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Society

French Protests: Risk Of A "Yellow Vest" Rerun

The pushing through of a bill to raise the retirement age in France has caused widespread, sometimes violent, protests. The government is worried the movement will spread, as unions warn the protests are just beginning.

-Analysis-

PARIS — The peaceful ambiance last month of anti-government demonstrations in France has given way to something else. But what exactly is the new nature of the protests? Are we witnessing the emergence of a social movement destined to last, and paralyze the country like the so-called "yellow vests" five years ago?

Since last Thursday, when the French government passed a bill on pension reform increasing retirement age from 62 to 64, President Emmanuel Macron and his government have been facing a new form of protest. It is more radical, sometimes more violent, but also more diffuse and especially uncontrollable.

In Paris, after two evenings of "wild" demonstrations, people were forbidden from gathering and protesting at Place de la Concorde, one of the city's major public squares, on Saturday evening and the area was placed under heavy police surveillance. The problem was only averted because another demonstration took place in another square, Place d'Italie, leading to clashes with the police.

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“Who'll Stop The Rain?” Why Climate Anxiety Hits Harder In Brazil

Rain often brings deadly flooding and property damage to neighborhoods around Brazil, where people are organizing to address the worsening problem. But there is

RIO DE JANEIRO — Cover the mirrors, turn off all the electrical appliances and call to find out where your child is. Listen to the sirens, the thunder, the roof swaying, and feel the fear of not knowing what to do.

These are familiar feelings for many in Brazil, who still remember rainy-day survival advice shared by parents and grandparents. In Rio de Janeiro, which has seen more than two-thirds of the deaths caused by environmental disasters in Brazil over the past decade, climate anxiety is very real.

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Why Every New Parent Should Travel Alone — Without Their Children

Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra travels to Italy alone to do some paperwork as his family stays behind. While he walks alone around Rome, he experiences mixed feelings: freedom, homesickness and nostalgia, and wonders what leads people to desire larger families.

I realize it in the morning before leaving: I feel a certain level of excitement about traveling. It feels like enthusiasm, although it is confusing. I will go from Athens to Naples to see if I can finish the process for my Italian citizenship, which I started five years ago.

I started the process shortly after we left Buenos Aires, when my partner Irene and I had been married for two years and the idea of having children was on the vague but near horizon.

Now there are four of us and we have been living in Greece for more than two years. We arrived here in the middle of the pandemic, which left a mark on our lives, as in the lives of most of the people I know.

But now it is Sunday morning. I tell Lorenzo, my four-year-old son, that I am leaving for a few days: “No, no, Dad. You can’t go. Otherwise I’ll throw you into the sea.”

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Le Weekend: Harry Potter In Tokyo, Roman Remains, Ghana’s Smooth TikTokers

March 18-19

  • Georgia on Moscow’s mind
  • Tarantino’s final movie
  • Parks & rec logo fail
  • … and much more.
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Society
Ricardo Iacub

An Ode To Gratitude — The First Step To A Better Life

Learning to actively be more grateful to those in our lives, even when it's hard, can change everything.

-Essay-

BUENOS AIRES — A medic and friend of mine recently told me he was trying to help a woman with medical tests. She had cared for him as a child and youngster, and now she needed surgery. I was struck by his sense of gratitude, but also by the fact that a friend of his had advised him against helping. Was it his problem, really? he had asked.

The conversation reminded me of the elderly people who feel their grown-up children don't appreciate the efforts they'd made in the past as much as they should. Despite the inherent difficulties of close relations and some further, "Oedipal" complications, such parents feel a little left behind, and may even see their affection and past service become a source of resentment.

I am not interested so much in the Manichean tale of long-suffering parents "who did everything" for their ungrateful children, as I am in observing how some entire societies can forge ties that include a lifetime of caregiving and support.

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Ideas
Gaspard Koenig

Ratatouille Was A Documentary: A French Philosopher Dives Into The Paris Garbage Crisis

The ongoing strike of garbage collectors in France shows us why we try so hard to hide how much garbage we throw out. As trash piles up in the streets, philosopher Gaspard Koenig reminds us that it wouldn't be so hard to recycle and compost more of it.

-Essay-

PARIS — The strike of garbage collectors can be felt in many cities across France, but it is particularly impressive in the capital, Paris. After just one week, the streets have been invaded by mountains of trash, already estimated at more than 5,000 tonnes.

On some sidewalks, barricades of trash in torn-open bags have piled up above head height. In narrow alleys, the smell is unbearable. Rats are already enjoying an unexpected feast. As we know from Albert Camus’ The Plague, this is not a good sign.

