There may be only one thing super-rich men fear more than the tax authorities, and it’s a wife gearing up for divorce. Panama has havens for that too.
Author: Worldcrunch
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Algerian Perspective
Constantine, in northern Algeria, was French for about a century, from the middle of the 19th century until 1962 — just seven years before I drove down there with my family. My wife Claudine and daughter Cécile were gazing into the impressive ravine that surrounds the city, with the viaduct over the Rhumel river in […]
HARBIN — Fang Binxing, the architect of China’s internet censorship system, known as the Great Firewall, has run head-on into his own freedom-curbing creation. On a visit to his alma mater, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Fang gave a speech this week entitled “Defining Internet Sphere Security.” But as he began to lay out his […]
Ignored during the 20th century, mudbrick is reappearing in modern Swiss construction. Not only is it environmentally friendly, it takes less energy to produce and saves on heating and cooling costs.
-Analysis- TOKYO — High-tech toilet seats, diapers, cold medicine, rice cookers: These are some of the hottest items for a Chinese tourist on a shopping spree in Japan. The Japanese call this Bakugai or “explosive buying,” and associate it with the Chinese travelers’ impressive purchasing power. Bakugai even became 2015’s Japanese Word of the Year. […]
In L’Aquila, the new houses were supposed to withstand earthquakes, but “they didn’t even withstand the rain.” The grim reality from this central Italian city is laid out by La Stampa on Wednesday, the 7-year anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 300 people and left nearly 40,000 without homes. The news now is […]
Wednesday’s front page of Icelandic-language daily Fréttablaðið shows Iceland’s embattled Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson being asked questions by journalists in Reykjavik’s Althing, the national parliament, as the future of the ruling coalition is uncertain in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal. Gunnlaugsson had apparently resigned yesterday amid the uproar of the Panama Papers […]
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Long Before The Quake
Exactly seven years ago, a powerful earthquake killed hundreds and devastated parts of L’Aquila, in central Italy. And though the facade of the Santa Maria di Collemaggio remained intact, I feel lucky to have visited the basilica before the disaster: The cupola and several arches collapsed inside.
CRUZ’S BIG WIN OVER TRUMP, SANDERS TOPS CLINTON The Republican party’s improbable presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suddenly looks vulnerable after a stinging double-digit loss to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the Wisconsin primary. The New York Times reports that by early today Cruz had received 48% of the vote to 34% for Trump. Wisconsin also […]
ISTANBUL — The country is at a dead end, and everything is a mess. The main Turkish opposition, if such a thing really exists, is still unable to clearly express where it stands on the Middle East, foreign policy in general, a new constitution and the debates about the presidential system. Certain opposition groups still […]
Paralyzed by scandal and the threat of the president’s impeachment, Brazil can only be governed successfully with new — and irreproachable — leadership.
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Kid Math Problem — Video Quote Of The Day
MUNICH — What would become far and away the largest leak of information in newspaper history began more than a year ago, when an anonymous source contacted Munich-based daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. The leak consisted of encrypted internal documents from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, which sells offshore shell companies to clients around the world who […]
Argentine companies are adding to the international trend to open up workspaces and make them transparent and fun.
GIBRALTAR — There is a troubling side story jutting into the Brexit debate from this tiny British territory at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula. Madrid-based daily El Mundo reports that in Gibraltar — affectionately known as “the Rock” — locals and the government alike are opposed to “Brexit”, a British exit from the […]
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Age May Be Just A Number, But Which One?
Age can be measured in more ways than one, say both sociologists and biologists. There is of course chronological age, but there is also cellular and social aging. The search for new definitions of old — and young!
Japanese baths, Indian massages and other alternative care methods — along with old-fashioned babysitting — help families in Brazil facing the illnesses caused by the Zika virus.
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Quick Prayer — Video Quote Of The Day
PARIS — Does the Arab world party? The answer is yes. That’s also true in France, where the North African community doesn’t deprive itself of pleasures or amusements, and where raï music — contrary, perhaps, to the general public’s perception — is alive and well, albeit in a sphere of its own. The music used […]
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April Fools’ Day Is No Joke In China
BEIJING — This is not a joke. Chinese citizens who’d like to lay some harmless April Fools’ Day pranks are hereby warned: “This is illegal.” Such is the official message published by Xinhua Viewpoint, the Chinese government’s microblogging account. “April Fool’s Day does not conform to our country’s cultural traditions and core socialist values. We […]
Why this time it’s different — and maybe much worse.
