Another more environmentally friendly option for what to do with the dearly departed has been legalized in a few U.S. states, with several European countries now considering it as well.
Category: Society
Images are spreading of extreme cruelty to animals at the corralejas, a version of bullfighting in remote areas of Colombia. Social media can be both enemy and friend for animal rights activists.
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Why Poland Is Not Charlie
The recent terror attacks in Paris didn’t inspire much Polish empathy, in part because Poles have trouble identifying with the West’s multicultural societies. That needs to change.
A child goes missing in India every eight minutes. After India’s Supreme Court censured police for failing to act, authorities launched an operation to bring children home. But it’s still too little, too late.
CAIRO — Ironically enough, the roads to the Cairo premier of Sherief Elkatsha’s traffic-centered documentary Cairo Drive weren’t at all crowded. The special screening at the recent Zawya cinema happened on arguably one of the coldest days the capital has ever seen.
DISENTIS — The snow hasn’t fallen yet, and the crowds are still to come. It’s a rainy December day under a low grey sky. A ray of sunshine sometimes pierces through the clouds to caress the eternal whiteness of eastern Switzerland’s summits. Having departed from the town of Coire, the small red train takes travelers […]
MOSCOW — When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating began to rise last year, patriotism crept into Russian consumer preferences, branding experts say, so much so that companies are now catering to this newfound domestic pride. Branding agency Depot WPF recently developed a new design for a juice brand, using elements of traditional Russian painted […]
Pure necessity could turn Alexis Tsipras Greece’s liberal prime minister-elect, into an unexpected reformer willing to go against client politics.
A mini boom in Chinese-language studies has hit Cambodia, which not only trades with mainland China but also counts many ethnic Chinese among its business leaders.
Latifa Ibn Ziaten’s son was a victim of the 2012 Toulouse and Montauban killings, widely considered a pre-cursor to the recent Paris attacks. She’s putting her pain to good use.
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Against Jihadism, The Power Of Art
With “Timbuktu,” Abderrahmane Sissako searches deep to make artistic sense of the senseless horrors committed in the name of radical Islam. His movie has been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards.
MURMANSK — Dasha Metelyova gets up shortly before 6 a.m. to apply her makeup and do her hair. In the hall of her apartment building, the paint is peeling from the walls. Dasha steps outside, where it is still dark because this time of year here it only gets light around 10 a.m. Soon the […]
ISIS imposes harsh morality codes on women and girls in Raqqa, Syria. Now females under 45 are not allowed to leave, and one mother of a teenaged daughter says she knows why.
The accusations Alberto Nisman was set to make were harmful to Iran’s interests. And the known intelligence superpower is expert at disposing of its enemies. Many in Argentina doubt that Monday’s death was a suicide at all.
BEIJING — It seems not so long ago that people were still looking at online literature with disdain. But no one can deny that, at the very least, it is a very real business opportunity. Last year, Choose the Day, a very popular Chinese online novel, was adapted into a webgame by Giant Interactive, a […]
Islamist radicals have long known that inmates offer prime soldiers to help wage their war on the outside. Now the state must react.
A satirical comedy about an alien who comes to earth and questions religious dogma has found an enemy among many of India’s Hindus. A new view after the Charlie Hebdo killings.
Two entrepreneurs have seized on a business idea first founded in Dallas, a place where people who want to dispense with their aggression can destroy set rooms with castoff furniture. But does it work?
In the socially and religiously mixed neighborhood in northern Paris, security precautions at Lucien de Hirsch Lycée are high, but they were even before last week’s attacks.
Art Week and the sumptuous events around its star show, Art Basel Miami Beach, was a perfect showcase not just for art, but also guiltless expenditure of vast amounts of cold hard cash.
