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In The News

Why Black Friday Makes No Sense In Britain

Neither Thanksgiving nor the Friday after is a day off for British workers-shoppers. But there are even more reasons that the imported retail ritual is pointless.

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In The News

Spotlight: Erdogan And EU, A Strongman And Weak Continent

Looking eastward from Western Europe, Turkey used to be seen as both a model of secular democracy in the Muslim world and a huge business opportunity. But longstanding hopes for Turkish entry into the European Union appear grimmer every day. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, apparently seeking to revive a form of “Ottoman glory,” has led […]

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Ideas Trump And The World

The Rise Of Trump And The Fall Of Representative Democracy

-Analysis- I want to avoid all possible misunderstandings so I’ll go straight to the point: I believe Donald Trump’s victory was the effect of an irreversible decline of representative democracy as a viable system of government. What leads me to this conclusion is not my antipathy towards the campaign that led him to victory, nor […]

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Geopolitics Society

Jerusalem, Where Archeology Meets Religion And Politics

JERUSALEM — The pounding of the hammer resonates in Jerusalem. “They are in the process of constructing a synagogue,” said the Israeli tour guide in front of the tunnel, which attracts hundreds of tourists even though they have difficulty navigating it. “One might say that there are plenty of places of worship like this,” said […]

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In The News

‘Canine Gangs’ Threaten Brazilian Indigenous Tribes

SAO PAULO — Anywhere you look, they’re there. You could be attacked, even inside your own home. For the 800 indigenous Guarani people living in the four villages of the northern Sao Paulo district of Jaragua, the threat of getting hurt by stray dogs is growing. Locals estimate that there are as many dogs as […]

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In The News

Spotlight: It Takes Two To Tango In Europe

We first had “Merkozy,” a marriage of convenience between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy made to counter the European debt crisis. Then the pair was forced to part ways when Sarkozy lost to current French President Francois Hollande. Merkel and Hollande’s relationship was always awkward, with one newspaper saying “there […]

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In The News

Why Turkey’s Assault On Press Freedom Is Different This Time

When I told the guy at my neighborhood grocery store in the Turkish city of Istanbul that I was traveling abroad, he said, “Don’t come back. Not if you can.” I told him I have a life here. “They will arrest us all, one day,” he responded. I’d never previously discussed politics with my grocer. […]

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In The News

German Front Page: Merkel Morphs Into Kohl

After German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed her run for a fourth time, Berlin-based daily Die Tageszeitung opted for a notably creepy photo montage.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

How A Trump Presidency Looks In The Middle East

The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has prompted several reactions, with those who see his political ascension as the beginning of a new phase of political unrest — of which the Arab world is feared to carry the lion’s share — being gripped by panic. Immediately following the […]

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In The News

The Menstruation Taboo, Time To Talk About Periods

“My period started last night, so I’m feeling pretty weak and really tired.” When she justified her below-average performance in the women’s 4×100 meter medley relay at the Rio Olympics with these words, Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui sparked a wave of comments online. Here was a woman talking publicly — and point blank — about […]

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In The News

China’s Growing Companies Need Maturity, Not Just Money

Chinese business leaders should learn lessons from Japanese firms’ spending sprees of the 1980s and 1990s.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Post-Trump Crossroads: Deeper Democracy Or A Slide Toward Fascism?

People should not dismiss the meaning of a spate of shocking electoral results, for the world may be entering a period of democratic decline.