DEATH TOLL FROM DAMASCUS AIR STRIKE NOW AT 33 The death toll from airstrikes carried out yesterday in the Deir al-Asafir district southeast of Damascus has risen to 33, mostly women and children, Reuters reports this morning. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the strikes were carried out by Syrian aircraft and […]
Abolfazl Arabpour, 86, has been sizing up all the high dignitaries of the Iranian clergy for half a century.
ASSAD CALLS FOR UNITY GOVERNMENT Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reiterated calls yesterday for opposition members to join him in forming a national unity government, a prospect opposition leaders have rejected. In an interview with Russian news agency Ria Novosti that comes days after the government’s recapture of Palmyra, Assad said that the main goal of […]
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Rugs And Ruins
Coming across the border after our stay in Syria, our first stop in Jordan was Jerash, the ancient settlement known as Gerasa. Sitting at an outdoor café, we gazed upon the “Pompei of the East” — and the rugs for sale right next to the Roman ruins.
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Travel Wisdom — A Video Quote In 15 Seconds
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Lonely Dilma, Hijackass, Pope’s Fiat
MYANMAR PRESIDENT SWORN-IN Htin Kyaw has been sworn in as Myanmar’s first elected civilian president in more than 50 years. In his first address as president, the 69-year-old, a close aide to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, promised “national reconciliation” and a new Constitution guaranteeing a federal democracy and “the lifting up […]
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Spiny Delicacy
From September to April in southern France, seafood lovers can participate in the “oursinades” festivals. Sea urchins are cut open, and you eat the gonads raw, with a squeeze of lemon.
“It has to be the best selfie ever,” Ben Innes, a British passenger who was on the EgyptAir flight hijacked yesterday, told The Sun about his picture with the hijacker. The 26-year-old health and safety worker explained he wanted to take a closer look at the fake explosives belt Mustafa, the “hijackass,” was wearing. But […]
And it’s cheaper than you think …
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — Years ago, toward the end of Lula da Silva“s first term (2003-2007) as president of Brazil, I remember reading a perplexing article. It was about Lula’s son, Lulinha, who had apparently become a multi-millionaire in the span of just a few years. It is always possible, if highly improbable, that someone could […]
Even as ISIS loses ground in Syria and Iraq, its jihadists are bringing the war to Europe’s capitals in minutely planned terror attacks. It is a scenario driven by a new kind of criminal profile.
HOSTAGES HELD ON HIJACKED PLANE IN CYPRUS A Cairo-bound commercial jet that was re-routed to Cyprus this morning was hijacked over what appears to be a personal matter involving a woman, The Guardian reports. The hijacker is reportedly still holding seven hostages in the plane that landed at the Cypriot city of Larnaca 7:50 a.m. […]
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Buddhist Carving
Every single piece of furniture handcarved in the Chiang Mai area is unique, featuring detailed scenes from Buddhist scriptures in beautiful teak or rose wood. I would have brought one of these chests back home, but I feared they were too delicate to be shipped by plane.
GENEVA — Imagine a banker getting on a helicopter loaded with bank notes and flying over the whole country, raining money down on the population. This idea came from none other than Milton Friedman. In the late 1960s, as the economy was struggling, the iconic American economist believed that people would jump on the falling […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON, D.C. — Spend enough time watching politicians talk, and pretty soon you’ll have a good idea of how to address the public like a seasoned elected official. No matter the topic, our nation’s leaders invariably find a way to tie things back to members of the hard-working middle-class who just want a fair shot at the American dream, perhaps with a side of help for small business. Lawmakers today might be able to give this kind of political speech in their sleep. But with the way technology is going, they might as well have a robot write it […]
The Brussels attacks are a reap-what-you-sow moment for Europe, after biding its time and coddling its dangerous allies for too long.
nrc.next, March 25, 2016 “J.C. Superstar” reads the front page of Dutch-language daily nrc.next on Friday, paying tribute to soccer legend Johan Cruyff who died Thursday in Barcelona, following a long battle with cancer. He was 68. The newspaper’s headline — a pun on the 1970s Broadway musical Jesus Christ Superstar — conveys the icon […]
POLICE RAIDS NAB BRUSSELS, PARIS SUSPECTS Brussels police launched a series of raids overnight after Tuesday’s deadly terror attacks, detaining at least six people — three of them in a vehicle right outside the prosecutor’s office, Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported. Two people were taken into custody in Brussels’ Jette neighborhood, and another was detained in […]
BERLIN — What does “genocide” actually mean? The United Nations War Crime Tribunal in The Hague has officially declared the massacre of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995 as genocide. The term has a complicated back story, which is worth revisiting after Thursday’s historic conclusion in The Hague in the case of Radovan Karadzic. The judges […]