Even at 93, Oskar Groening must still be tried for his alleged crimes. But the real question is why German authorities didn’t try him decades ago.
Category: blog
People’s Daily, April 22, 2015 President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to Pakistan this week was the first official visit by a Chinese head of state to its western neighbor in nine years. China’s state-run newspaper People’s Daily gave ample front-page coverage to the trip that concluded Tuesday, with four large photographs and the text of […]
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: Greece
You’ve got to admire Greece and its strategic thinking: Choosing Maria Elena Kyriakou, a Cyprus-born singer, to represent the country is a very clever move indeed, and one that will without a doubt secure Athens a minimum of 12 points from the island. Ha, take that Angela Merkel! Of course, you could also be a […]
SAUDI ARABIA CALLS HALT TO YEMEN STRIKES, THEN STRIKES AGAIN Hopes that the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab countries was ending its “Decisive Storm” campaign in Yemen were short-lived after reports of more airstrikes against Houthi Shia rebels emerged Wednesday morning, less than a day after Riyadh had indicated a halt to attacks. A local […]
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Rocky Interpretation
The Eagle Mesa, the Sitting Hen, the Totem Pole, the Mittens … The sandstone buttes of Monument Valley lend themselves very well to man’s imagination. This here formation is called the Three Sisters, as it is supposed to resemble a Catholic nun facing her two pupils. To me it looks more like a gigantic “W” […]
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Eurovison Contestants 2015: Germany
Germany has had a hard time choosing its artist for the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Ann Sophie will have the honor of representing her country, but she was not the singer elected by the audience during the final rounds of Unser Song für Österreich (Our Song for Austria), the German contest to chose who […]
MIGRANT BOAT CAPTAIN ARRESTED Italian authorities in the port of Catania said Tuesday they arrested the Tunisian captain of the boat that capsized off the Libyan coast Sunday, killing around 800 people, Rome daily La Repubblica reports. He has been charged with multiple homicide. The captain was arrested along with a Syrian man believed to […]
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Extra! Deadly Attack In Barcelona School
La Vanguardia, April 21, 2015 A deadly attack by a student in a Barcelona high school was the lead story throughout the Spanish press on Tuesday. The headline on the city’s leading daily La Vanguardia reads: “Shock After The Murder Of A Teacher By The Hand Of A Child.” The newspaper reports that the 13-year-old […]
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Mexican Easter
Holy Week is the occasion of many colorful processions around Mexico, like here with this Paseo de los Judas Indultados (“Procession of Judas”) in front of Mexico City“s National Palace. Particular importance is given to Judas Iscariot — and an effigy of the man who betrayed Jesus is usually burned on the night of Easter […]
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: Georgia
Nina Sublatti, Georgia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, wrote the song she will perform, “Warrior”, in just three hours in the middle of the night. This seems incredible when you know the lyrics are made up of such beautiful prose as “I’m a warrior/Isolated/World gonna listen to me/Violence/Set the free/Wings are gonna spread […]
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FULL MOON IN TAURUS – April 20-26
This New Moon encourages professional initiatives. For those working on their own or in the communications sector, from Monday it will already be possible to make new contacts or small movements that will prove useful to your business. Peace of mind comes to love, where recent discussions have been silenced — each in their own […]
EMERGENCY EU SUMMIT AFTER MIGRANT TRAGEDY European Union leaders are holding an emergency summit in Luxembourg to discuss a common response to the ongoing migrant crisis. But the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini warned ahead of the meeting that there was “no easy solution, no magic solution,” the BBC reports. This comes just one […]
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Extra! Mediterranean Tragedy Seen From Italy
La Repubblica, April 20, 2015 “The Migrant Apocalypse.” Rome-based daily La Repubblica, like other newspapers around Italy and the world, featured the deadly accident in the Mediterranean Sea on the front page of its Monday edition. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the traffic of undocumented immigrants a “new slave trade.” The newspaper featured both […]
No one knows why the people of Morne-à-l’Eau in Guadeloupe have chosen to bury their dead in these checkered black-and-white tombs — perhaps because both black and white are colors of mourning in different parts of the world? Anyway, the famous cemetery’s design naturally brought me back to my chess-playing days.
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: France
France hasn’t won the Eurovision Song Contest since 1977,when Marie Myriam moved the audience with her song “L’oiseau et l’enfant”. Nobody has been able to renew that performance in 38 years, even though France has tried extremely hard to seduce the members of the jury. The country has sent some of its biggest stars to […]
AL-QAEDA GAINS AMID YEMEN CHAOS Airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Houthi rebels have “indirectly helped empower al-Qaeda in ways the group had not enjoyed before” because the focus elsewhere leaves them “unopposed,” The New York Times writes. The jihadist group has seized a major airport, a military base and a significant oil terminal, […]
TIME Magazine revealed, as it does every year, its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, with five different covers. Kanye West was chosen as head of the “Titans,” in the same category as his wife, Kim Kardashian. Representing the “Pioneers” is African-American ballet dancer Misty Copeland, accompanied by actresses Emma Watson […]
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Iconic Cyprus
The Stavrovouni Monastery in southern Cyprus is one of the few places that boasts a piece of the Holy Cross. It was particularly interesting to see how one of the oldest monasteries in the world manages to maintain the island’s tradition of Byzantine icon painting.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Finland
Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät — which, for brevity’s sake and because we don’t want the Internet to run out of space, we shall refer to as “PKN” — is a punk rock band that was formed in 2009 in a charity workshop for adults with developmental disabilities. They entered the Eurovision Song Contest to raise awareness […]
SUNKEN S. KOREAN FERRY TO BE RAISED South Korean President Park Geun-hye has promised to raise the sunken ferry Sewol to recover the nine bodies still missing, as the country commemorates the disaster’s one-year anniversary, Yonhap news agency reports. A total of 304 people, most of them high school students, died when the ship sank […]
El Tiempo, April 16, 2015 “Airstrikes resume after FARC massacre,” the front-page headline of Bogota-based daily El Tiempo reads Thursday, alongside a picture of Colombian soldiers retrieving the bodies of their comrades who died in an ambush by the rebels late Tuesday in western Colombia’s La Esperanza. At least 10 soldiers were killed in the […]
This is the arresting Rock of Monaco, back when you could snap a picture without having to slalom between obnoxious sports cars.
