Tourism, mining and oil in this southernmost region of South America are financing a flourishing, multinational sex trade.
Category: Ideas
Prince Charles believes brutalist buildings are like “monstrous carbuncles,” but there is a frenzied architectural movement afoot to save these concrete blocks.
PARIS — We’ve hardly made peace with the idea of driverless cars, and now we’re being told that artificial intelligence could also control rifles, missiles and bombs of the future. The warning was issued last summer by leading figures such as Tesla chief Elon Musk, physicist Stephen Hawking and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky. During July’s […]
PARIS — Our usual spot at Parc Sainte-Périne to plop our blanket and sports equipment for a few hours of recreational escape was already taken when we arrived on Saturday. A group of about 10 young men were sprawled out on the patch, enjoying the sunshine and talking among themselves — in Arabic, I noticed. […]
The German Chancellor has made many mistakes: She has isolated Germany, inside Europe. But it is hardly her fault alone in a continent unable to see the stakes at hand.
Categories
For Dilma And Lula, This Is The End
-Editorial- SAO PAULO — The appointment of such a major figure as Brazil’s ex-President Lula da Silva as Dilma Rousseff cabinet’s chief of staff could be seen as just an expression of the government’s terminal state of despair, stuck with incredibly low popularity poll numbers — and with little support in Congress to fend off […]
It’s normal for children to argue and fight. But those identified as bullies are often suspended or expelled far too quickly. Why don’t schools intervene earlier?
It’s not just Donald Trump …
From Latin America to Europe, the Middle East and beyond, newspapers around the world have expressed a growing mix of dismay and contempt as Donald Trump continues to rack up victories in the Republican party presidential primaries. But as the American billionaire moves closer to the nomination, international journalists are widening their analysis to note […]
Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was detained as part of a widespread corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras. But the probe could actually prove to be the spark to help him succeed Dilma Rousseff.
The rapid growth of the sharing economy is both inevitable and generally good. But only a fool can believe it will truly disrupt the natural capitalist forces of our market economy.
When a feminist argues that male courtship rituals toward women are a form of gender subjugation, a Portuguese journalist takes his own kind of offense on behalf of the male sex.
-Analysis- MIAMI — The gradual renewal of ties between the United States and Cuba no longer qualifies as news. Both sides have put aside their prerequisites for sitting and talking — an end to the embargo for Cuba, and Cuba pledging to change its political system. Each country has followed a basic script guiding both […]
-Analysis- LA PAZ — As of Sunday, Bolivia is once again divided in two. It had taken President Evo Morales almost a decade to build a consensus around him, a consensus that had enabled him to be re-elected for a third five-year term in 2014 with 61% of the vote. But his failure this week […]
Trade in goods and even services may be slowing for now, but globalization retains its momentum with migration and an unstoppable flow of ideas. Blame human nature.
BOGOTA — The U.S. presidential elections have left the two main parties stunned. Amid acrid debates filled with harsh words and the insolence of one billionaire candidate, raw emotions have turned out to be more potent than any substantial solutions proposed by the candidates for their country. Faced with the populism of the tycoon Donald […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
-Essay- NEW YORK — A short news flash in early October 2014 made me shoot out of my comfortable chair. For no particular reason, I felt that the news of a Chinese insurer buying the Waldorf Astoria, the world’s most prestigious hotel, was important. For me, it was as big as when the Chinese bought […]
As Republicans mercilessly attack the sitting president, Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton should remember that ambivalence never wins elections.
From the Middle East to Europe and the United States to Asia, from geopolitics to economics, the world has fallen into widespread chaos. But there is cause for hope.
Science and medicine have yet to demonstrate exactly how and when Zika affects the brain of a fetus, yet people are rushing to conclude that abortion is the logical choice. A journalist with his own physical limitations weighs in.
FRANKFURT — It’s a Thursday morning on the No. 39 bus in Frankfurt, Germany. Suddenly, a migrant woman with an accent begins to complain loudly and aggressively about a woman wearing a niqab. “I don’t feel safe next to her,” she says to no one in particular. The other passengers remain silent, though one eventually […]
Plan Colombia was never the aid program touted by leaders in Washington and Bogota. But it proved to be excellent business for arms dealers and other shady characters.
Anti-colonialism’s echo: India balks at Mark Zuckerberg’s plans of offering free but limited Internet access, which is ultimately aimed at boosting Facebooks’ numbers. Will the rest of the world follow?
-Essay- CAIRO — I did not know Giulio Regeni, but I could have. The earnest, affable face staring out of his photographs is reminiscent of any number of the trickle of European researchers and activists who pass through Cairo and want to meet in downtown dive bars to talk about the condition of the workers […]
Complaining out loud (and on social media) about the high prices at exclusive restaurants is the epitome of upper class lack of self-awareness. A VIP case study in Bogota.
A feeling has spread through the popular consciousness: The collapse is near, we’re living on the edge of implosion. But there is another way to look at our complicated world.
German behavioral scientist Johannes Siebert is on a Pentagon team researching the motives of ISIS followers. Not all are driven by religion, and some even see themselves as humanitarians.
What the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency is being met with inept government reaction. The enemy is a mosquito whose existence was once under control.
A new study shows income and asset inequality in China has reached epic proportions, with the top undertaxed and the bottom at grave social risk because of a lack of civil protection.
Groping women obviously isn’t acceptable in the West, where decades of protest won more progressive cultural standards. But lost amid the furor is an understanding of refugee men’s humiliation without work, money or a chance of integration
-Analysis- PARIS — Defeated, the government doesn’t know what it wants! Defeated, the Socialist Party is again incapable of defining a clear line! Defeated, members of the center-right Republicans party are tearing each other apart as they seek to avoid the “trap” the Socialists are said to have laid for them. The staggering debate ongoing […]
Fiscal deficits cannot be ignored or maintained through creative financing mechanisms, given their potential to turn into long-term debt able to sink entire economic programs.
Donald Trump’s brand of xenophobic patriotism belies basic values on which America was founded. Given the U.S.’s cultural sway, his election would weign on other countries facing similar issues.
The state, as well as companies, want to know as much as possible about citizens. The battle against the unstoppable digitalization of our world seems hopeless. Germany is particularly sensitive to the downsides.
Italian museum officials covered up prized ancient statues for the visit of Iranian President Rouhani. But what do we lose with such overly eager attention to Muslim sensibilities? And what about our own?
-Analysis- ISTANBUL — The Geneva process for the Syrian crisis was launched with a stated commitment from Russia and the United States to find a political solution. But it will go nowhere if it can’t overcome the clashing desires of the various fighting interests. Certain international actors penned a temporary road map in Vienna back […]
The cliché tells us that women forge a more sensitive and socially responsible working environment. A new study has proven that the opposite is the case.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been immune to crisis, so far. But now that the government coalition is divided about the country’s open-door policy, things are about to change.
-Op-Ed- ISTANBUL — Anyone who has ever visited a toy store with a child who doesn’t really know what he wants can understand Turkey“s technological predicament. There is the mad run from shelf to shelf, listening to the child explain why he desperately needs toy after toy. And then, in the end, there is the […]