Dr. Zee, as he’s known, is an Amsterdam-based researcher who regularly invents new drugs. And they’re legal — at least until authorities identify and then ban the experimental substances.
Month: April 2017
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ –– For some time now, Latin America has not figured on the U.S. State Department’s agenda. If the continent did appear, it was at the bottom of the government’s list. This indifference has only grown starker since Donald J. Trump moved into the White House. This state of affairs is neither good nor […]
In Pakistan, men dominate public life. There are very few occasions women can enjoy being out by themselves. But now there’s a place in Karachi that’s giving women the opportunity to enjoy a long-awaited cup of tea.
-Analysis- Buenos Aires, 2013. At the ripe age of 76, Jorge Mario Bergoglio seems destined to wind down an illustrious career in the Catholic hierarchy as the widely respected and mostly beloved Archbishop of the Argentine capital. But the Holy Spirit (and the College of Cardinals) was destined to intervene, sending the Jesuit prelate to […]
The French election coincides with the bicentennial of British economist David Ricardo’s seminal work. Never has it been more relevant.
COPENHAGEN — In the picturesque Danish capital, it’s easy to overlook the men lying on public benches with a beer in hand, or assume they’re immigrants from Southern Europe. Listen carefully, though, and you’ll notice that they speak fluent Danish, a task almost impossible for foreigners. These men, it turns out, are Danish citizens; indigenous […]
Categories
Head Over Heels
Photography works in mysterious ways. This frozen moment of some graceful Bulgarian folk dancers in Varna somehow looks terribly clumsy. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
-Analysis- WASHINGTON (Indiana) — This city of 11,000, nestled among a handful of low hills rising from table-flat Hoosier farm fields, is 680 miles from the other Washington, but the cultural and political divide may be even greater than the geographical distance. Solidly red Indiana backed Donald Trump by 57% to Hillary Clinton’s 37%. Voters here in Daviess County went for Trump over Clinton by 79% to 16%, more than the 74 % who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and the 67% who supported John McCain in 2008. Indeed, Daviess, tucked into the state’s southwestern toe between Illinois and […]
El Nacional — April 27, 2017 CARACAS — The embattled government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has raised the stakes on both the domestic and foreign front. At home, the death count continued to climb as the state responded to anti-government protests, a scenario Caracas-based daily El Nacional“s Thursday edition characterized as “Brutal Repression.” Most […]
MARRAKESH — It is a 21st-century Parisian experience par excellence: You turn a cobblestone corner or exit some quaint square and come face-to-face with a small, tiled alien critter pasted on the wall of a Haussmann-era building. That is the work of Invader, the French-born street artist who claims to have been educated by alien […]
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — One of the biggest lies in modern politics is the belief that freedom is a universally-shared passion. It isn’t. Freedom implies a burden of responsibility not everyone is willing to bear. In this school of thought, I believe Thomas Hobbes was right: People fear violence, scarcity and death. The majority, therefore, […]
French journalist digs up troubling comments from 17 years ago by Jean-François Jalkh, who was just tapped to head the National Front party ahead of the May 7 presidential election.
-Analysis- PARIS — Someone, somewhere will probably call this fake news. Reporters Sans Frontières, a Paris-based organization for the protection of journalists and free expression, released its latest annual World Press Freedom Index this morning, and … little good news to report. The Index, which tracks criteria like harassment and violence against journalists and laws […]
El Correo, April 26, 2017 The front page speaks for itself. “Guernika,” Wednesday’s edition of Spain’s El Correo reads, with the Basque spelling of Guernica displayed in bold red letters against a black background.
A Colombian NGO is hoping football could turn former communist guerrillas into peaceful citizens — and maybe even sporting stars.
A mix of arrogance, careful planning and fortuitous circumstances have brought the political outsider and youthful former economy minister Emmanuel Macron to the gates of the French presidency.
-Analysis- Today Donald Trump will deliver a speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum for the National Day of Remembrance. Safe to say, there will be prepared remarks, which neither Trump nor his top spokesman will write. This is no occasion for Trump’s verbal freestyling. Meanwhile, it was Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who two weeks ago […]
Categories
The Ghost Of Capitals Past
The city of Fatehpur Sikri, founded in 1569 near Agra, served briefly as the capital of the Mughal Empire before it was abandoned, mainly for water scarcity reasons, only 16 years later. It’s one of India’s best preserved ghost towns. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
ZURICH — The determined look of Mambo Mhozuyenikono (not his real name) contrasts with the nonchalance of the other students who wander, trays in hand, around the cafeteria at the University of Zurich. For this 23-year-old from Zimbabwe, enrollment here is a privilege rather than an obligation — not something to be taken for granted. […]
-Analysis- LIMA — Peruvian historian Javier Puente’s latest research includes some very interesting maps. The first (and most extensive) covers the area affected by drought as a result of the El Niño weather phenomenon between 1982 and 1983 (when it was unusually intense). The second, relying on data from Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee, shows […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Such a result was unthinkable just a few months ago: For the first time in the more than half-century history of the Fifth Republic, the top two vote-getters in the first round of the French presidential election — now qualified for the runoff next month — belong to neither of the country’s […]
PARIS — After France’s two main political parties fell short in Sunday’s first round voting, next month’s second round will feature a showdown of centrist newcomer Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Macron, 39, of the brand new En Marche ! party came in first with 23.7% of the vote, while Le Pen […]
In southern Gaza, A “Hamas Hollywood” is starting taking shape, just in time for Ramadan.
