Catching onto “the gentleman’s game” later than its neighbors India and Pakistan, the Afghan team is currently ranked 9th in International Twenty20 cricket.
Author: Julie Farrar
Boasting of the good life, safe from the chronic problems of the Egyptian capital, the “New Cairo” developments blamed for wasting precious water for all, now face shortages of their own.
The driving force of multiple and competing jihadist groups here is the dream of returning to the three original Arab states, and overthrowing the King and his Palestinian wife.
Many of Google’s services have been created in Switzerland, and the Zurich site has grown from just two employees in 2004 to 1,300 today. It’s like a snow-capped Mountain View.
CUCUTA — It’s 2 p.m., and the borderland between Colombia and Venezuela is sizzling in the afternoon heat. Sweat is the permanent companion of all those crossing the Simón Bolívar bridge linking Venezuela with the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Mariela* has been sitting for two hours in an endless line of cars, returning from […]
Tired of being denied basic rights, Egypt’s political prisoners are increasingly trying to break the cycle of helplessness with the one bit of control they still have over their lives.
The neoliberal global system shows remarkable staying power. A German critic of the system explains how the so-called ‘sharing economy’ is the ultimate trick and triumph of capitalism.
Almost a month after she attacked a mushroom forager in the mountains of Trentino while protecting her 8-month-old cubs, Daniza the bear is dead. She was captured by a task force of rangers that had been deployed to capture her, but she did not survive the anesthesia she was given. After immense backlash from the […]
PALAWAN — Chito Villarin starts up the engine of his small fishing boat. The 36-year old makes his living by sailing into the waters of the South China Sea, off Palawan’s west coast, in the hopes of bringing back a good catch. “I catch different types of fish and octopus,” he says, adding that he travels about 20 kilometers into the water. But Filipino fishermen like Villarin aren’t the only ones casting off into these waters. Foreign poachers are frequently found off the coast of Palawan, and the authorities here are trying to stop them. “Narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism, […]
Tim Cook and the Apple team remind us that a wearable time piece is much more than a style statement. But 500 years on, watches still represent a singular mix of status, obligation…and death.
How about a selfie instead?
TURIN — As surprising as it may sound, what we order in restaurants has very little to do with what we actually want. It’s all about the menu. A recent study, conducted by Cornell University researchers on more than 200 menus and 300 meals in New York, shows that only two things really dictate what […]
Colombia’s Caribbean coast used to be filled with slaves, but today in Cartagena de Indias, it’s a plethora of tourists who come to visit this World Heritage Site in horse-drawn cabs. It’s all so pretty — except for the part where the horses are overworked, and sometimes worked to death. Apparently it’s not uncommon for […]
The words in the news from around the world.
Boys in the eastern city of Raqqa are forced into military training, and say their ISIS instructors show them how to decapitate blond-haired, blue-eyed dolls with kitchen knives.
European Union regulations will now require lower maximum voltage on vacuums. It may making cleaning slower, purchase prices higher, but hopefully long-term energy saving benefits.
Argentina’s Mendoza zoo has come under scrutiny again after a lion died after undergoing surgery. This is the second lion to die there in recent months, and suspicions have been raised numerous times over the living conditions of animals in the zoo. The cause of death in this case was not neglect, but a risky […]
The Madagascar pochard, the world’s rarest bird, is at a serious risk of extinction. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), which led a study on the species, estimates that only 25 individual birds now remain in the wild. Human activity has driven the birds to just one remaining wetland in northeast Madagascar, but even that […]
The world’s first live broadcast panda cub delivery was canceled Tuesday — not because something went wrong, no, just because Mama Panda wasn’t actually pregnant. She faked it. Chinese experts suggested that Ai Hin, the panda who was supposed to be the star of the show, may have faked her condition to get extra bun […]
Thanks to a hidden supply of weapons seized from a Russian arms trafficker 20 years ago, Italy may be able to quickly help Kurdish fighters as they battle against the ISIS jihadist terrorists.
A year after a chemical attack killed nearly 1,000 civilians in the Syrian rebel stronghold of eastern Ghouta, new fears that the Islamist radical group is building its own chemical stockpile.