VAPI — Teenager Prerna Agarwal is autistic and blind. She also happens to be one of India’s latest singing sensations, thanks to a 2013 appearance on Indian Idol Junior, a popular television show that gained her international attention. When reporter Jasvinder Sehgal visits the young singer at her home, he finds her listening to a classic Hindi hit from the 1970s while cuddling her favorite soft toy. “My Teddy loves singing songs,” she says. “He loves eating pasta and drinking orange juice. He wakes up earlier than me and also wakes me up every morning.” Prerna then excitedly introduces her […]
As the ruble nosedives and Russia chokes on Western sanctions, the president –once compared to a bear or bull — now looks smaller to his countrymen in an unusual recurring survey.
A Chinese housing developer recently hired AIDS patients to threaten people with infection so they would leave their homes. It seems shocking, but discrimination in China based on HIV status is actually legal, leaving many patients little employment choic
Uruguay shows again why it is one of the world’s most progressive countries, with the government’s recent pledge to aim to use only clean energy in the future.
The “devs” who code our digital world are so rarefied and vital they can dictate their own terms. Companies do anything to recruit them, but like birds, they tend to fly. A look at this singular species.
YANGON — Burma is ready to boom. The Asia Development Bank estimates that per capita income in the southeast Asian country could increase sixfold by 2030. And another report predicts that the Burmese are poised for a level of economic growth far ahead of the global pace. The evidence of this newfound prosperity in Burma, officially known as Myanmar, is on full display at this Yangon shopping mall, where it’s easy to find products from Thailand or Hong Kong. Just two years ago, none of this would have been possible because foreign products were banned under the military junta. University […]
The U.S. offers the weakest worker protections, Brazilian employees are entitled to serious severance, the UK’s mandatory notice period is the longest. A quick tour of the global pink slip.
To the surprise of many, the family of legendary novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez sold his personal papers to the University of Texas. It’s nothing political – but all about posterity, and money of course.
A surprising take on China’s approach to education, and what it means for the country’s future.
Since 2000, China’s car industry has grown twentyfold. And to maintain strength in the market, German carmakers are creating designs exclusively for Chinese sensibilities.
CAIRO — Yasmine Hamed worked hard to save money for her marriage five years ago. But by the time her daughter Jannah was old enough for school, she realized that the savings race would have to start all over. Hamed had stopped working as a secretary after bouncing between two jobs so she could finally […]
Modern feminism is too focused on the image of feminists themselves, rather than renewing debate of the movement’s core principles. What can be done about feminism fatigue.
JANUARY Israel Ariel Sharon, former prime minister Portugal Eusebio, soccer player United States Phil Everly, musician FEBRUARY Spain Paco de Lucia, Flamenco guitarist United States Shirley Temple, child actress United States Philip Seymour Hoffman, actor MARCH Spain Adolfo Suarez, former prime minister United States L’Wren Scott, fashion designer France Alain Resnais, filmmaker APRIL United Kingdom […]
-OpEd- BEIJING — Lawyers are undeniably critical to any society that values judicial due process. The fact that they are still marginalized in China is another notable sign that the country’s justice system is still fledgling compared to its Western counterparts. After 30 years of legal construction and judicial development since China opened up in […]
The Argentine embassy in Paris has gathered pictures and objects that piece together the life of Eva Peron, the loved and loathed first lady who became a “mother” to the poor in 1940s.
Activists fighting the social plague of acid attacks against women in India have opened a new cafe in Agra staffed exclusively by survivors who have been disfigured in this way.
Fleeing war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, and even Crimea, some Ukrainians are finding life difficult in the capital.
Travel for Iranians is hard, which is why the young have found hosting foreigners is a way to explore the world vicariously. The latest twist to the private breaking of Iran’s myriad restrictions.
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My Bogus Marriage To A Refugee Friend
Germany is tracking the growing number of so-called “protective” marriages, arranged among friends to avoid an immigrant being sent back to poverty and peril in their home country.
Why do our hands wander toward our faces: stroking chins, scratching eyebrows, rubbing noses? German researchers have discovered the neurology and psychology at play.