Daniel Kajmakoski, the Macedonian singer who will represent his country at the Eurovision Song Contest this year, was actually named after Daniel Popovic, the charmer who ran for Yugoslavia in the 1983 edition of the contest. Daniel, who always kisses the picture of his mother he keeps in his pocket before going on stage, will […]
Financial Times, April 15, 2015 The European Union announced plans Wednesday to charge Google with violating antitrust laws by using its dominant position in the search engine market to favor its own services over those of its rivals. The Financial Times had details of the expected action in its Wednesday edition, noting the EU’s move […]
U.S. TO REMOVE CUBA FROM TERROR LIST After this weekend’s historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro in Panama, Barack Obama announced plans to take off Cuba from the list of countries the U.S. accuses of sponsoring terrorism. The Washington Post reports on what this latest step in the rapprochement between the two neighbors means. […]
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Surprise Meal
As I’ve already pointed out, eating in China is a singular experience. And though the stalls of the soup vendors in the streets of Xi’an, in central China, smelled delicious, you have to keep an open mind and expect something … well … exotic in your bowl.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Estonia
In 2001, Estonia became the first former Soviet country to win Eurovision. The annual song contest had become quite popular there after its first participation in 1994 and has always been since then. So much so that, in 2009, when Estonia said it would withdraw from the contest, set to be held in Moscow during […]
SEPARATISTS BREACH UKRAINE CEASEFIRE The Ukrainian military accused pro-Russian separatists yesterday of using heavy weaponry that is supposed to have been withdrawn per a ceasefire both parties agreed to in February, Reuters reports. EXTRA! Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust joins the rest of the world today in marking the first anniversary of the terrorist organization Boko […]
Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust on Tuesday joins the rest of the world in marking the first anniversary of the terrorist organization Boko Haram’s abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the northeastern town of Chibok, There are 219 still missing. The mass kidnapping sparked the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, drawing international attention to the fate of the victims and […]
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Popular Desert
Although it is somewhat cast into the shadow by the world-famous temple of Petra nearby, the Wadi Rum region in southern Jordan is popular among travelers who want to discover the wonders of the desert and its Bedouin heritage.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Denmark
Denmark and Eurovision are like a Viking ship on stormy northern waters: It goes up, it goes down, it goes back up etc. After winning the contest for the first time in 1963 with this song and hosting it the following year, Denmark decided to withdraw from the contest in 1966, as the new head […]
HILLARY’S IN, AND THE WORLD REACTS Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Sunday announcement that she’s running in the 2016 presidential race, her second bid to become the first female U.S. president, drew news coverage from around the world, with one German newspaper even using the English headline, “The Very First Lady.” Via a short video on her […]
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LAST QUARTER MOON IN CAPRICORN – April 13-19
You can have more courage, be more daring, give yourself a chance that until now you never even thought about. Your stubbornness is bound to encounter some resistance, but I’m sure you will find the right spark to start your engines. Days like Friday or Saturday favor employment initiatives and new projects. In love you […]
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Little Greek Eiffel
Las Vegas, Shenzhen, Mexico … Paris” Eiffel Tower has inspired countless duplicates. We came upon this one standing a mere 18-meters tall at the entrance of Filiatra, in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Czech Republic
The wind-swept hair, the over-dramatic singing and facial expressions, the incomprehensible video, the change of key towards the end of the song, the reflective staring into mirrors, lyrics such as “sea of pain”, “ravens calling my name” or “we can rise and fight” … You can’t really get more Eurovision than Marta Jandová and Václav […]
U.S. AND CUBA MAKE HISTORY IN PANAMA U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met last night in Panama City in what represented the highest-level meeting between the two countries in more than 50 years. The meeting preceded the Summit of the Americas, which begins there today. A U.S. State […]
It wasn’t the Easter bunny delivering chocolate eggs this past Sunday night. No, that furry creature scaling the walls was a very real cat, in a very serious attempt to smuggle a precious load of cell phones and SIM cards into Brazil’s Romero Nobrega maximum security prison. With adhesive tape and bandages strapping the load […]
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Extra! Is That Iran’s Evil Eye?
Courrier International, April 9, 2015 “Should we be afraid of Iran?” asks Courrier International on its cover, featuring a cartoon of an Iranian cleric with an atomic symbol as an eyeball. With or without a nuclear deal, fears of Iran’s expansionism are sending shivers down the Middle East’s spine, according to a series of articles […]
The Tsar Bell on the grounds of Moscow“s Kremlin is the biggest bell in the world, but it has never rung. During a fire in 1737, before the bell’s decoration was completed, guards threw cold water on it, causing a slab to crack off. The bell is so huge — look at the man on […]