NUREMBERG — Soccer isn’t everything. At least not in the sports equipment business. Adidas is learning that the hard way. The brand with the familiar three-stripe logo used the World Cup in Brazil to its advantage — far better than global leader Nike — but the hoopla died when the games ended. Adidas is in […]
Ravens tend to have a bad rap. In the Middle Ages, because they fed on corpses after executions, they were associated with gallows. In mythology, two ravens symbolizing wisdom and intelligence were attributes of the northern god Odin. But ravens — and other members of the corvine family like crows, jackdaws and magpies — are […]
TEHRAN — Every evening, Youseph walks by the mosque in Tehran’s Fatemi Square. Before heading towards his house, he looks up at the portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that are on the walls of the building. Then he crosses the street and descends the hill to where he lives. […]
A former cook for the Free Syrian Army, Iftikar al Daye is the 100,000th migrant who has arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, and a symbol of hope for fleeing refugees.
Daniza doesn’t read the newspapers or check social networks, so she probably has no idea that people are searching for her. The brown bear made Italian headlines a few days ago after she wounded Daniele Maturi, 38, who was foraging for mushrooms in the woods in the heart of the Dolomite mountains. Maturi was bitten […]
Most plastic bags have suffocation warnings on them, but that’s no good for whales who can’t read them. Vets from Argentina’s Patagonian National Center (CENPAT) had to remove a giant plastic bag that could have suffocated a whale who was apparently “playing” — or, rather, struggling — with it, in waters off Puerto Madryn, Clarín […]
As part of a plan that sounds almost like a movie plot, 500 white rhinos will be evacuated from South Africa’s Kruger National Park and secretly taken to new homes to protect them from poachers. Although international trade in rhino horns has been illegal since 1977, demand remains high in some Asian countries, the BBC […]
Bring your togas and laurel wreaths, just watch out where you snap your ancient selfie.
ROME — These are the kinds of lives that appear like ships at the mercy of a storm, where salvation will seem like a surprise — if it actually arrives. These are the stories of Eritreans with Italian roots trying, sometimes with the most desperate means, to make it to Italy. First, the history. Italy […]
A century ago, those reporting on wars were little more than military puppets. Since Vietnam, journalism is freer and more complicated. Now social media is changing the equation again.
Categories
Feeding Time At The Zoo: Ice Cream Edition
It’s hot in Colombia, and severe drought conditions are affecting most of the country. Though forest fires have sadly killed thousands of wild animals, those at the zoo in the southern city of Cali are getting some pampering and a little help cooling off. Staff there have decided to mix the animals’ food with ice, […]
Justice is twisted in a country where a man is jailed for stealing candy from a store, while gangsters and corrupt politicians are always able to negotiate prison reductions.
Taranto’s ILVA steel plant, Europe’s largest, emits toxic pollution that doctors believe has long been causing cancer in young victims and sky-high infant mortality. Yet it still operates.
Designers in Poland are giving religious T-shirts and other products a hipster makeover, mixing pop culture with the Bible to create a uniquely 21st-century look.
When you think of a wild cat (i.e. a lion, tiger or panther) you often assume they live on rolling plains, or wild jungles. A few hundred meters outside of Bogotá is not the first place that comes to mind. The woolly margay — an Ocelot-like creature described as the American continent’s smallest feline — […]
Palestinian Authority President Abbas surprised some by backing Hamas. But it is growing protests among youth in Ramallah that may have the real power to make a change.
A Russian settlement in remote Norway has impressive roads, schools and monuments. But not a soul lives in this ice-preserved community, after its residents mysteriously left one day in 1998.
PACHMARHI — Anil Yadav has lived in the hilltop town of Pachmarhi for the past 16 years, but over the past three he says that the monkey population has expanded beyond control. So much so that humans are now being forced to live in cages. In India, monkeys are sacred and worshipped by Hindus as […]
A woman from Treviso in northern Italy, who left her neighbor in charge of her five cats while she went away for a few days, returned home to a rather grim surprise, as reported by Italian news site Quotidiano. One of the cats — which had required daily medication — died while the owner was […]