Contagious diseases through history have inspired authors, describing the horror, but also instances of nobility born of courage and compassion.
Month: February 2020
Parisians have abandoned the legendary avenue, leaving it for tourists and military parades. But there are plans to return it to its more humanistic glory of the past.
By now, many across Delhi, and Sikhs across the world, are retriggered by memories the pogroms of 1984.
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Hello, Troglodyte Neighbor
I’ve shared photos before of a trip to central Turkey’s Göreme National Park, with its troglodyte cave-like dwellings and fairy chimney rock formations. Only recently did I dig up this image from a visit a few years earlier, and was reminded of how strange and powerful the landscape is.
Entrepreneurs say ‘Basta’ to stop the ordinances they say risk paralyzing the economy.
France abides by the legal notion that the human body is inviolable, and thus prohibits the sale of organs. The same should go for data, otherwise the inequalities of the digital divide will deepen.
Welcome to Friday, where the Biden Administration launches its first military air strike, Israel says it has vaccinated half its population and an Italian politician makes an epic literary error. We also check in around the world for social media alternatives to the mega Silicon Valley platforms. Islam became a “problem” in France when Muslims […]
Egypt’s longest-serving president, ruling from 1981 until 2011, has died at the age of 91. From humble beginnings to iron-clad rule of the largest Middle East nation.
The debate about Angela Merkel’s successor shows that her CDU party is lacking in powerful women to take the party forward. As strange as it seems, her party still has a long way to go to achieve gender equality.
Welcome to Thursday, where Johnson & Johnson vaccine gets the green light, Facebook bans Myanmar military accounts and a new level of fakery is achieved by a soccer player trying to fool the referee. We also take a look at Bolsonaro’s push for new looser gun ownership laws even as Brazil’s pandemic death toll soars. […]
Mexico’s socialist president is deluded if he thinks he can turn the clock back and restore his vision of the welfare state.
Shortages of medical supplies are already hitting in the northern city of Turin, in Italy, which is by far the worst hit European country from the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Welcome to Wednesday, where vaccine rollouts have started in Ghana and Malaysia, but may be stopped in Lebanon because politicians keep cutting the line. Gérard Depardieu is under investigation in France and a freezing cold record is broken by a Czech swimmer. • COVID-19 latest: Ghana receives the first shipment of vaccines thanks to UN-backed […]
A new Vienna-Brussels line has just opened, while in France only two night lines still exist, compared to a dozen ten years ago.
Welcome to Tuesday, where the global COVID death toll nears 2.5 million, El Chapo’s wife is arrested and Facebook and Australia are friends again. Le Monde also explores the impact of Lebanon’s diaspora in Africa on a small village near Beirut. • COVID-19 latest: After two separate studies find that COVID vaccines significantly reduce the […]
Welcome to Monday, where we have very good news on vaccine effectiveness, Myanmar protesters won’t back down after police open fire and Edvard Munch turns out to be a different kind of scream. We also find out how AI is helping to preserve dying languages. • COVID-19 latest: The U.S. death toll is approaching the […]
After the killing of nine in the western German town of Hanau, it is clear the state must do more to crack down. But the responsibility extends much farther.
An experimental listening booth in Buenos Aires provides people a comfortable space to give honest feedback — alone and in anonymity.
‘Where do we go to die, when we have lived thousands of lifetimes in a world that was not made for us?’
Allowing Beijing to have a hand in the new, faster mobile network would entail significant risks. But in Germany, debate about 5G is also a question of who you like more: China or the U.S.
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The Marketing Power Of Stereotypes
Italians are hot-headed. Brits can’t cook … Sure they’re offensive. But as marketing experts are aware, stereotypes can also help forge a group’s shared identity.
