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Ideas

Crisis Or Coup? Trump Presidency At Risk From Within

NEW YORK — The New York Times published an extraordinary column this afternoon by an anonymous contributor identified as a “senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure.” (In a tweet, and perhaps inadvertently, the Times also described its op-ed columnist as a man.) It’s readily apparent why the writer’s job would be threatened. His column describes a White House mired in subterfuge and scheming because President Donald Trump isn’t able or fit to carry out his duties. “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” […]

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In The News OneShot

Watch: OneShot, A Ghost Town After Expulsion Of Immigrants

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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In The News

Unraveling The Secret Of The Taj Mahal’s Original Color

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.

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In The News

Why Europe’s Economy Still Can’t Seduce Investors

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 […]

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In The News

Strongmen Of The World Beware, Democratic Spirit Is Not Dead Yet

-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 […]

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In The News

India Grows More Food Than It Needs, Yet Hunger Persists

A right not to starve is as basic a fundamental human right as there can be.

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OneShot

Watch: OneShot, Giving Voice To Kidney Disease Victims In Peru

Photojournalist and National Geographic storyteller Ed Kashi has traveled to rural Peru to document the effects of Chronic Kidney Disease of undetermined causes (CKDu), which risks turning into a global epidemic and may be exacerbated by global warming. Raphael Diaz, 53, lives in Sullana with his wife and two kids. For more than five years, Diaz, has spent three days per week on dialysis after being diagnosed with CKDu. With this series of OneShot videos, we give voice for the first time to the subject of the featured photograph. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/qrsOK8nG_mQ expand=1] Raphael Diaz — ©Ed Kashi/OneShot ​OneShot is a […]

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In The News

Why Egypt Could Be In The Path Of Turkey’s Currency Crisis

Egypt’s Finance Minister says the country is actually benefiting from the Turkish crisis, but so-called ‘hot money’ can burn long-term prospects.

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In The News

Losing My Faith In The Catholic Church

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 […]

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Future Green Or Gone

Grimm Choices: How Energy Transition Threatens A Fairy Tale Forest

Wind power has its drawbacks, especially in central German region of Hesse, where developers want to erect generators in wooded areas like the Reinhardswald, of Brothers Grimm fame.

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In The News

Watch: OneShot, Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing Began One Year Ago

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 — […]

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In The News

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 […]

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Ideas Trump And The World

Storm Looms For Trump After Courtroom Bombshells

The President’s former lawyer pleads guilty on the same day his former campaign chairman is convicted of financial crimes. The hand of special counsel Robert S. Mueller is significantly strengthened. What happens now?

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In The News

Crisis In Family Care Demographics, Women Pay The Price

Women have the most to lose if governments don’t start investing more in quality care services, the International Labour Organization warns.

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In The News

The Battle For A Constitutional Right To Literacy

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.

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Ideas

Turkish Crisis, An Unprecedented Test For Erdogan Regime

-Analysis- Turkey is a country with extreme social differences. If the inflation rate rises, the lira tumbles and price stickers in supermarkets are rewritten daily, which means those who already have little can afford less and less. The current currency crisis is making the poor even poorer. But it will not spare the rich for […]

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In The News

A Progressive Manifesto For Europe To Protect Its Borders

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.

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In The News

In France, The Stigma Of Virginity In A Hypersexualized Society

A group of French 20-somethings share their different reasons for choosing chastity, and discuss the difficulties their choice entails.

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In The News

Floods And Finance: Placing Dollar Values On Coral Reefs

The top layers of corals reduce the cost of storms by an average of $4 billion annually, a new study finds.

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In The News

Import Nation: Why India Still Lags In High-End Manufacturing

The world’s biggest mobile phone factory is slated to open in India, but the country still buys its best electronics from abroad.

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In The News

Is Empathy Determined By Genes?

Education and experience certainly play a role in how well an individual understands other people’s feelings. But there may be certain genetic predispositions at work too.

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Economy Ideas Trump And The World

Why Europe Must Stand Up To Trump On Iran

The U.S. president wants to impose his will and whims on all partners. The EU, for the sake of its own security, needs to resist.

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Society

‘Opium’ No More: The Changing Relevance Of Religion In Austerity-Hit Egypt

Is religion numbing Egyptians into acquiescence amid a number of merciless austerity measures?

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In The News

73 Years On, Hiroshima And Nagasaki Survivors Still Grapple With Guilt

TOKYO — Seventy-three years after atomic bombs laid waste to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remaining survivors still bear the physical and psychological scars of the horror they endured. And for many, one of the most troubling aspects of that experience is the lingering guilt they feel, for having survived while so many […]

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Geopolitics Society

Building Beit Beirut, A History Museum In A City That Tries To Forget

A determined architect continues to pursue her dream of opening a civil war museum in Beirut, where people are still rattled by the bloody events of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990.

