The author of ‘Infinite Jest’ and ‘The Pale King’, who took his own life 10 years ago, saw a higher meaning in the mundane — even wrestling with the French bureaucracy.
Category: In The News
Chairs have been removed from the cafeteria in a high school in Henan Province. The reason: save more time for studying…
Scientists from the University of Magdalena in Colombia discovered six new species of tardigrades, microscopic ‘water bears’ that are remarkably resistant to extreme conditions and may help medical researchers.
As nationalism and anti-immigration campaigns shake and split Europe, photojournalist Tommaso Bonaventura went last winter to a small village in southern Italy where immigrants had given new life to the town emptied of its young inhabitants seeking jobs elsewhere.
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Bari, Port Of Yore
The capital of the southeastern Italian region of Puglia boasts one of the largest ports on the Adriatic. On this scorching hot summer day, both human and cargo traffic was quiet. On the same trip, on the west coast of Italy’s boot, was a different story.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Protests are expected to continue after the fire early Monday that largely destroyed Brazil’s National Museum. The public’s anger at the blaze, which is estimated to have destroyed nearly all of the 20 million works and artifacts at the Rio de Janeiro museum, comes amid rising economic and political unrest as […]
Japan’s Senate passed a reform bill in June modifying the regulation of the workplace, and promoting new ways for employees to work. But things were already changing.
Indian authorities are prepared to spruce up the world famous monument and restore its ancient hue — provided they can figure out just which shade of pale it really was.
Spare a thought for the globe-trotting European stock salesman. Europe’s equities have seen 25 straight weeks of fund outflows, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, wiping out all of 2017’s inflows. It’s the only region recording meaningful outflows this year — even emerging markets, performing far worse, can’t make that claim. So why can’t Europe get any love? The push factors are obvious: From Brexit to the Italian budget, Europe is still a continent that has a reputation for in-fighting for global investors. At the same time, the pull factors are lacking: Economic and earnings growth is decent but unimpressive […]
In his most recent book, best-selling author Paulo Coelho revisits his nomadic past, when he embarked from Brazil on a voyage that took him all the way to Kathmandu.
The French president is the populist Italian Interior Minister’s favorite target. But is Salvini attacking Macron to mask his own failure to unite Europe’s nationalists?
Rising tariffs between the U.S. and China may boost trade between China and Latin American states, but ultimately this could harm their economies if all China wants is energy and commodities.
-Analysis- BERLIN — World politics is currently dominated by “strongmen,” those leaders who see themselves anointed to negotiate “deals’ among themselves to chart the world’s destiny. Vladimir Putin’s Russia, in alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, has stifled the Syrian people’s rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, allowing his Damascus regime to regain almost complete control […]
BEIJING — It’s that time of a year again when an ever growing number of Chinese students are leaving to study abroad. These young people attract a lot of attention, often envied by their peers around them. Labeled as the “Fu-er-dai”, meaning “the second-generation rich brats,” some live a “luxurious and decadent life” overseas, while […]
BUENOS AIRES — Facebook irritates me, entertains, consoles, bores and infuriates me, moves and depresses me — but above all, it exhausts me. Rewind to 2008, and I am in Pittsburgh working in a migrant help center. My Belgian friend Marie enters the office with her laptop and shows me a new platform where you […]
A right not to starve is as basic a fundamental human right as there can be.
PARIS — The French capital was set to be the world capital of science. On May 17-18, no fewer than 50 conferences in the fields of aerospace, mechanics, energy, the environment, civil engineering, economics, computer science, social sciences and chemistry were to be held under the same Parisian roof. On that day, in a hotel […]
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Lady Liberté From Up Close
Taking pictures of Lady Liberty with my telelens wasn’t even the highlight of this crisp October day in New York City: A couple of hours later, on nearby Ellis Island, I had the surprise of seeing my last name among the list of immigrants featured on the Wall of Honor.
Egypt’s Finance Minister says the country is actually benefiting from the Turkish crisis, but so-called ‘hot money’ can burn long-term prospects.