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Society
Flora Toelo Karambiri

Meet The "Patchers," Burkina Faso's Mobile Tailors Cutting Corners On-The-Go

Seven days a week, the "patchers" of Burkina Faso roam the streets of the country's capital, looking out for any clothes that might need mending.

OUAGADOUGOU — They are easy to spot as they crisscross the capital of Burkina Faso. With sewing machines on their shoulders and scissors in hand, they travel around in search of their daily tasks. Many in urgent need make use of their services to adjust an outfit, mend holes, replace a zipper, sew on buttons or repair a tear.

These are the mobile tailors or rafistoleurs ("patchers") of this West African nation of 22 million. They save people time, trouble and often money, and are a common sight on the streets of Ouagadougou.

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Ideas
Daniel Gontijo E Pirula

A Brazilian Plea For Science, Religious Freedom And The Right To Samba As You Wish

An evangelic group has threatened to take legal action against a samba school because of its mix of religious iconography at the 2023 Carnival festivities. A Brazilian secular institute has a response.

-OpEd-

SÃO PAULO — To celebrate religious diversity at 2023 carnival, the samba school Gaviões da Fiel in São Paolo combined Christian symbols with imagery from African religions — for example, Christ with Oxalá (a deity from Candomblé, an African diasporic religion).

Gaviões received a disclaimer note from the country's conservative Evangelical Parliamentary Front (FPE). In these politicians’ view, "one cannot compare Christ and Oxalá … under no circumstances", and there would only be one god, one Son, and one Holy Spirit.

Having interpreted this artistic syncretism as an immoral, vile act, the FPE is now threatening to take legal action against the samba school.

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Society
Ahmad Rafat

Iran's Use Of Death Penalty Has Doubled, Targeting Protesters And Ethnic Minorities

Without drawing attention to public executions like it did last year, the regime has quietly continued to mete out capital punishment: increasing both death sentences and the carrying out of executions, on pace in 2023 to double from the previous year.

The tribunals of the Islamic Republic of Iran have accelerated the churning out of their specialty: death sentences. The latest were issued in the southwestern city of Ahwaz for six members of the local Arab minority and suspected separatists.

The defendants, named as Ali Majdam, Muhammad Reza Muqaddam, Moin Khanfari, Habib Deris, Adnan Gheibshahi and Salem Musawi, had been charged with terrorist activities in the Khuzestan province, in the southwest of the country, in the years 2018-2020, and may have been members of an Arab separatist group, the Harakat al-nidhal.

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In The News
Worldcrunch

Le Weekend: STEM Barbie Dolls, Hijab Trolling In Iran, Holy ChatGPT

March 11-12

  • Bakhmut diary
  • AI art or straight up theft?
  • Oscars v. oligarchs
  • … and much more.
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Society
Laura Loguercio

The Australian Dream: Lived, Loved And Lost By Yearning Italian Youth

Every year thousands of young Italians apply for a Working Holiday visa and escape to Australia. They have many reasons for leaving — but many seek a better work-life balance down under. And then, there are those who cut their adventure short to return home to the bel paese.

MILAN — “The last two days it was 35 degrees, but last week we got over 40.” It’s December. As he speaks to me, it is just past 10 p.m. for Alberto Bellini, while here, in cold, wintery Milan, the afternoon has just begun. Alberto is exactly 12,992 kilometers away from my phone: he called me from Karratha, a town of 23,000 inhabitants in Western Australia.

Alberto is one of the thousands young Italians who, every year, decide to leave everything and move to the other side of the world, taking advantage of the Working Holiday visa that, thanks to an international convention, allows them to live and work in Australia for up to three years.

Another land, another language, another life. The reasons for leaving are many and always different, as are those that convince so many to return to Italy after months or years spent abroad. In some cases, the desire to leave is dictated by the immobility of the Italian labor market, which benefits those who already have everything.

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Ideas
Reinaldo Spitaletta

In A World Of Hunger And Greed, Knowledge For Its Own Sake Is More Vital Than Ever

Students are now paying customers and the world revolves around capital and commerce. But reading and education are our best forms of both pleasure and resistance. Reminders from assassinated Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.

-Essay-

BOGOTÁ — In 1931, when inaugurating the public library of his hometown of Fuente Vaqueros in southern Spain, the poet Federico García Lorca gave a speech about hunger. He spoke of a hunger for learning and its baser variety, inside the belly, denouncing those who speak of economic demands without ever mentioning the cultural needs "for which peoples have cried out."

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