Don’t worry: This little vessel in the port of Caraquet, New Brunswick, was not about to crash down. It was simply attached to the hull of a bigger fishing boat.
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Need A Bigger Boat
Category: In The News
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On This Day – November 3
The reach of American power, of both the hard and soft varieties, seems to know no limits. People across the planet are affected in real ways by what happens in the United States — from which movies get made in Hollywood to how Facebook builds its algorithms to who earns the keys to the White […]
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Scandalous Buildings
The Watergate complex may be the most famous building in Washington, D.C. for the wrong reasons — and we didn’t even have to break in to visit it!
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On This Day – November 2
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Toxic Air And 300 Million Kids
You’d want to be just about anywhere but the Indian capital of New Delhi today. Smog choked the city and triggered warnings that even healthy people were at risk of respiratory problems. Air pollution typically peaks in Delhi at this time of the year, driven in part by firecrackers burned to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu […]
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Sizzling Sardines
Once the fish had been caught, the fisherman’s wife in Nazaré would put them directly on the grill for breakfast. Bom apetite!
In a normal election season, the signs would seem to point toward a Hillary Clinton victory. This is not normal.
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On This Day – October 31
-Analysis- BEIJING — The numbers are decidely mixed. Year-on-year, China’s exports fell in September by 10%, which was a 0.5% further drop over August. Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics showed that third-quarter Chinese GDP growth steadied to a solid 6.7%. But putting aside the short-term trend lines, the longer-term outlook shows alarming signs of […]
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On This Day – October 30
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Venezuela, Democracy Or Dictatorship?
The shoes were clearly too big for him to fill. Three-and-a-half years after Hugo Chávez’s death, his successor Nicolás Maduro is losing an already loose grip on the helm of his country. A disastrous economic and social crisis is turning into a political one, and the country’s long-suffering opposition feels primed to remove him from […]
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Far From Pharaohs
Twenty-six years ago, cranes were busy working on brand new buildings in Cairo. The Egyptian capital was still some distance away from the Pyramids of Giza, though the modern neighborhoods are now slowly encroaching on the iconic structures.
Only when an abortion is legal, can we begin to speak of moral decisions and love. But men, we are told, are scared and frustrated by these protests. One Polish woman’s frank words for men.
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On This Day – October 27
NANTES — In contemporary art, digital data is as much a medium as paint these days. One of the best works showcased during Scopitone, a festival centered on all things digital in the French city of Nantes, used scientific data to reflect how stars are born. An audio, tactile and visual work, called Unfold, is […]
This is supposed to be the week that Canada and the EU ink their landmark Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) after seven years of painstaking negotiations. Hopes are fading, however, due to last-minute objections from Belgium’s Wallonia region. The French-speaking area’s 3.6 million people represent less than 1% of the EU’s total population. Yet […]
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Iran’s Next Target: Justin Bieber
TEHRAN — Iran has had enough of Justin Bieber and the Great Satan corporate powers turning out such sinful teenage beats. The Islamic Republic has a plan to purge itself of the Western pop music scourge, by developing a national music awards program that will encourage local talent and hopefully restore home-grown Iranian song to […]
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On This Day – October 26
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Worldwide Safari
Zebras, lions, elephants, alligators, rhinos … I have seen animals in their local habitats all across the planet. Naturally, this guy in South Africa was the tallest.
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This Is Not A Pipe
As Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte would say: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Resting for a second on a column in the sanctuary of Olympia, my wife Claudine snapped this shot of me most probably chewing on a twig or a toothpick — for I was one of the few French philosophy teachers in the […]
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On This Day – October 25
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Calais To Lampedusa, And Back Again
Following weeks of planning, the operation finally began this morning before daybreak: It was time to dismantle the infamous Calais “Jungle.” Again. The Jungle is home to an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 migrants, most of them are young men from Africa and the Middle East, living in squalid conditions who wish to cross the Channel […]
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Infernal Dante
Dante Alighieri is buried in this tomb, in Ravenna. The story of the quarrel surrounding the 13th-century poet’s remains, disputed between this city in northern Italy where he was exiled, and his native Florence, is long and fascinating.
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On This Day – October 23
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The Condor Offer
The majestic Andean condor is one of the largest birds in the world. After this one displayed its impressive wingspan, an elderly animal-rights activist from our organized tour, got into a heated discussion with the owner of the bird. She wanted to buy the condor in order to set it free.
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On This Day – October 22
The black-on-pink drawing of a wide-eyed girl covering half her face with an open hand seems, at first glance, to be too cute, too pretty to convey the horror implanted in so many people’s minds by the ghastly gang-rape and murder of an Argentine teenager. And yet in recent days, the stylish image and the […]
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On Puppets And Putin
SPOTLIGHT: ON PUPPETS AND PUTIN There was a third politician on stage at last night’s final U.S. presidential debate: Vladimir Putin.The two candidates have taken very different approaches to the prospect of dealing with the mercurial Russian leader, with Hillary Clinton painting Putin as an avowed enemy of American democracy and Donald Trump saying he’d […]
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La Belle Americaine
Sorry, ladies: When Frenchmen like me talk of “une belle Américaine,” they’re most likely thinking of cars like this Pontiac Star Chief parked in front of Disneyland in California.
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The World Tunes In To Vegas
SPOTLIGHT: THE WORLD TUNES IN TO VEGAS It’s a favorite trope in U.S. presidential campaign coverage to say “the world is watching.” In this campaign, it comes with a heavy dose of close-the-shades embarrassment, between Donald Trump’s treatment of women and Hillary Clinton’s treatment of her emails. But as the two candidates prepare for what […]
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Buddhist Birdhouse?
Flowers and clothes drying are regular features of backyards bordering the khlong canals of Bangkok. This picture, taken from a boat, also shows what is probably a Buddhist shrine of sorts — but definitely looked like a fancy birdhouse to me.
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Mosul, Mother Of All Battles?
It has finally begun. More than two years since ISIS conquered Iraq’s third-biggest city, a coalition of local ground forces, supported by U.S. air power, has launched a coordinated attack to recapture Mosul. “The time of victory has come and operations to liberate Mosul have started,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised […]
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Flying Blind
Taken from the window of my hotel room, in Ghardaïa, in northern Sahara’s M’zab region.
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On This Day – October 17
PARIS — How can we surf the web without using Google, Amazon or Facebook? French group Framasoft, which promotes the use of open-source software, offers a way. Under the “De-google-ify internet” initiative, the group uses decentralized software solutions to design tools that allow consumers to retake control of their data. Members of Framasoft are strong […]
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On This Day – October 16
TRUJILLO — The mayor of the northwestern Peruvian city of Piura was shot dead last week by a masked hitman as he left a restaurant, making him the latest victim in a wave of violence directed at Peru’s embattled local officials. Lima-based daily El Comercio reports that the death of Piura Mayor Ronald Javier Navarro […]
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On This Day – October 15
LES CAYES — As you move through the Haitian cities that stood on Hurricane Matthew’s destructive path, a disturbing question strikes you: What was destroyed in the recent storm and what was damaged from before? You can see scrap metal and zinc sheets that were used as roofs. You can glimpse children bathing in and […]