Somewhere in between confusion and wonder is not a bad place to be at all.
Category: In The News
-Analysis- NEW YORK — As 2018 comes to a close, attention is turning to what is likely to happen in 2019. I have no idea. But if you follow these questions, you will have your finger on the pulse of the world to come: What will happen with Chinese civil society? Five to 10 years ago, China had a proliferating and diverse group of non-profit groups, think tanks and cooperative civil society institutions, such as charities and clubs. They never stood on a firm legal foundation, but in the last few years they have been subject to a severe crackdown, […]
Egyptian society simply doesn’t recognize the reality of atheism, and often punishes anyone who declares it publicly.
The normalization of sexual harassment and inequality in the workplace is keeping women from going to work, and holding back the rise of India’s economy.
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What Lies Beyond The Indonesian Gate
Cross this gate and you’ll step into the land of the Toraja, in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi region. Keep your eyes peeled: from traditional Batak houses to spooky funeral rites and even a buffalo sacrifice — in the home to the Toraja ethnic group, I hardly had time to breathe between two shots!
The new president is hoping to strike what has tended to be an elusive balance in Latin America: equitable economic growth.
AGAZZANO — This village in the northern Italian province of Piacenza is tucked between the hills. The locality is celebrated primarily for its castle, a complex that represents an incredible synthesis between defensive medieval architecture and the elegant, ladylike mansions of the Renaissance. And the beautiful interior of the Castle of Agazzano is the perfect […]
With the help of a talented young engineer, demobilized FARC fighters are using an Archimedes screw hydro turbine to power a remote enclave.
The EU remains a work in progress, especially with Britain’s messy exit efforts. But if there’s one constant, it’s that Europe still needs France and Germany to be partners.
Patric Fassbender and Marcus Stahl are struggling to keep up with demand for their ‘Toniebox’ devices, which are now set to break into the English-speaking market.
-Editorial- BUENOS AIRES — Like health, peace or freedom, democracy is appreciated once it is lost. It has been 35 years now since democracy was restored in Argentina and Raúl Alfonsín became its elected, civilian president on Dec. 10, 1983. The military dictatorship became part of the past. It was a historic landmark. The balance […]
The fashion industry sees that protection of the environment is a hot selling point, and maybe also a long-term trend.
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Italy, Pasta Così
The Italian border is just a four-hour drive from my hometown. Over the years, I ended up going to Italy with my family dozens of times, to enjoy the seaside, the beautiful architecture, the warm climate, the history — and yes, la pasta.
How VR can help patients suffering from eating disorders, phobias and schizophrenia.
Far-right and far-left from around the world voice support for the popular uprising in France.
Colombia’s Spanish, beside its charming formality, is replete with graphic allusions to extreme brutality, becoming a mirror of a good 100 years of political and criminal violence.
KATOWICE — As a member of Germany’s federal government, Gerd Müller knows what UN climate change conferences cost. The Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development spearheaded the organization of last year’s edition in Bonn. At that time, the COP23, which Germany hosted to help the financially troubled Fiji Islands, cost around 60 million euros. And […]
The ‘yellow vest’ uprising is about more than Macron’s ill-conceived fuel tax. It’s symptomatic of a system-wide failure that must be fixed before it’s too late.
In far southern Argentina, writer Pablo Bizón recalls a chance encounter with a woman who followed her passion for science all the way from Kent State to Patagonia.
Belém“s Ver-o-Peso market, in the background of this photograph, is one of the largest open-air markets in Latin America. But when I came across this 26-year-old slide, it was the smell not the size that I remember most clearly.
NEW DELHI — In an article in The Atlantic, Patrick Collison and Michael Nielsen express their concerns about the perceived slowdown of scientific progress. With “more scientists, more funding for science, and more scientific papers published than ever before,” they ask whether the rising investment in scientific research is yielding proportionately rising dividends, or whether we are “investing vastly more merely to sustain (or even see a decline in) the rate of scientific progress?” Yet, as they concede, it’s unclear how to measure the rate of scientific progress. Much ink has been spilled on the misplaced reification of the Nobel […]
MUMBAI — They say that human memory tends to shut out trauma. But the pain caused by the attack 10 years ago on Mumbai will always be difficult to forget. What happened on November 26, 2008 was an act of pure terrorism: Defenseless civilians sought out and gunned down over three days in the glare of national television. For this reason, the “26/11” incident has been a watershed in India’s attitudes towards terrorism. It hardened the country’s attitude towards terrorists and militants of all stripes. Further, it has made any kind of a dialogue process with Islamabad difficult, given how […]
While Mexico lurches left and Brazil shifts right, Argentina, under Mauricio Macri, will try to stay a centrist course — at least until next year’s presidential elections.