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In The News

Serious Risks Of Trump Presidency For The Asian Economy

HONG KONG — Just when China’s economy seemed to be stabilizing, Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president poses significant new risks. Not just for Chinese growth, but the entire Asia region. That’s because the president-elect campaigned on a policy platform with protectionism at its center. Trump wants to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods and label the world’s No. 2 economy a currency manipulator. Such a move would hurt Chinese exports. But it could also trigger a trade war if Beijing retaliates, catching other Asian economies in the crossfire. Other worries: A planned major regional trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, […]

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In The News

Across Mexican Border, Deportees Feel Trump’s Heat

TIJUANA — Martin Pina stands in the courtyard of the “Casa del Migrante,” which was founded 29 years ago by Catholic Scalabrinian missionaries to help migrants in this teeming Mexican border city. Sporting a tattoo of his mother Belinda on his left arm and Mexican singer Selena on his right, Pina says that he had […]

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Economy Future Geopolitics

Math Is Taking Over The Economy, That’s A Good Thing

PARIS — Find the distribution of random paths on a directed graph. Of course, when you say it like that, such a problem will hardly excite the masses. But if you had managed to find this mysterious distribution, you would have obtained the PageRank algorithm. And if you have PageRank, you have Google, now the […]

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In The News

O Globo: Brazilians Storm Congress Calling For Coup

O Globo, Nov. 17, 2016 “Attacks on the Legislature” was the headline Thursday morning on Brazilian newspaper O Globo after protesters calling for a military coup forced their way into Brazil’s lower chamber of Congress. The protestors in Brasilia, the country’s capital, pushed passed security guards and smashed a glass door before entering into the […]

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In The News

Mexican Newspaper On Trump Deportation Plans

La Jornada, Nov. 14, 2016 As U.S. president-elect Donald Trump begins to reveal if and how he will follow through on his campaign promises, Mexico is keeping a close eye on his immigration plans. In an interview with CBS “60 Minutes” program on Sunday night, Trump indicated that his pledge to build a wall between […]

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Geopolitics Ideas Trump And The World

Trump Victory: We’ll Never Talk About Globalization The Same Way Again

-OpEd- They said he could never win. At best, Donald Trump was seen as a voice for a growing number of desperate Americans. Trump was a symptom of the political and cultural misery of the working classes in the United States — the empire of our time. His strongest critics portrayed him as a monstrous, […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

German Fears Of New “Axis Of Evil” — Trump, Putin, Erdogan

Not much is known for sure of Trump’s foreign policy agenda, which is why Angela Merkel does not stop at the perfunctory congratulations to Donald Trump.

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Migrant Lives

The Tragedy Of Trump, Tears Of A Latino Lover Of America

Trump’s victory reminds this Chilean writer of some of the worst moments of the past half-century, including 1973 army coup in Chile and the 9/11 terror attacks.

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In The News

Austro-Hungarian Fashion

The city of Rust, in eastern Austria, stands near the border with Hungary. This geographical and cultural proximity was particularly visible in the way the women dressed, on their way to the market.

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In The News

One Year After Paris Attack, Zeit Puts Bataclan Ticket On Cover

German magazine Zeit Magazin has made this week’s cover an image of at ticket to the fateful concert of the rock band Eagles of Death Metal at Le Bataclan in Paris on November 13, 2015. The cover marks one year after the attacks in Paris, which killed 130 including 89 at the concert. The venue […]

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In The News

Victory Week, 22 Donald Trump Magazine Covers Around The World

UNITED STATES TIME Washington City Paper The New Yorker BRAZIL Veja Carta Capital PERU Caretas UNITED KINGDOM The Economist The Spectator New Statesman SWEDEN Fokus FRANCE Courrier International Le Point GERMANY Stern ITALY Internazionale PORTUGAL Visão UKRAINE Korrespondent SERBIA Nedeljnik SLOVENIA Mladina INDIA The Week India Today INDONESIA Koran Tempo HONG KONG Yazhou Zhoukan

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In The News

Power In America And American Power

The election of Donald Trump is a shocking event for millions of Americans. And not only Americans. The man set to move into the White House has spent the past 18 months crossing lines of both basic decency and what we still like to call modern democracy. Beyond any fair debate on points of policy, […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

How Trump Will Feed European Populism — And Could Destroy The EU

With the American billionaire heading to the White House, the European establishment is quaking in its boots.

