andersen in his native Denmark. My own little mermaid Cécile was here standing next to what was then one of the most recent ones, installed just two years earlier in the capital. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
The over-50 age group holds enormous purchasing power, yet advertising aimed at older people often looks like cartoons of semi-active people happily going to the pharmacy. What can be done?
Beyond his media attacks and over-the-top reality TV performances, Donald Trump’s lack of command of the issues is what should worry us.
Irrational anger is turning ordinary individuals into system wreckers when they are seduced and provoked by demagogues.
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Inside The Global Zipper War
Japanese and Chinese rivals battle for dominance in this billion-dollar industry, a tale of a worldwide economy drawing ever closer.