By allying themselves commercially, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru have created a massive consumer base — just what new, home-grown tech firms need to grow and prosper.
The major disgrace of America’s Catholic bishops was to foster a culture in which priests sexually assaulted children and were then sent on to new duties as their ungodly behavior was covered up. There is also a second failure. Thanks to the bishops, who are supposed to strengthen the faith, Catholics are now regularly asked: “How can you be a Catholic?” And, even more pointedly, “How can you stay?” This summer, these questions became much harder to answer. This is about the institution, not about whether to be a Christian. Christianity heroically preaches a devotion to the poor and the […]
Since June 23, the Indian state of Maharashtra has been verbalizing distributors and users of non-reusable plastic. In Mumbai, more than two hundred inspectors are on the hunt.
A series of recent legal cases across Europe have questioned whether those who refuse to shake hands with people of the opposite sex for religious reasons are guilty of discrimination.
Saturday marks exactly one year since the Myanmar military began to force the Rohingya out of the Rakhine state in what a top United Nations official later called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” At least 700,000 people fled, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, as efforts to repatriate the Muslim minority to Myanmar continue to stall. Here is a OneShot video of one of the most dramatic images of Rohingya fleeing for their lives… [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/oYmvsZ64V9w expand=1] Photo: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/ZUMA Earlier this week, Aung San Suu Kyi — a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto leader of Myanmar — […]
News used to be a cherished staple for writer and conflict-resolution expert Aldo Civico. But when Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential elections, he had to take a break — for sanity’s sake.
Avant-garde art projected itself through provocation in the 20th century, but has provocation simply become a great marketing ploy for artists?
Donald Trump’s all-out trade war has a singular source of ammunition, even as China is pushing to make the RMB a global currency on par.
MONTREAL — The video lasted just seven seconds, but it was enough to unleash a fury of online outrage. “They could have chosen anyone else to make an ad,” one Facebook user wrote. “Things start to stink a hell of a lot when governments and big companies push the neighbor’s religion on us …” The […]
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Greetings From The Instagram Hotel
MUNICH — From a digital point of view, the Norwegian Erik Nissen Johansen is at the forefront: Even his cat has Instagram. No wonder then that the hotel designer also pays attention to Instagram on the professional front. Johansen is the founder and creative director of the design agency Stylt Trampoli, based in the Swedish […]
Women have the most to lose if governments don’t start investing more in quality care services, the International Labour Organization warns.
A view from Russia on the topic of Russian-American relations: time to keep a low profile.
Lawyers representing students in several U.S. states are making the case that the right to literacy is the bridge to so many other rights.
The pure beauty of Siamoy breastfeeding her month-old baby Hokim, in this image taken exactly 10 years ago, powerfully contrasts with a grim reality on the ground. NOOR photographer Alixandra Fazzina had traveled to the remote Afghan province of Badakshan because it had the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world. Capturing this angelic […]
Campers don’t visit Mrzeżyno, on the Baltic Sea, to sing ‘Kumbaya’ and eat s’mores. They go to shoot guns and fire grenade launchers.
Hyperinflation comes from ignoring some basic economic rules. That is unlikely to change any time soon under the Maduro government.
Aretha Franklin, the undisputed Queen of Soul, died on Thursday at the age of 76. All kinds of Respect in this time of mourning for the music world.
The do-nothing approach to migration being taken by the new Spanish government and others in Europe is untenable, and plays right into the hands of racist far right.
She is in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling recording artist of all time. Sometimes referred to as the Queen of Pop, and cited as an inspiration for generations of performing artists, Madonna is quite simply a musical legend.
BEIJING — Yang Ke works for a high-tech company in Shenzhen on the southeast coast of China. Thanks to a few years spent abroad, he has saved up a considerable amount of money and is looking to invest it in foreign real estate. After intensive discussions with real estate agents, he decided that property in […]
A group of French 20-somethings share their different reasons for choosing chastity, and discuss the difficulties their choice entails.