Syria Deeply talked Dr. Abdel Hay Tennari, who treated at least 22 critical victims from the April 4 toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun.
Category: In The News
Behind the high walls of a Dutch penitentiary, a handful of accused war criminals are housed in a one-of-a-kind prison that aims to embody the ideals of justice.
SAO PAULO — “My name is Daniel Garcia and I’m 18. I love reading Folha de S. Paulo! Today, I read an article about women unsung heroes, and I believe that my own mother fits that category perfectly. Marlene Garcia is 59, she’s black and she used to be a cleaning lady. Every day, without […]
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Same Faith, Different Styles
The region I hail from in eastern France is a Lutheran Protestant enclave in a predominantly Catholic country. But the churches in my neck of the woods are considerably more subdued than Reykjavik’s Lutheran Hallgrímskirkja in Iceland. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
A Tunisian doctoral student has joined several poorly informed American celebrities in reopening the question of whether the Earth is flat or round.
-Op-Ed- LAUSANNE — While plenty of attention has been paid to Donald Trump’s “America First” pledge — as troublesome or laughable as it may seem — relatively little is being said about another protectionist economic strategy, one that could have a far greater impact on Europe and the West. Unlike the U.S. president, with his well-known habit of airing every thought and whim on Twitter, authorities in Beijing have been discreet about their “Made in China 2025” initiative. Don’t be fooled though. It may not have a lot of fanfare, but this is no half-measure. Just as China has already […]
Rural physician Julián Ramírez recounts the spectacle of desperate survivors streaming into a hospital in Mocoa, devastated by the deadly mudslide on April 1.
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Delivering Amazon To The Middle East
CAIRO — Amazon announced this week that it had acquired Souq.com, the major e-commerce website in the Middle East, in a deal that has long been speculated over and whose final value came in at $650 million. While Amazon described both companies as “sharing the same DNA,” the question remains as to how the company’s […]
Members of the U.N. Security Council will gather today for an emergency meeting following reports of a chemical attack in Syria that may have have killed between 50 and 100 people, including children. The appalling story is front-page news today in many of the world’s newspapers. The chemical attack is considered the deadliest in Syria […]
MEXICO CITY — Residents of Iztapalapa, a crowded area on the edge of Mexico City, have hung up sheets warning criminals they would be lynched if they threaten locals, steal or vandalize cars. Iztapalapa is a working-class delegación, or large district, where crime has spiked in recent months, the daily Milenio reports. The move to […]
Experiments among Syrian refugees in Lebanon are testing the best way to help those in need.
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The Dalai Lama’s Overcast Trip
-Analysis- A planned visit by the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader, to a remote corner of northeast India could just have escalated tensions between nuclear-armed neighbors India and China. The Asian nations share a disputed 3,500-km border. China claims ownership of about 90,000 square meters of land run by India, which it calls South […]
A candle-lit vigil for the victims of a bombing in St. Petersburg was pictured on the front page of Russian newspaper Izvestia. In an article entitled “St. Petersburg Survived,” the paper reported that the Monday attack had failed to cause mass panic in the city. At least 11 people were killed and scores others injured […]
LUCKNOW — It’s Friday afternoon at the Ambar mosque in the northern Indian city of Lucknow. The call to prayer, or Azan, rings out in the afternoon heat. Women start to gather. They wash their hands, face and feet as part of a ritual purification. In India, women aren’t typically encouraged at mosques. But Ambar mosque is doing quite the opposite — the second floor of the mosque is reserved for women to offer Namaaz or prayer. Rabia, a local resident, says she visits the mosque most Fridays. For her, the Ambar mosque is more than a place to pray. […]
GENEVA — At the Geneva University Hospitals, pneumologist Jean-Paul Janssens receives patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This rare disease is caused by the degeneration of motor neurons and kills patients within a few years. It is incurable. And yet patients often receive invitations from private clinics or doctors promising a miracle cure using […]
-Analysis- Donald Trump is already discovering the old dictum that presidents are elected on domestic policy but eventually take refuge in foreign policy. With his own Republican party bickering and blocking his healthcare proposal in Congress, Trump turns this week to welcoming foreign leaders with whom he can attempt his powers of persuasion on a […]
As the war in Syria enters its seventh year, the widespread displacement of Syria’s majority Sunni population is fueling fears of sectarian cleansing. Syrian researcher Aymenn al-Tamimi explains why that may not be the full picture.
