But just try brushing your teeth with bamboo.
Author: Sandra Nasri
Images that made news around the world.
The Russian hacking community is as ambigious as the country itself: admired and feared, all at once. A reformed hacker takes us into the bowels of the criminal Deep Web.
The news, quantified.
As disturbing as it is, what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri, is simply evidence of American police becoming increasingly militarized, a trend that’s been building for years.
Since Indonesia transitioned to democracy in the late 1990s, life for the long-suffering ethnic Chinese population has gradually improved. It’s about to get even better.
It isn’t just the Ukrainian military defending the country against pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine. Voluntary fighters, many of them intellectuals, have left their jobs to help the cause.
Why are Poles such a gloomy and miserable lot, always assuming the worst and refusing to love thy neighbor? It turns out, cheerlessness here has deep roots.
-OpEd- It’s anything but a surprise, given the weakness of the opposition and an election played out in advance: Recep Tayyip Erdogan won after the first round of voting in Sunday’s presidential election — the first ever in Turkey by direct universal suffrage. Erdogan thus perfects a political career marked, for 20 years, by one […]
–Commentary– BERLIN — There are photographs of Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, taken in the 1960s, that show elegantly dressed women sitting in street cafés. There are similar photos from the period shot in Ankara, Cairo, Damascus and Karachi. A half-century later, comparable scenes are nowhere to be found in many of these cities. Ankara is […]
KABUL — It took me eight days to convince 37-year-old Gul Rukh to let me conduct this interview. The Afghanistan woman living in Kabul feared talking openly about her waitress job at the Mumtaz Mahal Wedding Hall. “I earn $200 a month at the hotel,” she says. “I am very happy doing my job, but I am treated very badly by society, my relatives and neighbors for doing it. They scoff at me and believe working as a hotel waitress is not a good job for a woman. But when my husband became disabled, I had to find work to […]
BOGOTA — Maria Carolina Rodríguez, who describes herself as an “upper-middle class mother from Bogotá,” was kidnapped by the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2001. Her captivity allowed her a rare glimpse at how one group of female guerrillas were treated by their male comrades. Rodríguez kept notes during her captivity, which […]
DAMASCUS — As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, in the face of the ongoing war that has destroyed her local schools. Her father was killed in the violence and she now lives with distant relatives in the capital. Earlier installments can be read here and here. He is a handsome man in his 50s, […]
The jihadist movement is not only reshaping the situation in Syria — it might completely shift alliances across the region. Will Assad ally with Turkey, Iraq and even the West against ISIS?
-Analysis- Over the past few days, armed gangs have been setting Libya ablaze. The slogans sound familiar: “May the martyr’s blood not be shed in vain!” Nothing could be less certain. The country is sinking into chaos, and many Libyans say things are worse than the era of Muammar Gaddafi — the dictator who was […]
Reactions are coming in after the U.S. and Europe doubled down on economic sanctions against an ever more defiant Moscow.
An impassioned defense of a fellow Algerian-born writer who dares to think for himself in the face of Arab identity politics and the eternal Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
ANKARA — Turkish foreign policy is having a serious identity crisis. The Turkey that had largely achieved an equilibrium in its relations with the West and the East, a shining star in the international arena between 2003 and 2010, unfortunately no longer exists. The high morale and sense of moral superiority of being a country […]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s outright prohibition of the practice of aging cheese on wooden boards has sparked strong reactions, revealing a newfound interest for traditional, fermented food.
The less-than-helpful attitude of post office clerks in France (and elsewhere) has been known to get a rise out of customers. Well this French woman takes it to a whole other level. Her rage toward the ever so blasé postal staff appeared to start after she was denied a transaction because she’d arrived too late […]
MOSCOW — Finally, an engagement that Vladimir Putin could enjoy. Wearing dark aviator glasses against the bright sun, the Russian president attended the Russian “Navy Day” parade last Sunday at the Norwegian sea port of Severomorsk. A warship recently put into service fired some salvoes, and sailors responded to Putin’s greeting with three cries of […]
Israel’s supporters have responded to criticism of the Gaza intervention by asking why similar anger isn’t directed at the toll in Syria. It’s a bogus comparison, for many reasons.
The island was a German colony until 1914, which was once a source of pride and income for many. A century later, this part of its history is deepening Samoa’s economic and social woe.
BUENOS AIRES — They lived in the same building in the Argentine capital — two couples, one on the ground floor and the other above them. Their dispute began 10 years ago, when the two women began bickering constantly. They argued over who would sweep the patio, their barking dogs — they both had poodles, […]
MAASTRICHT — The worst thing about it, says Marina Smirnova, is that people won’t tell her directly to her face what they think of her. When the 27-year-old Russian, a linguist, joins a discussion with colleagues at work about the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and points out that responsibility for the tragedy has […]
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Meet Camillo, Germany’s Roaming Facebook Cat
EICHSTATT —Camillo the cat nearly missed his TV appearance. The one-year-old feline belongs to the Auer family in the this Bavarian town of 14,000, but he is anything but a house cat. No, Camillo spends his days and nights attending parties around town, visiting art galleries, and catching a cat nap in a comfortable chair […]
Parallel portraits in the making of a civil war: one man is fighting for Kiev, the other is a Russian separatist.
Can you spot the Russian women lounging under umbrellas? A (male) German writer says he can. British, French and, yes, Germans too.
TEHRAN — “Indecent dressing,” or “bad hijabi” in Persian, isn’t worse than before in Iran, according to a deputy-governor of the Tehran province. Shahabeddin Chavoshi, who is responsible in the capital province for social and political affairs, chided critics who accuse the government of Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani of neglecting public morals. “Studies show […]
The downing of Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH17 may change Putin’s hand in eastern Ukraine, but a weak and divided Europe is still no match for the well-armed Russian poker player.
AMSTERDAM — Two-thirds of the 298 passengers on downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 were Dutch, and their countrymen are seeking ways to vent their anger. Some have found an outlet in the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Masha. The 29-year-old is married to Dutchman Jorit Faassen, 34, who works for Gazprombank and Stroytransgaz in […]
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Saudis To Build Mosque Near North Pole
IQALUIT — A wealthy Saudi couple will soon begin building a mosque in one of the least hospitable corners of the globe: near the North Pole, in Iqaluit, Canada. The mosque, which will be the northernmost mosque in the world, will face extreme Arctic weather conditions, including lows of -40 degrees Celsius. The town of […]
Both Egyptians and refugees from Gaza are living through the war that comes to them in Egypt both from across the border in Palestinian territory, and from Cairo’s showdown in the Sinai.
KLAIPEDA — The entrance to this Lithuanian city’s port is a lesson in geopolitics. Klaipeda is the major transit hub for Russia on the Baltic Sea, but there’s no overlooking the huge semi-domes of the new terminals for LNG (liquefied natural gas) which Lithuania hopes will free the country from its energy-dependence on Moscow. There […]
Friday, August 8, 2014 OBAMA AUTHORIZES IRAQ AIRSTRIKES Marking the most significant intervention in Iraq since American troops were withdrawn in 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against Islamist extremists there and aid to desperate civilians a day after the country’s largest Christian town was seized, forcing thousands to flee. “Earlier this week, one […]