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In The News

Worldwide Tour De Force, Why Top Museums Are Partnering Up

The grandest museums increasingly share their most prestigious exhibitions across borders for both aesthetic and economic reasons.

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In The News

When Your Boss Sounds Like Churchill — Or Worse, Elon Musk

If a CEO starts quoting Churchill or some Silicon Valley titan to give pomp to their office speeches, they’re only highlighting their utter lack of originality and leadership.

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In The News

Meet Janet Adu, ‘President’ Of The Slums Of Ghana

ACCRA — Ghana has two presidents. The first was elected last December, and is named Nana Akufo-Addo, a 73-year-old British-educated son of a former head of state. The other is Janet Adu, 57, who never studied abroad and has always lived far from the luxuries of the official presidential palace. But she too was elected […]

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In The News

In Afghanistan, Bodybuilding Gains A Cult Following

KABUL — You see the images everywhere in the streets of Kabul: bare-chested men posing with their protruding and pulsating muscles. Scattered across the Afghan capital, the posters are eye-catching in there own right, but stand out even more in a place where men typically sport the traditional long trousers and puffy shirts known as […]

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In The News

When Luxury Brands Counterfeit The Counterfeiters

With designs that imitate fakes, luxury fashion brands try to attract a younger and more connected clientele.

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Future Ideas

Make No Mistake, Cyber War Is A Real And Present Threat

-Analysis- PARIS — Imagine if a foreign entity neutralized the public health system in the Paris region. Or if it went on to attack the electric grid, interfering with the meteorological services, manipulating French President Emmanuel Macron’s emails and targeting the military and police communication systems. All from a computer keyboard. Nobody would get killed, […]

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In The News

With Myanmar’s Fleeing Rohingyas, A Cruel Portrait Of Ethnic Cleansing

TEKNAF — They ran, they walked, they stumbled, then they ran again. They’re exhausted, starving, some are wounded. They fled with fear and death chasing from behind. They are also carrying with them the memory of those who have died and an endless list of the missing. There is, in the forced exodus of Myanmar’s […]

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In The News

The Rise Of ‘Made In Ethiopia’ — With The Backing Of Beijing

HAWASSA — Peter Wan is smiling from ear to ear. The 50-year-old walks past huge warehouses, where dozens of Ethiopians are busy working on spinning and thread-dyeing machines. “We are in the production test stage,” he says, at the Chinese factory of JP Textile at the entrance of the industrial park of Hawassa, some 270 […]

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In The News

Matchmaking Talented Refugees With Employers in France

An online platform helps refugees find jobs and companies find motivated, skilled employees.

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In The News

Yemen, Al-Qaeda’s Laboratory For ‘Invisible’ Relaunch

AQAP, the local al-Qaeda branch, is determined to learn from its mistakes. They’ve learned that they can’t go too quickly and spill too much local blood.

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In The News

Black Gold’s Shadow, How Oil Poisoned The Niger Delta

OGONI REGION — Stanley, 40, once considered becoming a fighter. He says he already has a small stash of Kalashnikov assault rifles hidden somewhere. He’s not boasting. That’s just how things are in the creeks of the Niger Delta. The youth have easier access to weapons than to schools and jobs. But instead of becoming […]

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In The News

Tom Of Finland, Double Life Of The Gay Icon Who Changed A Nation

His erotic drawings of virile men captured the homosexual zeitgeist. But in his country, where it was illegal to be gay, the artist had to remain undercover. A revival is now spreading around Finland, and helping to change attitudes.

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In The News

North Korea Turns To Spain For Tourism Inspiration

In between nuclear tests, Pyongyang is investing massively in its tourism infrastructure. A delegation visited Spain last month to study their resorts.

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In The News

Race For Her Rights, Rwandan Cyclist Takes On Sexism

Jeanne d’Arc Girubuntu, a 22-year-old cycling champion, strives to be a role model and to inspire women of Rwanda to fight for their independence.

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In The News

Bain De Soleil, How France Invented The Modern Tan

-Essay- PARIS — For a superficial observer, it is one of the lesser-known cultural revolutions and a rather trivial one at that: the dramatic shift in the Western physical ideal, in just over a generation, from one skin ideal to another, from one tone to another. It is what we in French call “bronzage,” similar […]

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Economy Geopolitics

African Blood Diamonds For Sale On Facebook And WhatsApp

They don’t hide in the abyss of the Dark Web. From Bangui, Beirut, Bordeaux or elsewhere, they use social media to promote their products and services. They are blood diamond community managers from the Central African Republic, traffickers of gems that cannot be legally exported and that are for sale on Facebook and Whatsapp. One […]

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In The News

Museum-Worthy Art Planted In Vineyards In The South Of France

AIX-EN-PROVENCE — Here, the vineyard traces the pathways of art. It usually is the other way around, whereby a well-known vineyard expands its activities (rooms for rent, a restaurant, exhibitions) to attract more wine buyers. But at Château La Coste, 15 kilometers from Aix-en-Provence in southeastern France, the cultural offer is so rich that people […]

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In The News

Vengeance, Guilt, Mysticism: The Making Of A Terrorist Mind

Analyzing letters and testimony of ISIS terrorists shows how eye-for-an-eye arguments in defense of Muslim victims meld with monotheistic guilt and a mystic sense of destiny to become offensive weapons in the jihadist strategy.

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In The News

Macron Mania, Why France Loves Its Enlightened Despots

Imagine what Donald Trump would do within a French-like government structure …

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In The News

Honoring “Turkish Schindlers” — Forgotten Heroes Of The Armenian Genocide

Unlike the ‘Righteous Among The Nations’ of the Nazi Holocaust, individual Turks who opposed the Armenian genocide are lost to history. Again, Turkey’s government is largely to blame.