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In The News OneShot

Watch: OneShot — The Chef Of The Century

The gastronomy world mourns the death of French culinary genius Joël Robuchon following a long battle against cancer. This OneShot focuses on one of the early moments of his stellar career. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/r96cZkIEXuw expand=1] The Chef of the Century — © Keystone Press Agency / ZUMA / OneShot Dubbed the “Chef of the Century,” Robuchon went on to earn 31 Michelin stars, an haute cuisine record. He was also a successful businessman, having opened restaurants all around the world, including in Bangkok, New York, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Macau and London. ​OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story […]

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In The News

Welcome To The Metadata Society — And Beware

There’s a potentially sinister side to the crush of data we unwittingly feed into systems like Google, which can use the information not only to make money, but ultimately control us.

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Geopolitics Trump And The World

From Fortress Europe To Family Separation, Borders Get Ugly

It’s not just Donald Trump’s wall. Around the world, people are erecting new and increasingly strict lines of division.

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Economy

$1 Trillion!? Dissecting Apple’s New Money Milestone

Tim Cook’s company has broken a stock market record, but a closer look at Apple’s operating numbers tells a more nuanced story.

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blog Ideas

Behind The Wheel With A Straight-Talking Uber Driver

The good, the bad, and the bizarre. Part-time Uber operator Andrej Mrevlje offers an honest, intimate take on what it’s like to work with the controversial ride-sharing platform.

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In The News

How English (And Etsy) Killed Germany’s Online Crafts Leader

DaWanda will soon disappear, clearing the way for its top competitor — the U.S. firm Etsy — to dominate the e-commerce market for homemade goods.

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Ideas Trump And The World

With Italy’s Conte, Trump Forges New Alliance Against Germany

-OpEd- This must have been the moment he was waiting for: an energetic handshake with Donald Trump, with a smile and a deep look into his eyes to top it off. The two men seemed to be sealing a fresh pact. Cameras flashed, capturing the important moment for newspapers and history books — the five […]

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Economy Green Or Gone Ideas

Only Environmentalism Can Save Capitalism

Rescuing the planet from the ravages of capitalism may be just the thing our dominant economic system needs to save itself, columnist Jean-Marc Vittori argues.

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Migrant Lives

Protecting Ethiopian Women Migrant Workers In Gulf Region

In 2013, Ethiopia announced a ban on domestic workers from going to the Middle East. Authorities estimate nearly 1 million Ethiopians working legally and illegally in the region. It comes with opportunity and risk, especially for women.

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Ideas Society

More Than Soccer: Özil’s Resignation Is A Fatal Message For Integration In Germany

-OpEd- In Germany, there are many people who criticize the policies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan — rightly so. Many of his toughest critics here are Germans with Turkish roots, who also denounce the German government’s political deals with Ankara. And many of them are now expressing their solidarity with Mesut Özil, the German-Turkish player who […]

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Green Or Gone Society

Untouchables And Your Trash: How Indian Sanitation Counts On Caste

A case study of Angul in Odisha highlights just how much urban centers rely on lower castes when it comes to sanitation.

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Economy Ideas

How The ‘Chinese Dream’ Has Put ‘The American Dream’ To Bed

-OpEd- PARIS — My conversation partner is a Japanese banker. He has just returned from Amman, the capital of Jordan. And he’s talking about the Chinese who were also there at a joint meeting of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). “They were everywhere and everyone […]

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In The News

How A Decades-Old Deal Could Doom Utah’s Great Salt Lake

The largest saline lake in the western hemisphere gets more than half its water from a single tributary — the Bear River — which runs through three thirsty states.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Is This Macron’s Watergate, Or Just A Passing Summer Scandal?

-Analysis- The W-word has been dropped. The first to mention it was France’s far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon in an interview with Le Monde. He was quickly followed by his far-right counterpart Marine Le Pen. And soon enough, journalists around the world, from Germany to Latin America by way of Portugal and others, were joining in: […]

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In The News

How The Ivy League Creates Group-Think Inside Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — It is not hard to see similarities between President Donald Trump“s last two Supreme Court nominees: They are both white male conservatives who attended Ivy League law schools, clerked for retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and went to the same exclusive private prep school. The elite background does not end with them. If the Senate approves Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, every justice sitting on the Supreme Court will have attended either Yale’s or Harvard’s law school. (Ruth Bader Ginsburg started at Harvard and transferred to another Ivy, Columbia.) The shared elite backgrounds of Supreme Court justices, some experts […]

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