What if the world’s refugees could be organized into a loosely connected, transnational polity? Critics call it a pipe dream. But migration researcher Nicholas Van Hear says his ‘Refugia’ idea may be the best way out of current crisis.
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Now It’s Putin Ready To Pivot To Asia
Despite Kremlin denials, Western sanctions are hitting Russia hard, and prompting its president to look elsewhere for new alliances and opportunities.
Critics worry that by partnering with Palantir, a Silicon Valley company with ties to the CIA, police in the German state of Hesse are opening themselves up to a potential security breach.
NEW DELHI — When Shehla Rashid, a student leader in India, tweeted to welcome Irish singer Sinead O’Connor into the Islamic fold, she could not have expected much of a controversy. Islam, like Christianity, is open to new converts, and it’s not unusual to welcome new members. The attacks were led not by the usual right-wing, however, but by liberals. Rashid was accused not just of being a hypocrite, but of being the “other side of the coin of ghar-wapsi , activities of converting followers to Hinduism. This charge was reiterated by Pawan Khera, a spokesman for the Congress Party: […]
PARIS — What if the GAFA quartet (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) also became giants in the healthcare sector? Google first tried to put on the white coat more than a decade ago. After “Google Health,” its online medical record project abandoned in 2012, the company made a strong comeback with its subsidiary DeepMind Health, doing […]
Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and the X-Men, has died at the age of 95. Lee was an outspoken advocate of equality and the value of comics as an art form. “I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes. We live in a diverse society – in fact, a diverse world, and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/1l1bdUepqHM expand=1] ©Ringo Chiu/ZUMA ⠀ OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an […]
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In The Footsteps Of The Pharaohs
The step pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 30 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo, is the oldest remaining pyramid in the world. I pulled out this slide after reading recently about botched restoration efforts that could threaten the whole structure.
-OpEd- BERLIN — Theresa May can only lose. The British Prime Minister is fighting alone against a grand alliance of conspirators, poisoners, and wire-pullers, supported by opportunists, weather-vanes and underlings from her own Tory party — ready to tear each other apart wherever they feel they can gain power: on the one hand, ambivalent personalities […]
Spain, an industralized EU member with close ties to Latin America, could profit from easing the entry of Chinese firms keen to invest in and export to the Americas
WASHINGTON — On the night of the midterm elections, my wife and I organized an open house, inviting friends and people from all walks of life to watch the results. The TV was on, but instead of staring at the screen and following the constant predictions of electoral victories and losses, people were interacting and […]
Against the omnipotence of ‘reality-show novels’ and costume fiction, a group of young French authors want to reassert the novel as a contemporary art.
MUNICH — The past snuck up on Adidas last spring when it issued a retro jersey for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia that copied the last Soviet Union national team shirt. It included the USSR lettering and breast emblem with the hammer and sickle. Given the millions of victims of the Soviet dictatorship, […]
Unlike countries like the US or even China, India doesn’t have a national repository to store fossil finds.
-OpEd- PARIS — While Brexit uncertainty continues with “last-chance summit” after “last-chance summit,” the hard questions are becoming more difficult to avoid with each passing day. Are we moving towards a brutal divorce? Or a compromise? Will the Irish question turn everything upside down? Can a second referendum turn the tide? All these questions refer […]
Post-modern design captures our cultural moment’s yearning for unique and inspiring objects, even if they are of little use. The French master pours it all into his legendarily inefficient lemon juice squeezer.
Policymakers have, for the most part, learned to avoid fiscal deficits. And yet, growth numbers (with the exception of certain states) have been stagnant at best.
November 11, 2018 marks 100 years since the end of World War I. The signing of the Armistice brought to an end the war that Ernest Hemingway called “the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth.” A century on, as the world celebrates the anniversary with ceremonies and memorials, this […]