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In The News

Trump Times, 39 Newspaper Front Pages From Around The World

A German daily goes upside-down, the French see “Psycho,” Australians drop a WTF, and more …

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

World Reacts To Trump Win, Braces For “Wild” Presidency

International newspapers and commentators chime in on an unexpected victory and the unpredictable nature of the incoming “Leader Of The Free World.”

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Trump Wins, Watch TV News Call It In 13 Countries And 13 Languages

From Italy, India and Indonesia through to 10 other countries, the name was heard in many a language around the world today: T – R – U – M – P. Trump Wins, How TV News Called It In 13 Countries par Worldcrunch

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In The News

“Trump Triumphs” – Next American President On NYT Front Page

After a long day at the voting booths, Americans, and the world, watched and waited to see who the next American president would be. In the final, and to many, shocking, twist to this historical and polarizing campaign, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Trump, the billionaire businessman turned […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Yes Folks, Donald Trump Is Getting The Keys To The White House

What Trump has done is nothing short of cataclysmic.

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In The News

“Trump Brand” Ready For Export?

From Malmö to Mumbai to Melbourne, news junkies will spend the next 24 hours scrutinizing voting patterns coming out of places like Youngstown, Ohio, and Pensacola, Florida. Those Swedes, Indians and Aussies in the know can identify such bellwether localities in battleground states that the pundits say will decide whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton […]

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In The News

Chic Chalk

Now that“s what I call street art…!

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Economy Geopolitics

What A Trump Or Clinton Victory Would Mean For Markets

While markets have already expressed short-term preferences for the respective U.S. presidential candidates, the long-term impact is harder to gauge.

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In The News

Striking For Women’s Rights, Down To The Second

4:34 p.m. and 7 seconds. That’s the time thousands of French women are expected to walk out of their jobs today, and call it a year. Led by the feminist group Les Glorieuses, an estimated 4,500 people will be protesting the fact that “at 4:34pm (and 7 seconds) on November 7, women will effectively be […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Youngstown, Rusting Ohio City Is Grim Trump-Clinton Battleground

Shuttered factories, lost hope and worse reign in this western Ohio city. But what Youngstown voters think may shape the country and world for the next four years.

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Future Society

Can A Bottled Spray Ensure That Your Lover Stays Faithful?

GENEVA — Beloved French singer Edith Piaf probably wasn’t aware of it but what made her see “La Vie en Rose,” or life through rose-tinted glasses, as she sings in one of her most famous love songs, could have just been a rush of phenylethylamine or oxytocin. Several types of hormones are released when a […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Trump Or Clinton? Arab-Americans’ Surprising Ambivalence

The navy blue Porsche, casual clothes and sparkling eyes of Fady Chamoun scream: “American Dream.” He came from Lebanon in 1972 to study engineering at the University of Michigan and stayed after the outbreak of civil war in 1975 in his homeland. He wouldn’t trade the life he’s built in Cleveland for anything. Over the […]

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In The News

A World On Edge As U.S. Campaign Hits Home Stretch

PARIS — Is it over yet? With the U.S. presidential election just days away, people across the globe are as excited to be done with the whole sordid spectacle, it seems, as they are to finally find out who wins. Suspense is building. But so too is a general sentiment of “we just can’t take […]

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Geopolitics Society

Is Russia’s New Cultural Center In Paris Used For Spying?

Since the inauguration of the Orthodox cathedral and the Russian cultural center in the French capital on Oct. 19, questions about the use of the site for more sinister purposes have been raised.

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In The News

Gatekeeper Moms, Why Some Mothers Shut Fathers Out Of Caring For Kids

MUNICH — Some women block any effort by men to take part in the raising of their children. This is often more about the mother’s own feeling of powerlessness than about their children’s wellbeing. Women who become possessive about their children and don’t allow fathers to take care of their mutual offspring may sound like […]

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