Four candidates, including one from the extreme left and one for extreme right, are in a virtual dead heat ahead of Sunday’s election. But the problem runs much goes deeper than tight polls.
STUTTGART — Such are the consequences of a long-distance relationship. Two-thirds of Germans of Turkish descent voted in favor of a reform of the Turkish constitution to give more powers to the presidency. That support helped lead to victory President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a man who does not shy away from drawing Nazi comparisons. What […]
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As he nears his 100th day in office, President Donald Trump’s efforts to appear decisive and unequivocal in his responses to fast-moving global crises have been undercut by a series of confusing and conflicting messages from within his administration. Over the past two weeks, policy pronouncements from senior Trump aides have often been at odds with one another — such as whether Syrian President Bashar Assad must leave power as part of a negotiated resolution to end that nation’s civil war. In other cases, formal White House written statements have conflicted with those from government agencies, even […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Warnings about an imminent terrorist attack had hung ominously in the air in the final weeks of the French presidential election. On Tuesday, police arrested two suspects in the southern city of Marseille after finding a cache of weapons and bomb-making ingredients in their apartment. But with the world focused on French […]
When El Espectador’s Aldo Civico spots a former henchman of the Medellin drug cartel in a restaurant, enjoying a meal and the well wishes of patrons, he wonders if something has gone terrible wrong with society at large.
DELHI — A disturbing video has gone viral in India. It shows a mob viciously attacking a Nigerian man at a suburban Delhi mall. The attackers kick, punch and hit him with steel trash cans, chairs, bricks — pretty much anything they can lay their hands on. The victim is 21-year old Nigerian student Endurance Amalawa — who is now lying on a hospital bed with bandages covering his head, arms and back. In the adjacent bed is his older brother Precious Amalawa. He has fewer injuries and is able to recount the ordeal. He remembers entering the mall, buying […]
PARIS — A long line stretched in front of Hall 2 of the Bourget Exhibition Center on the outskirts of the French capital last Saturday afternoon, ahead of an annual three-day conference by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France. Fliers announced the topic of the upcoming roundtable: “Eleven candidates in the presidential election, who […]
Categories
Opera House Surprise
In the heart of the rainforest, in a place which for a long time was only accessible by boat, stands the improbable Teatro Amazonas, built during the late 19th-century rubber boom. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
-Analysis- Fox News opted for the verb “slam” to describe the first significant comments about Iran from new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “Tillerson slams Iran nuclear deal as “failed approach,”” the conservative network headlined its story yesterday, following Tillerson’s remarks about the 2015 nuclear accord inked by President Obama. But there is another […]
Love, jealousy and courtship have become impatient, high-speed activities that play out on our computer screens and smartphones.
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — The April 16 referendum result that gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping powers can be summed up in a single sentence: he won on paper but lost the political battle. The followers of the “chief” — a term used by Erdogan’s loyalists to describe the Turkish president — would consider this […]
Tsai Ing-wen made history when she became Taiwan’s first female head of state. A year later, she is facing the harsh realities of the job. And that starts with dealing with hardliners in Beijing.
Democracy has never been an easy thing. That most British of statesmen Winston Churchill famously called it “the worst form of government, except for all the others.” In its ideal form — with regularly scheduled elections, peaceful transfers of powers, constitutions that are upheld, checks and balances respected — democracy can work quite well. Certainly there are examples still in today’s world. But as shown by events taking place right now in Venezuela, Turkey and even on Churchill’s turf, it can also be a deeply messy affair. In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is clinging to power against a groundswell […]
-OpEd- LONDON — Who can blame UK Prime Minister Theresa May for calling an election now, as her own Conservative party mandarins have been urging? Her party enjoys a 21-percentage-point lead in the polls. The opposition Labour Party is weak and divided, and the economy has yet to register the expected wobbles in the wake of last year’s vote to leave the European Union. What better time to crush the opposition and beef up the Conservatives’ 17-seat majority? Yet her decision is as strategically flawed as it is tactically clever. First, she risks losing credibility. Having promised not to get […]
After Trump and Brexit surprise victories with the support of disenchanted voters, the populist right-wing candidate in France is feeling supremely confident.
Deforestation, poaching and civil war have had a devastating impact on Sri Lanka’s elephant population. One orphanage for elephants is working to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.
Categories
Wisteria Wonder
Wisteria was in full fragrant bloom in the gardens of Suzhou during our spring tour along the country’s east coast. The city’s many waterways has given it the nickname as the “Venice of China.” See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.