Worldcrunch
SAN JOSÉ — A troubling new sea-bound migration route has opened up, as some 20,000 migrants from African countries are believed to have flocked to Costa Rica, according to a recently released International Organization for Migration (IOM) report. La Nación, a daily in the Costa Rican capital of San José, reports that the figure of […]
SPOTLIGHT: BRITISH BREAKUPS AFTER BREXIT Whatever the result, last Thursday’s referendum was always going to leave Britain deeply divided. It was also bound to divide the UK’s major political parties, whose leaders now face the daunting task of both negotiating the best possible exit deal and bringing the country together, avoiding, if possible, a breakup […]
One of the best things about traveling in organized tours is that you get priority tickets for everything, meaning that we never had to wait in line to get into the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, or in this case, the Mayan city of Tulum.
La Voz de Galicia, June 27th The Monday edition of Spanish daily La Voz de Galicia features a victorious Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy kissing his wife, Elvira Fernandes, after winning the most seats in Spain“s parliamentary elections. Sunday’s vote followed an inconclusive election in December, when the parties failed to agree on a coalition. […]
SPOTLIGHT: BREXIT WINS, CAMERON’S BAD BET No one ever forced David Cameron to call the referendum to decide whether the UK should stay in the European Union or not. But the British Prime Minister’s calculation was clear: Popular sentiment against the EU (particularly among his fellow Conservative Party members) was strong enough to make a […]
El Espectador — June 24, 2016 Colombian daily El Espectador featured an AK-47 assault rifle with the headline “Do not recycle” on the paper’s front page on Friday. Rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, signed a historic ceasefire deal with the government in the Latin American nation. After more than 50 […]
Britain is making the news today. I took this shot in Edinburgh“s Princes Street, just five years after Scotland, as part of the UK, joined the European Union.
BEIJING — Recycling used materials is great. School athletics, too! But in China this week, we see where the two activities should never cross paths. The Tuesday night edition of Economic 30 Minutes, a program of CCTV, the Chinese state television broadcaster, exposed the shady story of China’s plastic school tracks and sports fields made […]
SPOTLIGHT: BEYOND BREXIT The big day has arrived. Britons have begun voting to decide if their country should remain a member of the European Union, or go its own way. The latest polls all suggest the race is too close to call, with two surveys putting the “Remain” camp ahead while two others say those […]
I’m not the only one to find the Alyscamps, near Arles in the south of France, picturesque. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin immortalized the alley of sarcophagi in this great Roman necropolis.
SPOTLIGHT: SARAJEVO RUBBLE TO TRUMP TOWER The pace of modern communication tells us that what’s here today is gone … tonight. The potential worldwide virality of any piece of digitally circulated information comes with the caveat that everything is also potentially, and eternally, invisible. The tree falling in some proverbial unseen forest of the Internet. […]
The regimes of Iran and Venezuela may have been great chums and eager members of the anti-imperialist camp over the past decade. But the current in Caracas, where food shortages and clashes are rising, is prompting some finger-wagging in Tehran. “We Want Food — Venezuela’s Economy A Step Away From Total Collapse” read the front […]
When you travel as much as I did, laundry drying in the heat is one of the sights you get to see around the world and through the ages.
SPOTLIGHT: A LOADED TRANSCRIPT It’s hard to recall the last time the FBI flip-flopped so quickly. The release yesterday morning of transcripts of the Orlando nightclub gunman’s calls to 911 had initially withheld Omar Mateen’s references to his apparent Islamist motivations for the attack that killed 49 people. Outrage was immediate. House Republican Speaker Paul […]
Amalienborg, the winter home of the Danish royal family, is located next to a ferry docking point — very convenient for tourists. You may notice this slide is a little bit dusty, but my grandson and I didn’t want to photoshop that away.
A video of Chinese bank employees being spanked with a kind of bat or paddle for poor job performance has gone viral, setting off outrage online in China. The video, apparently recorded during a training session at a rural bank in the poor western province of Shanxi, shows eight staff members — both men and […]
This was a souvlaki of epic proportions, near the ancient site of Mycenae in southern Greece.
SPOTLIGHT: EUROPE’S FATE, FROM ROME TO LONDON Italy’s 5-Star Movement won the mayoral races in Rome and Turin, where Virginia Raggi and Chiara Appendino will become the two major cities’ first female mayors. For Italian pundits, their victories, particularly Raggi’s landslide triumph in the Eternal City, is a major blow to center-left Prime Minister Matteo […]
ROME —Virginia Raggi, a 37-year-old insurgent newcomer, has scored a resounding victory over the candidate from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s ruling party to become the first woman mayor of Italian capital Rome. Raggi, a member of the upstart anti-establishment 5-Star Movement founded by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, defeated Democratic Party candidate Roberto Giachetti in the […]
SPOTLIGHT: BREXIT, VIOLENCE AND EUROPE’S PAST Tributes are pouring in for slain British lawmaker Jo Cox, 41, who was fatally stabbed and shot during a meeting yesterday with constituents in northern England. The mother of two young children, Cox was praised as a big-hearted defender of human rights and refugees and was most recently an […]
The style of mailboxes around the world varies considerably. This opulent one, in eastern Germany, looked like it could have been used by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
SPOTLIGHT: BRAZIL, THE LONG ARM OF PETROBRAS PROBE Five weeks. That’s all it took for Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer to become directly implicated in the far-reaching Petrobras corruption scandal. Of course, there had been warning signs. First the resignation of two of his ministers amid allegations they were trying to subvert the ongoing probe. […]
Dongfang Zaobao, June 16 Chinese daily Dongfang Zaobao featured the grand opening of Shanghai Disneyland on its front page Thursday after the theme park dynasty opened its doors at midnight following five years of construction. The $5.5 billion Shanghai Disney Resort is the American company’s biggest theme park outside of the U.S. Some 10,000 employees […]
Straw hats, maracas, decoratives masks … The ancient Sri Lankan city of Anuradhapura is considered sacred to the Buddhist world, and a great place to buy just about anything!
Our faithful Peugeot 404 makes a cameo appearance, with the Ribat fortress of Monastir in the background.
Attitude, July 2016 issue Prince William will be on the cover of Attitude, the top British LGBT Lifestyle Magazine for the July issue. The Duke of Cambridge is making history as it is the first time that a member of the Royal Family will appear on the front-page of a gay publication. The prince revealed […]
SPOTLIGHT: PALESTINIAN PRISON LETTER “My release is bound to happen, sooner or later … “ The most charismatic living Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been in an Israeli prison since 2002, offered a rare written exchange recently with Le Monde. Some see the 56-year-old, who was sentenced to five life imprisonments in 2004 for […]