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Category: blog
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Snows Of Yesteryear
It’s a two-hour drive between my hometown and this picturesque village of Morat in Switzerland. On our way home through the still white-capped Jura mountains, my then 10-year-old grandson and I got into a merciless snowball fight. That’s the kind of warm memory that sticks far more than any quaint village scenery.
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April Fools’ Day Is No Joke In China
BEIJING — This is not a joke. Chinese citizens who’d like to lay some harmless April Fools’ Day pranks are hereby warned: “This is illegal.” Such is the official message published by Xinhua Viewpoint, the Chinese government’s microblogging account. “April Fool’s Day does not conform to our country’s cultural traditions and core socialist values. We […]
DEATH TOLL FROM DAMASCUS AIR STRIKE NOW AT 33 The death toll from airstrikes carried out yesterday in the Deir al-Asafir district southeast of Damascus has risen to 33, mostly women and children, Reuters reports this morning. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the strikes were carried out by Syrian aircraft and […]
“What now for Zuma?” asks Cape Town-based, Afrikaans-language daily Die Burger on its front page Friday, a day after South Africa’s highest court ruled that President Jacob Zuma breached the constitution by upgrading his private home with government money. The embattled president still has 60 days to repay the estimated $23 million, but the verdict […]
GUADALAJARA — Mexico”s state of Jalisco is experiencing a violent crime wave against women. Mexico City-based daily El Universal reports that the number of murders of women, also known as femicides, rose to 150 there in 2015, part of a troubling rise in killings since 2009, when only 58 were recorded. While the notoriously violent […]
ASSAD CALLS FOR UNITY GOVERNMENT Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reiterated calls yesterday for opposition members to join him in forming a national unity government, a prospect opposition leaders have rejected. In an interview with Russian news agency Ria Novosti that comes days after the government’s recapture of Palmyra, Assad said that the main goal of […]
The Daily Telegraph, March 31, 2016 Sydney-based The Daily Telegraph devoted its front page Thursday to the city’s plans to scrap 62 public alcohol-free zones in parks and streets, featuring Lord Mayor Clover Moore as a bartender in an end-of-prohibition photomontage. Moore is using new crime statistics to justify removing the booze-free areas in and […]
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Rugs And Ruins
Coming across the border after our stay in Syria, our first stop in Jordan was Jerash, the ancient settlement known as Gerasa. Sitting at an outdoor café, we gazed upon the “Pompei of the East” — and the rugs for sale right next to the Roman ruins.
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Travel Wisdom — A Video Quote In 15 Seconds
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Lonely Dilma, Hijackass, Pope’s Fiat
MYANMAR PRESIDENT SWORN-IN Htin Kyaw has been sworn in as Myanmar’s first elected civilian president in more than 50 years. In his first address as president, the 69-year-old, a close aide to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, promised “national reconciliation” and a new Constitution guaranteeing a federal democracy and “the lifting up […]
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Spiny Delicacy
From September to April in southern France, seafood lovers can participate in the “oursinades” festivals. Sea urchins are cut open, and you eat the gonads raw, with a squeeze of lemon.
“It has to be the best selfie ever,” Ben Innes, a British passenger who was on the EgyptAir flight hijacked yesterday, told The Sun about his picture with the hijacker. The 26-year-old health and safety worker explained he wanted to take a closer look at the fake explosives belt Mustafa, the “hijackass,” was wearing. But […]
CASABLANCA — With one proposal to criminalize tobacco and another to legalize marijuana, Moroccan politics these days is smoking. Casablanca-based daily Aujourd’hui Le Maroc reports that the governing Justice and Development Party (PJD) is proposing a law that would prohibit the sale and consumption of tobacco from hookah water pipes across the country. The moderate […]
HOSTAGES HELD ON HIJACKED PLANE IN CYPRUS A Cairo-bound commercial jet that was re-routed to Cyprus this morning was hijacked over what appears to be a personal matter involving a woman, The Guardian reports. The hijacker is reportedly still holding seven hostages in the plane that landed at the Cypriot city of Larnaca 7:50 a.m. […]
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Buddhist Carving
Every single piece of furniture handcarved in the Chiang Mai area is unique, featuring detailed scenes from Buddhist scriptures in beautiful teak or rose wood. I would have brought one of these chests back home, but I feared they were too delicate to be shipped by plane.
JAKARTA — Amid violent anti-Uber protests by taxi drivers in the Indonesian capital, the country’s largest taxi company is trying to defeat its app-based American competitor with an innovative approach: uberize itself. Leading Indonesian magazine Tempo reports that the Blue Bird taxi company is seeking to shift its business model to a car-sharing service, competing […]
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Death Toll Rises In Lahore Suicide Bombing
Scenes of chaos are making the front page of Karachi-based daily Dawn on Monday, after an Easter Day suicide bombing in a Lahore park killed at least 70 people and injured more than 300. According to rescue workers and police officials, a majority of the dead and wounded were children and women, the Pakistani daily […]
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Medieval Headache
Spectacular, arresting, remarkable … That is how many would describe the Fort-la-Latte castle, in northeastern Brittany. But I’ll add one adjective to the list: dangerous. Climbing down the steep dungeon stairs, I bashed my head against a stone lintel, which left me with a minor concussion!
nrc.next, March 25, 2016 “J.C. Superstar” reads the front page of Dutch-language daily nrc.next on Friday, paying tribute to soccer legend Johan Cruyff who died Thursday in Barcelona, following a long battle with cancer. He was 68. The newspaper’s headline — a pun on the 1970s Broadway musical Jesus Christ Superstar — conveys the icon […]
POLICE RAIDS NAB BRUSSELS, PARIS SUSPECTS Brussels police launched a series of raids overnight after Tuesday’s deadly terror attacks, detaining at least six people — three of them in a vehicle right outside the prosecutor’s office, Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported. Two people were taken into custody in Brussels’ Jette neighborhood, and another was detained in […]
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Egeszsegedre!
The statue in front of the Tokaj-HétszÅ‘lÅ‘ cellar is a fair depiction of how I remember the visit. The Hungarian wine was indeed very good, which goes to prove that you can be French and still like foreign vintages. Egészségedre, as they say in the country!
BRUSSELS MANHUNT CONTINUES Belgian police are hunting two suspects believed to have participated in Tuesday’s Brussels terror attacks that killed at least 31 people and injured 270, Le Monde reports. One of them can be seen on airport security footage accompanying killers Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui. Police believe he fled after dropping off a […]
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Pigeon v. Macaw
The majestuous scarlet macaws flying about in Guatemala were a nice change from the birds I’m used to seeing in the streets of European cities.
BROTHERS IDENTIFIED AS BRUSSELS BOMBERS Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/ZUMA Two of the bombers who carried out yesterday’s deadly attacks in Brussels have been identified as brothers with criminal records and links to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, according to Belgian media. Brussels daily Le Soir reports that the brothers were identified as 27-year-old Khalid […]
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Welcome To Jakarta
Upon landing in the Indonesian capital, we were welcomed (straight on the tarmac) by a parade of men in traditional costumes.
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Dumpling or Flower? — Video Quote Of The Day
TERROR BLASTS HIT BRUSSELS AIRPORT, METRO Photo: Ye Pingfan/Xinhua/ZUMA Several blasts hit the Brussels airport and a Metro station this morning in what are being investigated as terror attacks that claimed at least 28 lives (13 at the Zaventem airport and 15 at the Maelbeek Metro station). The death toll is likely to rise, and […]