Welcome to Friday, where the coronavirus death toll surpasses 100,000 in Africa, the Myanmar coup protests record the first casualty and NASA’s Mars rover sends its first picture of the Red Planet. We also look at how the lack of internet access is preventing minorities in the United States from getting the COVID vaccine. • […]
-Analysis- PARIS — In his most recent book, Chine, le Grand Paradoxe (China, the Great Paradox), Jean-Pierre Raffarin reminds us that, “the key to diplomacy is reciprocal respect.” Prime minister at the height of the SARS crisis, in 2003, Raffarin was one of the rare foreign leaders to proceed with a scheduled trip to China. […]
Expect use of blockchain, the digital record-keeping system, to become generalized this year in banks and elsewhere.
Welcome to Thursday, where a new UK study will deliberately infect young people with COVID, Texas continues to battle a snowstorm and New Zealand vows to provide all schools with free menstruation products. America Economia also asks why Mexico has done so poorly in fighting the pandemic. • COVID-19 latest: Thailand has announced that its […]
The tendency to compress language belongs not only to humans, but also to this particular African penguin species’ way of communication.
Sharing food and Spanish-style snacking are trending in Buenos Aires, as cash-conscious, younger customers tire of the standard restaurant fare and a big bill
Welcome to Wednesday, where a “vaccinegate” scandal shakes Peru, videos emerge of Dubai princess in “villa prison” and North Korea’s first lady reappears after one year. Le Monde goes back in time to understand the proposal of an “immunity passport” for the vaccinated to be free to travel. • COVID-19 latest: New research from Oxford […]
While there are significant supply chain concerns across sectors in the short-term, others see this as yet another distant opportunity to take some business away from China.
Welcome to Tuesday, where Myanmar files new charges against Suu Kyi, Guinea reports an Ebola outbreak and bitcoin value is about to cross a major threshold. We also look at a new business booming in China during the pandemic: student ghostwriting. • COVID-19 latest: The World Health Organization has authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency […]
Welcome to Monday, where the Myanmar generals are tightening their grip, new COVID variants are identified and a very ancient watering hole is discovered in Egypt. We also have a Die Welt piece on the dark side of the dream of moving out to the countryside. • COVID-19 latest: Researchers have identified seven new variants […]
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It’s A Water Buffalo’s Life
On the unpaved roads of inland Indonesia, this worker was relying on the strength of his water buffalo to bring building materials to a construction site. A couple of days later on the same trip, I would get to see some even less fortunate bovines, in an indigenous Toraja village.
Nine years after the Jan. 25 popular revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, so much of the hopes failed to materialize. But not everything.
It may seem like a pipe dream. And it would certainly cost a lot, especially in a large capital city like Bogotá. But providing fare-free public transport could also be transformative.
In early civilizations, landing a job amounted to interning until your employer died. Fast-forward a few thousand years and fortunately, internships have gotten shorter … and life expectancy has gotten longer! Still, job hunting has become a journey marked by alternating pulls of hope and hysteria. The swift ascension of global connectedness, Artificial Intelligence, the […]
Welcome to Friday, where Brazil’s health minister has good and bad news about the local COVID variant, China bans the BBC and another boomer bungles his zoom filters. We also have a closer look at how the pandemic is altering the meaning of freelancing in the world of work around the world. • COVID-19 latest: […]
Mediation may well be what Venezuela needs to climb out of its deep political crisis, but it can’t come from Cuba.
Like the entire story of his life, Nelson Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison exactly 30 years ago helped define the 20th century. Having served 27 years for leading the opposition to South Africa’s racist system of Apartheid, his release brought to an end white minority rule. Four years later, Mandela would be elected president as the nation sought to find peace and reconciliation after decades of oppression. But it was his release on February 11, 1990 became the iconic moment marking the change. After nearly three decades behind bars between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, the […]
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she will not run for Chancellor and will step down as leader of Germany’s ruling CDU party. It was a slow implosion over the past year, with Angela Merkel’s mixed messages partly to blame.
Welcome to Thursday, where the WHO has given the green light to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for all ages, U.S. imposes sanctions on Myanmar and we go to France for a big parenting fail. We also explore the troubled relationship between oil and politics in Venezuela. • COVID-19 latest: The World Health Organization has backed the […]