Ahead of the high stakes of next week’s French presidential election, a visit to ‘la France profonde,’ deep in the heartland where the country’s fate may be decided.
Category: Society
As the Rainbow Warrior III traverses the Strait of Magellan, its crew shows what it means to defend the natural world on a daily basis.
Innovative television programming could be challenging the dominance of youth on television in Argentina and Brazil.
Hipsters beware: beards have been on the list of unusual taxes.
Imagine receiving a check from the government every month. The concept of guaranteed basic income for all citizens has been gaining prominence around the world, leading to referendums and national political debate in several countries. Known by different names, a policy of “universal basic income” (UBI) is a form of government assistance where every citizen […]
The Thyon tourism office rents innovative ‘tiny houses’ to ski vacationers: 56 square feet, fun and environmentally friendly. But it’s not so simple.
DIBRUGARH — A blazing sun is shining on Jyoti Khaund’s plantation, where rows of green foliage stretch as far as the eye can see. This hot and damp district in the Brahmaputra Valley, in the northeastern state of Assam, is where India’s best tea is produced. But Khaund is frustrated this morning looking over his […]
ORISTANO — Club scouts and retired players from across Italy have come to this town on the Italian island of Sardinia to find new soccer talent among recently arrived African migrants. They offer their services to the migrants so that one day they might have a shot at Italy’s top professional league, the Serie A. […]
WARSAW — Jakub Kwiecins and Dawid had been together for nearly seven years, living rather anonymous lives as a couple in Warsaw until their 15 minutes of Internet fame arrived last July after posting their own version of Roxette’s hit “”Some Other Summer“”. And while the exuberant clip prompted articles in the international LGBTQ media, […]
‘Baad’ is a tribal tradition through which a woman is offered as compensation if her relative commits a crime.
From the rich peanut sauce of gado-gado to the spicy tang of the fried rice nasi goreng, Indonesian cuisine is known for its intense flavors and lavish use of spices.
If Nordic people are the happiest people in the world, it is thanks to the state of welfare and cuddling with friends in the candlelight. Today the word for this ritual invades the life of Francophones.
CAIRO — There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet. There are four possible written forms for each letter, depending on whether it stands alone, or comes at the beginning, middle or end of a word. Then there are diacritic symbols, indicating the script’s correct pronunciation, which hover gently above or below each letter’s lines […]
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — A majority of gay and lesbian students in Colombia feel unsafe in school and almost a quarter of them miss classes because they fear getting bullied, a survey by two non-profits found. Sixty-seven percent of LGBT secondary schoolchildren feel unsafe at school, according to the poll by advocacy groups Colombia Diversa and […]
Before it became the Syrian rebellion stronghold, Aleppo was the heart of ancient civilizations.
-OpEd- MEXICO CITY — “Little civil wars’ are proliferating in Mexico. Yet the simmering cauldron fomenting these conflicts could also prove transformative. It would depend on how the dynamics are managed and, more importantly, if anyone will be able and willing to take charge of this process of change. These low-grade conflicts are being fought […]
PARIS — The smartphone of Eudes, a web project manager, switches automatically from 3G to WiFi as soon as he’s near his office. It also downloads relevant newspaper articles just before he steps into the metro. Perhaps most importantly, Eudes is instantly notified when the coffee machine needs water. This automated magic is thanks to […]
BEIJING — If you’ve ever had trouble ordering at Starbucks, just know you probably have plenty of company: millions of Chinese coffee lovers. When one customer recently posted an open letter online to the chief executive of Starbucks in China to complain about the way the American coffee chain calls its different size cups, the […]
KISH — The island of Kish is a far cry from the rest of Iran. Although it’s just 19 kilometers from the mainland, this Persian Gulf outpost features the kind of open hedonism that would be shocking in other parts of the country. As hard-line politicians and religious figures target so-called Western imports such as […]
JERUSALEM — The pounding of the hammer resonates in Jerusalem. “They are in the process of constructing a synagogue,” said the Israeli tour guide in front of the tunnel, which attracts hundreds of tourists even though they have difficulty navigating it. “One might say that there are plenty of places of worship like this,” said […]
Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist who died in 2012, wrote more than a decade ago of a U.S. president who, through punitive measures, would almost shut Mexico down and accidentally revive the art of letter-writing.
