Category: blog
SPOTLIGHT: “PROVOCATIVE” FRENCH BURKINIS In France, like elsewhere in the Western world, summer is about going to the beach. Unlike elsewhere in the Western world, this summer it has also become about what women can and cannot wear at public beaches. In what has become a uniquely French flashpoint, so-called burkinis — swimsuits that cover […]
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No Limo Today
My wife Claudine was barely paying attention to the endless limousine she was walking past. Too conspicuous for her taste, maybe?
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A Bolt Of Olympic History
SPOTLIGHT: A BOLT OF OLYMPIC HISTORY THAT WILL LAST Last week, it was Michael Phelps reminding us that the Olympics are more than a passing photo op or filler for your Facebook feed. The American swimmer’s 12th individual medal matched a record of another famous Olympic athlete — from more than 2,100 years ago! Leonidas […]
CASABLANCA — Morocco is no stranger to the jihadist violence afflicting other Muslim countries: In 2003, a suicide bombing killed 33 people in the country’s largest city, Casablanca, while a 2011 attack killed 17 in Marrakesh. But unlike most of its neighbors, Morocco has a detailed policy to reform rather than destroy followers of Salafism, […]
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Of Metal And Meal
Wrought iron restaurant signs are a German specialty, and usually point famished travellers like me toward excellent Gasthaus food. But not far from Tangermünde, where I took this shot, a different sort of iron still separated Europe in two.
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Explosions In Thailand, Questions Of Label
SPOTLIGHT: EXPLOSIONS IN THAILAND, QUESTIONS OF LABEL Thailand was hit by a series of coordinated blasts across the country last night and early this morning, leaving four people dead and 34 injured. The Bangkok Post reports that the heaviest damage was in the resort town of Hua Hin, where explosions killed two and injured dozens, […]
TIME, Aug. 22 Cuban illustrator Edel Rodriguez turned up the heat on Donald Trump in TIME magazine“s latest issue. In a cover story entitled “Inside Donald Trump’s Meltdown,” the New York-based magazine explores the Republican candidate’s disastrous summer, marred by public blunders and controversial remarks.
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No Bumps In Translation
A speed bump sign in Reykjavik, Iceland. When I don’t understand the language, I’m always grateful to see road signs that translate across borders.
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Iran’s Divorce Rate, A State Secret?
TEHRAN — Iranian officials may restrict publication of the country’s latest divorce statistics so as not to distress the public, which has long been taught that early and lasting matrimony is a key to social harmony. “There have already been enough divorce statistics. Citing more won’t solve the problems,” Ali Akbar Mahzun, of the demographics […]
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Lost In Brazil, Dilma Can Wait
SPOTLIGHT: LOST IN BRAZIL, DILMA CAN WAIT Brazil has won its first gold medal in Rio (courtesy of judoka Rafaela Silva), and other national athletes — especially soccer players after the 2014 World Cup fiasco — will obviously be looking to add to that tally. But one area where the hosts certainly won’t be claiming […]
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Where Weavers Nest
This tree was not afflicted by some strange disease: “Village weavers” — little yellow birds we got to see on both Mauritius and Réunion islands — had made it their home.
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How Low Will Trump Go?
SPOTLIGHT: HOW LOW WILL TRUMP GO? Waking up in European Central Time to the morning headlines means two things right now: Rio Olympic results and Donald Trump’s new low. We’ve been trying to digest the latest installment of the latter after the Republican nominee in his inimitable, er, offhanded way, said yesterday in North Carolina […]
Publico, Aug. 10 Forest fires burned into Wednesday on Portugal’s Madeira Islands, killing at least three people, injuring 174 and forcing the evacuation of more than 1000 from homes and hotels. Several buildings were destroyed on the resort island, including reports of damage to a five-star hotel, as fires have now burned for two days. […]
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And All That Jazz
There’s a lot happening in this shot of an open-air market at Lafayette’s big jazz, arts and crafts festival, in Louisiana. The dolls in the foreground, the little girl sewing, the guy in the crutches — you can even spot a red box of Danish cookies!
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Turkey And Russia, Reunited Against The West
SPOTLIGHT: TURKEY AND RUSSIA, REUNITED AGAINST THE WEST Russia and Turkey have historically straddled East And West, often in different ways and with different degrees of influence over the centuries. Right now, both countries appear crucial — and unpredictable as ever, each in the hands of imperious rulers. Thus all eyes today are on a […]
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Fresh Coat Of Paint
This man was giving his boat a fresh coat of paint on a hilly street in Valletta. Less than a year before, a U.S.-USSR summit in Malta is credited by some as having closed the Cold War. That meeting was aboard a much bigger Soviet boat anchored in the nearby harbor of Marsaxlokk.
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Cat Loves Owner — Video Quote Of The Day
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Olympic Athletes Trade Doping Accusations
After Friday’s smoothly executed opening ceremony and the first batch of inspiring gold medals, the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are once again mired in controversy. But rather than Brazil’s own local battles with corruption and Zika, it’s the athletes themselves undermining the Games. Sparks flew poolside as Rio’s Olympic swimmers traded insults and […]
Milliyet, Aug. 8 “A New Turkey Is Born” reads Monday’s front page of Turkey daily Milliyet, which joined virtually every other national paper in its wall-to-wall coverage of the massive rally in Istanbul to demonstrate national unity against the recent failed coup attempt. Perhaps more than one million people thronged to the Yenikapi district of […]
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Among The Hmong
While other tourists were busy buying “traditional” crafts, I took many pictures of members, young and old, of the Hmong people of Chiang Rai, in northern Thailand.
Organizers of the Olympic Games in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro are taking a novel, fight-fire-with-fire approach to tackle counterfeit merchandise, a local newspaper reports. As is often the case at international sporting events, prices of souvenirs at official stores in Rio are high — a pocket replica of the Olympic torch costs […]
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The Most Striking Number At Rio 2016
Among all the big numbers we’ll hear broadcast at the lavish ceremony for the opening of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, whether it’s the 5,000 people volunteering at the event or the 10,500 athletes competing in it, the number 10 will perhaps resonate most deeply with the world. That’s the number of members who comprise […]
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Casual Friday
In northern Norway, this Sámi family was wearing colored gákti costumes. And I don’t think it was merely for tourists — in the 1960s, some northern families were still in the habit of wearing traditional clothing when selling hides at the local market, or herding reindeer.
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Packing Your Bag — Video Quote Of The Day
Benjamin Franklin
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Venezuelan Political Crisis Intensifies
SPOTLIGHT: VENEZUELAN POLITICAL CRISIS INTENSIFIES Stories about Venezuela’s toilet paper shortage are no laughing matter, especially when people are also struggling to access basic food supplies and medicine, and face soaring crime rates and rolling blackouts. But rather than work together to help alleviate the crisis, President Nicolas Maduro and the political opposition, which controls […]
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The End Of The End Of The World
This is a reproduction of an Aztec calendar near Huelva in southern Spain. The original lies in a museum in Mexico City. Based on meticulous astronomical observations, the Aztecs used this sunstone to determine whether the end of the world was near. They found out it would happen on Dec. 21, 2012 — and weren’t […]