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Economy Eyes on the U.S.

Trump Conflict Of Interest Questions Wash Up At His Caribbean Villa

The sale of property belonging to Mr Trump in the French Antilles could become a problem.

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In The News

Trump’s Defeatist America, Burning Questions For The World

-Editorial- PARIS — The world is witnessing an unprecedented diplomatic event. America is retreating as the world faces one of the most serious issues of our time — climate change. It’s deciding not to exert its leadership. It will be neither model nor guide. This continent-sized country is shrinking and retreating into itself, as it […]

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In The News

Monsanto’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Science

PARIS — Monsanto, the multinational producer of pesticides and genetically-engineered crops, has sought to discredit virtually anything that stands in the way of its business, reports leading French daily Le Monde in a multi-part investigative series that began Thursday. Among the targets of the U.S.-based agro-chemical giant are scientists, regulators and even the World Health […]

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In The News

How UNESCO Got It Wrong In Africa

-Analysis- PARIS — Since 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, has maintained a “World Heritage List” of sites that it deems to have an exceptional value. This list, which aims to preserve the world’s cultural and natural heritage, has sparked global tensions and drawn criticism that it doesn’t give adequate […]

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In The News

Even More Than The Anti-Trump, Macron Is The Anti-Putin

French-Russian relations are at a new low following the election of France’s young, pro-European President Emmanuel Macron.

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Ideas Society

Macron’s Hardest Job: France’s Dangerous Class Divide

Nationalism was defeated in Emmanuel Macron’s victory. But the debate of the individual vs. collective has just gotten underway in France, and beyond.

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In The News

Behind Any Great Man, The Singular Role Of Brigitte Macron

France’s incoming First Lady is 24 years older than Emmanuel Macron, her husband and former drama student. How this unusual presidential couple is rewriting the rules of French politics.

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In The News

In France, Why Children Of Immigrants Have Turned To Le Pen

COULOMMIERS — In the working-class outskirts of Paris, people are counting. They count the number of houses now occupied by people from an immigrant background. “There are four Arabs opposite my house, four others at the end of the street, on the right-hand side, and one Black guy to the left,” says 88-year-old Micheline, who […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

The French Ambition, Inside Macron’s Remarkable Climb To The Top

A mix of arrogance, careful planning and fortuitous circumstances have brought the political outsider and youthful former economy minister Emmanuel Macron to the gates of the French presidency.

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In The News

Muslims of France Have Their Say In Race For President

PARIS — A long line stretched in front of Hall 2 of the Bourget Exhibition Center on the outskirts of the French capital last Saturday afternoon, ahead of an annual three-day conference by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France. Fliers announced the topic of the upcoming roundtable: “Eleven candidates in the presidential election, who […]

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In The News

French Elections, Europe And The Meaning Of Patriotism

Emmanuel Macron is the youngest candidate to be France’s next president. That’s not the only feature that sets him apart from the rest of the field.

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In The News

A Heartbroken Gaza Father Has One Simple Request For Israel

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish’s three daughters were killed by an Israeli air strike in 2009. For the past seven years, the Palestinian doctor just wants an apology from Israeli officials.

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In The News

Seeing Warhol In Tehran? The Saga Of Iran’s Modern Art Museum

Iran built itself a lavish modern art museum in the late 1970s, only to end up stowing away a priceless collection after the Islamic revolution. Signs of reform could open up Iranians to Giacometti, Picasso, Warhol and Pollock.

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Economy Ideas

How To Stop Trump From Creating The World’s Biggest Tax Haven

With its new president, the United States may now become a massive new fiscal haven for global companies. But France, with its own upcoming elections, could lead Europe in undermining Trump’s plans.

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Society

Slacktivism Or Digital Revolutions? The Pros And Cons Of Online Activism

PARIS — Never before had this kind of effort been so successful in France. In the span of two weeks, starting in mid February, an online petition to say “No, thanks!” to a proposed labor-reform bill collected a million signatures. The government decided, subsequently, to amend the imitative and put off submitting it to the […]

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Society

La Sape, Congolese Dandy Style Born Of Political Protest

PARIS — Donning a ribbon-trimmed red bowler hat and a white tunic embroidered with black in what turned out to be his last concert, Papa Wemba stayed true to personal code of conduct: Always look sharp. The tenor of Congolese rumba, who collapsed and died on stage while performing at a music festival in Abidjan […]

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Economy Future

Qwant It! French Search Engine Takes On Google By Protecting Your Privacy

PARIS — For more than three years now, the French startup Qwant has been trying to prove that a search engine can be efficient and profitable while respecting the privacy and anonymity of users. After a slow and difficult start, Qwant is finally taking off. Six months ago the search engine had 8 million visitors. […]

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Food / Travel Society

Algae, The Food That Could Save Humanity

Cooked in Asia for centuries, this protein-rich marine plant is making its way onto our plates.

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Geopolitics

Grapes Of War: Sneaking Fine Wine Across The Syrian Border

BEKAA — It’s a typical wine tasting at the Château Marsyas in the beautiful Bekaa region of Lebanon. We are trying a French Cabernet after tasting a Merlot and Shiraz. Bottles and glasses are scattered on a wooden table in the heart of the winery, which houses a dozen stainless steel vats and hundreds of […]

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Future Society

Ashley Madison “Fembots” Star In Swiss Exhibition

An artist duo from Zurich is using sex-talk avatars to pose some burning questions about the future of human-computer relationships.

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