PARIS — How much is the life of a victim of terrorism worth? How do you quantify the loss of children taken from their parents? Of husbands or wives torn from their spouse by the bullets of a madman? These are harrowing questions that require reflection but also a dose of cold economic reasoning. The […]
GENEVA — Beloved French singer Edith Piaf probably wasn’t aware of it but what made her see “La Vie en Rose,” or life through rose-tinted glasses, as she sings in one of her most famous love songs, could have just been a rush of phenylethylamine or oxytocin. Several types of hormones are released when a […]
-Essay- NORCIA — Every tragedy has its symbol, a photograph, often, that sticks in people’s minds and encapsulates with profound immediacy the raw experience at hand. Sunday’s earthquake in Central Italy is no exception. In the image, a few rays of sunlight illuminate a group of nuns and displaced elderly residents praying in the devastated […]
Since the inauguration of the Orthodox cathedral and the Russian cultural center in the French capital on Oct. 19, questions about the use of the site for more sinister purposes have been raised.
Lives destroyed, entire towns damaged, widespread health problems. There is no end in sight to the toll on a region in Brazil decimated by a toxic dam break last November.
Near the French capital’s Gare du Nord train station, migrants have expanded yet another shantytown just days after the controversial Calais “Jungle” was dismantled by the state. Locals are not pleased.
WARSAW — Schools in Poland celebrated “Rainbow Friday” for the first time so that students, regardless of their sexual orientation, feel accepted and respected. But in the conservative Catholic country, leaders of the governing Law and Justice party are protesting against the celebration, and are urging parents to sign declarations against it. Campaign Against Homophobia, […]
BRAUNAU AM INN — With its church spires and colorful facades, my hometown has a certain postcard charm. But growing up in this corner of northern Austria, near the German border, I learned early that my town was well-known for a very different reason: Adolf Hitler was born here. In school in the 1990s, thanks […]
In southern Italy, mob clans have entered into an unlikely alliance with the Islamic terror group, exchanging Kalashnikovs for ancient artifacts pillaged in war. One reporter went undercover looking to make a deal.
-Essay- BUENOS AIRES — Exploiting architectural masterpieces as props for so-called ephemeral art is starting to become something of a permanent habit. Perhaps the first example that comes to mind is what happened to Philip Johnson’s iconic Glass House. Alongside the Farnsworth residence — designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and completed in 1951 […]
Women usually get custody of the kids. But not always. One woman tells the story of losing her children, and how she’s begun to piece her life and relationships back together.
For decades the village of Cirompang in West Java has been self-sufficient when it comes to food. Residents rely on ancestral wisdom to grow and harvest rice.
For famed Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, sewing a vast sheet with the names of victims of the country’s civil conflict is a sprawling but humble attempt at some form of salvation.
PARIS — Bob Dylan has long inspired musicians around the world, professional and otherwise, to sing his songs — and write their own. Some have done a bit of both, translating and singing versions of his masterpieces in different languages. With the Nobel Academy awarding the 2016 Literature prize to Mr. Bob, it seemed times […]
The newspapers, they all went along for the ride …
Swedish hospitals are a model for a more natural, less clinical approach to caring for newborn and premature babies.
Droughts, demographics, industrialization, pollution, climate change … The need for more clean and accessible water is growing urgent in many places around the world. But beyond praying to the rain gods, what real-life responses are out there? Innovation is key both to help preserve clean water sources, as well as finding new ways to purify […]
LIPUA LIPUA — He’d been away for some time in Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern Équateur province along the Congo River. But when Pierrot Mawambe returns to Lipua Lipua, a fisherman camp on an islet 80 kilometers downstream, he was stunned by the void where huge waka trees used to stand. “Timber harvesters cut […]
“If only the world’s shattered people carried a sign, a small mark of Cain so that we could be gentler with them, maybe smile a bit more — not to pity them, but to console …”