Brought on by relentless rain and an overflowing river, a devastating landslide over the weekend has left at least 250 dead in Mocoa, Colombia. The front-page headline Monday of La Opinión declares that the tragedy could have been predicted. Situated in the Andes mountains in southwestern Colombia, the region is particularly prone to natural disasters. […]
-Essay- BETHLEHEM — Some journeys begin with a sigh. An old acquaintance of mine, an artist, wrote on Facebook this week about a Banksy exhibition that was about to open in a shopping mall in the Sharon area, north of Tel Aviv. She complained that the cost of an entry ticket was 90 shekels (about […]
GUANGZHOU — After flocking to the megalopolis by the tens of thousands, Africans seem to be going sour on Guangzhou, or “Chocolate City,” as it’s been nicknamed by the Chinese. Home to the largest African community in Asia, Guangzhou, an important global trade platform located opposite Hong Kong, attracted scores of migrants starting in the […]
WASHINGTON — The name of the gathering almost sounded like an oxymoron: the “Humanist Clergy Collaboratory.” A meeting to organize religious leaders — for people who don’t believe in organized religion? “Well,” Amanda Poppei joked, “some people would say we’re not that organized.” But the humanist clergy — spiritual leaders for people who don’t like to talk about God but do like to gather for a moral purpose — are trying to get a lot more organized. The “collaboratory,” which Poppei hosted at Washington Ethical Society, the 73-year-old humanist congregation that she leads in Northwest Washington, brought together about 40 […]
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Mystical Marketplace
Ghardaïa is famous for its carpets. At the marketplace, there weren’t any women — but there were plenty of fabrics in this corner of M’zab in Algeria. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
El Comercio Venezuela slid closer toward dictatorship after a Supreme Court ruling Wednesday night gutted the powers of the opposition-led legislature. Peruvian newspaper El Comercio reports that Peru and other Latin American countries have condemned Venezuela’s move toward one-man rule as can be seen on this front page. Peru withdrew its ambassador to Venezuela soon […]
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Venezuela’s Chilling ‘Self-Coup’
-Analysis- You don’t need to be an army general marching in with troops to mount a coup in a country. Sometimes democracy can be crushed by the very person elected at its helm — the president. In Venezuela, analysts and opposition leaders are describing this phenomenon as a “self-coup,” after President Nicolás Maduro ordered the […]
We have already been revealed, both our leaders and ourselves, by writers of the past.
More and more Japanese, South Korean and other foreign manufacturers of TCM are not even using Chinese raw materials for the ancient cures. What is left then?
As British Prime Minister Theresa May starts the clock on Britain’s departure from the European Union, there’s no real question that the divorce is going to hurt both parties — and Britain, to be sure, much more than the EU. But this isn’t to say there’s no upside. The right kind of deal will recognize these opportunities and try to make the most of them. This whole misadventure began with historic errors of judgment — former Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum on U.K. membership, and Europe’s decision to deny him significant concessions in the talks that […]
BAGHDAD — A continuous flow of cars, scooters, and three-wheeled vehicles pour onto the avenues of Sadr City, Baghdad’s massive Shia district, where roundabouts honor the memories of martyrs killed at the front-lines. Ahmed Houcham el-Alabiad, 29, rides his bike on the wrong side of the road until he reaches home, a shack located in […]
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Andes From The Runway
Ready for take off and marveling at the Andes in the distance, I took stock of the things I was lucky enough to see during my trip to Peru: from the heights of Machu Picchu to Lake Titicaca and its islands made of reed, to the incredible geoglyphs of the Nazca Desert and of course […]
PARIS — The 2017 edition of “Paris Plages,” the artificial beaches installed each summer along the banks of the river Seine, will be sans sable— sandless! Why? Because on Monday, the City of Paris announced that it will end its 14-year-old partnership with French-Swiss group LafargeHolcim. But the decision here matters less than what actually […]
PARIS — Even as the global economy struggles to recover, investment in space activities is flying high. The overall public expenditure in the sector — approximately $70 billion today — has been steadily increasing, projected to reach $80 billion in the next few years. And the commitment is not just growing deeper, but also wider: […]
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The Day Brexit Got Real
When Big Ben struck midnight, its bells didn’t just signal the start of a new day. They also marked a sea change in geopolitics. That was the moment Prime Minister Theresa May chose to sign a letter of intent that officially begins the UK’s departure from the EU. The date had been marked on everyone’s […]
British Prime Minister Theresa May signed a letter giving official notice of the UK’s intention to leave the EU. The letter, which will be delivered later today to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, marks the official start of the two-year leaving process. Here’s how Europe and the UK reacted: UNITED KINGDOM The Herald […]
Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolás Maduro has brought his country to the lowest socio-economic levels in its history. His clinging to power is a dangerous thing.
Wild parakeet populations are expanding in many European cities, where they enjoy the relative warmth of dense urban settings and have easy access to food.
-Analysis- It was just a passing reference at Monday’s White House briefing: Press Secretary Sean Spicer mentioned that U.S. President Donald Trump had called to congratulate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his party’s recent victory in state assembly elections. After all, the Indian leader had plenty to celebrate. His Bharatiya Janata Party was able […]
Germany’s right-wing AfD party says school courses give too much attention to Hitler’s reign, overlooking other historical periods. A syllabus offers an answer.
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Completely Cuckoo
The Hornberger Uhrenspiele, in Germany’s scenic Black Forest, holds the record for biggest cuckoo clock in the world. My wife and I got to see it just a month after its inauguration, and watched the house-size clock’s wooden characters come to life to the tune of traditional German melodies. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s […]
-Essay- ABU DHABI — For many of us, hip hop has always been more than just another music genre, a passing trend or temporary lifestyle. It’s a cultural movement with deep roots that highlight socio-economic disadvantages, an accreditation to the advancement of civil rights progress, and, in sociological terms, an ongoing challenge to the status […]
In the overwhelming immediacy of modern society, weekends provide us with the opportunity to slow down, take a deep breath, disconnect. Especially a sunny, early spring weekend. For some, this means catching up on reading or seeing old friends. For others (like yours truly), this past weekend was a chance for an intense session of […]