Here’s a Moroccan version of “like a bull in a china shop.” I must say “like three sheep in a pottery souk” doesn’t have quite the same ring.
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A Different Proverb
Category: blog
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On This Day – December 2
SEOUL — Poverty among the elderly has been blamed for the growing rate of suicides among senior citizens in South Korea’s capital, where 50 seniors took their own lives last year. According to the Korea Labor Institute, 48.6% of the country’s elderly were living in poverty last year, the Korea Herald reports. The highest suicide […]
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Lake Of Diamonds
During this cold night of May, the lake had frozen, and in the morning the banks were sparkling like diamonds … Beautiful, but chilly. Thankfully, at the Lake Louise Inn where we stayed, there was a fireplace in our bedroom.
GERMAN CABINET BACKS ANTI-ISIS CAMPAIGN After agreeing last week to send 650 soldiers to Mali to support 1,500 French troops deployed to fight Islamist extremists, Germany could be about to launch a military campaign in Syria. The German cabinet voted today to send reconnaissance aircraft, a naval frigate and a 1,200-strong military force to the […]
Roch Marc Christian Kaboré from the Movement of People for Progress was elected Burkina Faso’s new president, winning more than 53% of the vote in Sunday’s elections, according to an official tally late Monday night. It was the country’s first free election in 27 years, after authoritarian President Blaise Compaoré was toppled a year ago […]
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On This Day – December 1
A scam at the Manila International Airport, involving security personnel planting bullets in the luggage of unsuspecting passengers to extort money, caused outrage throughout the Philippines earlier this month. As reported by KBR, carrying a single bullet on the Southeast Asian island is illegal. Several Filipino and foreign passengers have claimed in recent weeks that […]
La Croix, Nov. 30, 2015 “Climate, hope of a deal,” writes French daily La Croix on the front page on its Monday edition, with a picture of the top of the Eiffel Tower piercing a ceiling of clouds and pollution, as the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) kicks off in Paris. French […]
COP21 SUMMIT BEGINS Photo: 1heart1tree via Instagram French President François Hollande arrived this morning at Le Bourget airport to welcome nearly 150 world leaders, who have traveled to Paris for the much-anticipated global climate conference dubbed COP21. No summit in history has brought together this many heads of state in the interest of reaching meaningful […]
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Fish & Flowers
My wife was walking with a lei garland of flowers around her neck on a on the beach near Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Luckily, it was a windy day, so the ocean breeze kept the smell of the local fish away from us!
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On This Day – November 30
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On This Day – November 29
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On This Day – November 28
KREMLIN WON’T JOIN SINGLE ANTI-ISIS COALITION Photo: Dai Tianfang/Xinhua/ZUMA The Kremlin said today that Western nations were “not ready” to form a single coalition with Russia to defeat ISIS, AFP reports. The comments come one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with French President François Hollande at the end of a diplomatic blitz in […]
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From A Lost Tower
I took this shot from the top of the World Trade Center.
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On This Day – November 27
HOLLANDE MEETS PUTIN IN MOSCOW French President François Hollande is set to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin later today in Moscow in the hopes of forming an international military coalition against ISIS. Hollande has been engaged in a diplomatic blitz this week, having met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama, German […]
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Pope Kicks Off First Trip To Africa In Kenya
Thousands of people braved heavy rain on Thursday to take part in Pope Francis’ open-air mass at a university campus in Kenya’s capital on the pontiff’s first visit to Africa. The front page of Nairobi-based daily The Star, featured the pope’s arrival on Wednesday, where he was welcomed by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. In his […]
MEXICO CITY — Who’s killing Mexico’s journalists? Reporters and editors have increasingly been targeted for murder during the ongoing war against Mexican drug cartels. But a recent investigation by Mexico City-based newspaper El Universal shows that a majority of the journalists killed were not investigating narcotics trafficking, but local police news and national politics. Some […]
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Miraculously Spared
The baroque Merced church is something of a curiosity in Antigua, Guatemala, a city famous for its ruins of colonial churches: It held up admirably well after a series of devastating earthquakes in the 18th and 19th centuries, after which the capital was moved from Antigua to its current location, Guatemala City.
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On This Day – November 26
The Islamic State has been significantly weakened, at least from a military point of view, in Iraq and Syria. But the final blow keeps being postponed, even as jihadists strike in the heart of the West.
TURKEY-RUSSIA TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH Photo: Russian Look/ZUMA “An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep […]
“An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech, […]
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A Quest For Balance
Watching the acrobatic show at the Shanghai Circus, one can’t help but think, “There’s got to be a trick.” But no, the stunning tower of chairs is genuine — the result of gestures perfected over 2,000 years in the quest for perfect balance.
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On This Day – November 25
TEHRAN — Iranian traffice authorities have announced the removal of any “Latin” spellings of names and driving instructions in Tehran. The move comes as a surprise as many Iranians are hoping for a boom in foreign visitors following the phase-out of international sanctions. The capital’s head of traffic, Ja’far Tashakkori-Hashemi, recently told Iran’s ISNA news […]
Folha de S. Paulo, Nov. 24, 2015 Brazil is facing its greatest ecological disaster in memory after a huge wave of mud, caused by the Nov. 5 collapse of a dam at an iron ore mine, has reached the ocean, pouring its toxic waste into the Atlantic, Folha de S. Paulo reports. The startling image […]
TURKEY SHOOTS DOWN RUSSIAN JET Two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane this morning near the Syrian border after the Turkish military repeated warnings about airspace violations. This is the first time the armed forces of a NATO member shot down a Russian or Soviet aircraft since the 1950s, Reuters reports. The Turkish military […]
Abort until a son is born. Having a girl is bad news in China and India, where female fetuses are too often aborted on purpose. But, according to a new German documentary, even Europe is not free of the horrid practice sometimes called “gendercide.” Die Welt reports that the documentary entitled So Long As It’s […]
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Russia Rebuilt
The village of Mandrogi, by the Svir River, is a tourist destination built in 1996 at the site of a village destroyed in World War II. The buildings, recreated in the traditional northern Russian style, house craft workshops and retail shops.
LOCKDOWN, MANHUNT CONTINUE IN BRUSSELS The terror threat In the Belgian capital of Brussels remains at its maximum level, with the city entering its third consecutive day under lockdown, Le Soir reports. Schools, universities and most public transportation are closed, as the police continue to hunt suspect Salah Abdeslam, believed to have participated in the […]
BUENOS AIRES — Mauricio Macri’s victory in Argentina’s presidential election puts an “end to 12 consecutive years of Kirchner government,” the Buenos Aires-based daily La Nacion wrote in its Monday edition. On Sunday, Macri, the 56-year-old mayor of Buenos Aires, defeated his rival Daniel Scioli by some 51.5% to 48.5% in the second-round runoff. Scioli, […]
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Traditions On TV
Singing and dancing groups from all over the world, including the choir I conducted at the time, met in Middlesbrough, northern England, for the Teesside International Eisteddfod — a folk traditions festival so prestigious it was broadcast on the BBC.
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On This Day – November 23
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On This Day – November 22
JIHADISTS ATTACK MALI HOTEL Ten gunmen screaming “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greater”) stormed the luxurious Radisson Blu Hotel this morning in the Mali capital of Bamako, initially taking at least 140 guests and 30 staff members hostage, Reuters reports. Eighty hostages have since been freed, but citing an unnamed UN official, CNN reports that at […]
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Enough Rum For Everyone
On the French island of Martinique, the La Mauny distillery is one of the biggest in the Lesser Antilles. About 30,000 tons of sugarcane are ground there every year, to produce three million liters of rum. Cheers!
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