A visit to Kenya’s training site after media revelations about performance-enhancing drugs cast a pall over the country’s storied long-distance running team.
Category: Society
Animals rights group in India are boycotting the state of Kerala over the government’s new policy that they say encourages individual citizens to kill stray dogs for cash.
From the SARS health crisis and high-speed train crash to the latest explosion in Tianjin, Chinese officials don’t understand damage control or how to communicate with the public.
A BBC documentary shows what happens when intense Chinese instructors meet a classroom of UK teenagers accustomed to some degree of autonomy. A culture clash ensues. What China can learn from the experiment.
Prosopagnosia, or facial blindness, seriously complicates the lives of people it affects. Sufferers often feel guilty. They also learn to develop coping strategies.
While lawmakers wage political battles every day about how much religion the government should impose, ordinary Israelis, both religious and secular, are surprisingly unified on the notion of keeping the government out of their private lives.
Amid the seeming complacency or incompetence of the government, drug-related violence and criminals acting with impunity are creating an all-too-familiar atmosphere of fear.
Humans aren’t the only living beings able to perceive the emotions of others and respond to them. When it comes to empathy, animals and people are more alike than not.
India’s entertainment industry casts people with dark skin as cursed and low class, an idea the culture has strongly, if sadly, embraced. The only winner is the cosmetics industry.
What were once quaint and distinguishable summer beach towns have become Disneyfied versions of themselves, identical places to buy knockoff brands and chain store coffee.
The Peng Collective of artist activists has been raising awareness and “filing down the teeth of civil society” by tackling pollution, data protection, denuclearization and now refugee politics.
After Colombian Energy Giant Mansarovar announced plans for oil exploration around one of Colombia’s natural reserves, local farmers asked Pope Francis to intervene.
Geneva native Marie-Laure Canosa says an eight-day fast at a world-renowned Russian treatment center was transformational. Many researchers seem to agree, as withholding food can heal the body of chronic diseases.
CAIRO — Aisha’s family has tried everything to cure her of the crushing headaches that ruin her days and the violent, swirling images that haunt her at night. “At first, we went to the doctor, but he was unable to help,” says her brother, Ahmed El-Said. “He prescribed her pills but, if anything, they made […]
DAR ES SALAAM — Sitting on a stone bench, in a shaded back alley of the historical center of Stone Town, the capital of the Zanzibar archipelago, Ali Nassor Ali is making the most of his last day in the open air. Tomorrow, this 40-year-old man with a gaunt face and eyes reddened by years […]
A Mexican journalist’s corruption investigations led to death threats and persecution against her. She has been forced to flee her country, but many of her colleagues were murdered before they could do the same.
India accounts for 20% of the world’s infant mortalities, and parents in this male-dominated society often reject newborn daughters. A milk bank in Udaipur helps to prevent the deaths of premature babies and to feed those abandoned at birth.
Arguments for blocking the car service Uber are based exclusively on the fact that it brings unwelcome competition to cab drivers, and not at all on the welfare of drivers and passengers.
What did Pompeii look like before Mount Vesuvius erupted? And what was on the famous Herculaneum scrolls? Modern technology can provide answers.
BOGOTA — Spanglish: Is it a dialect? Ghetto talk? Whatever else it may be, Spanglish is now the brazen, no-nonsense fruit of two languages and cultures coexisting in the United States. It may sound a little crazy at times. For example, walking in a Latino area of New York one day, I saw a notice […]
MINGORA — At 13, Hadiqa Bashir is herself just a child, but she’s already working to save girls from child marriage in rural Pakistan. Though it’s illegal in Pakistan, marrying young children to much older men is still widely practiced in the Swat Valley. Visiting Hadiqa Bashir today is a young girl, Shabana, who is with her mother. A white gauze covers her nose, and she explains the horrific reason why. “My mother-in-law asked my husband to complete his job today and she left the house,” Shabana says. “I had my young son with me, and my husband asked his […]
Slow food, slow journalism, slow photography … Just when the world seemed to be getting faster and faster, some folks decided to cool things down. The Italians were the first to put on the brakes when a protest against the opening of a (fast food) McDonald’s in Rome, in 1986, morphed into the Slow Food […]
The six Nigerian women had each risked their lives like so many crossing the Mediterranean. When they found each other in church in northern Italy, they discovered they had something else in common.
Til Schweiger may be Germany’s most popular actor-director, but right now he’s flat in the middle of the real-life, hot-button political issue of the day: immigration.
We can now have sexual relations without making contact with other humans. But do the 3D helmets, connected devices and animated dolls represent a real sexual revolution, or are they just sophisticated toys?
Though now a bonafide global power, the Chinese mentality still struggles with questions of self-confidence. It’s time for the ex “Sick Man of Asia” to embody its true strength.
KATHMANDU — It’s not yet 7 a.m., but already there are tens of thousands of people gathered along the banks of the Bagmati river that runs through Kathmandu. This is the 100th week of an informal campaign to clean up the vital waterway. “In the world, we are proud of Mount Everest, and we are just as ashamed of our Bagmati River,” Bhanu Sharma, one of the leaders of campaign, says over a loud speaker. “It’s our responsibility to save Bagmati and help rid the country of the shame of this polluted river.” 

The crowd joins hands. Participants include senior […]
MALAGA — There’s a classic children’s song in France that says a lot about how the world sees Spain. “Dans mon pays d’Espagne, olé! Y” a un soleil comme ça!” (In Spain, my country, olé! There’s a sun like this). The song also touches on things like bullfighting, the sea, flamenco dancing — all the […]
Syria Deeply had a rare opportunity to hear from Palestinians facing violence and starvation in the Yarmouk refugee camp in southwestern Syria.
Throughout France — not just Provence — wine producers want consumers to know that rosé can be just as sophisticated as better respected reds and whites.
Stories for humans, like water for fish…
Banks are back, the stock market has reopened and all economic signs (including the banks and stock market) are disastrous. Normalcy has returned to Greece! The more serious truth is that the deal signed last month by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras — which includes new austerity measures in exchange for a third bailout to […]
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games start next Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro with too many projects behind schedule. One particular environmental hurdle looks insurmountable.
Locals in the Syrian city of Idlib were happy when rebel forces overturned regime forces. But now the rebels are enforcing their own version of military rule.
Perhaps the final sign that gay rights are here to stay, at least in the West, is the growing number of children’s books with gay protagonists.
AIX-EN-PROVENCE — For a moment, Alain Orsoni was his old legendary self, the charismatic nationalist and dashing adventurer who struggled for independence at home, roamed for years through South America, and is still muscular enough to fill out his plain white t-shirt. He was talking about himself because he was asked to, but also because […]
BOGOR — The oldest Buddhist temple in Bogor, West Java, is a silent witness to religious tolerance in the area. Five men gather inside the temple, whose doors are always open for people from different religions to come inside and pray. Sitting behind statues of a Buddhist goddess, the men engage in their weekly communal Koran study group. After the evening prayer, they move to the temple’s kitchen to enjoy tonight’s dinner. “We’ve been doing this for three years now, every Thursday night. It’s a routine,” says Epul Saefullah, who leads this evening’s Koran reading. “At first people asked, “But […]
Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the climate had a major blind spot: cattle farming and meat consumption. Nowhere is the damage more evident than his native Latin America.
A German exodus from the church may be chalked up to a small bookkeeping change to federal tax rules. It begs some big questions.
With the expected rush of American tourists to the island, more and more Cubans are opening bed and breakfasts. This is most likely the most authentic way to see the island.