Prices have tripled on the staple product, as farmers and the government blame each other while ordinary Algerians struggle to put food on the table. It’s yet another crisis between economics and politics in the troubled North African nation.
Tag: society
A new program that settles paternity disputes has become the most popular television show in Zimbabwe. Not everyone is happy.
For an Indian growing up in the UK in the 1960s, racism was an everyday experience ranging from schoolyard taunts to threats of violence and persecution. And with the recent revelations of abuse suffered by Pakistan-born cricket star Azeem Rafiq, overt racism is still very much alive. in British society.
Icy roads, electricity outages, whiny city folk … There’s only one solution to ending winter chaos.
Essam El-Haddad, a senior adviser to President Morsi, was jailed more than eight years ago. His son Abdullah continues to fight for his father’s liberation, which he says is a necessary path toward national union in post-Arab Spring Egypt.
The “New Pharmacy” was famous throughout the St. Pauli district of Hamburg thanks to its industrious owner. Now, her daughter is transforming it into a museum dedicated to the history of sex toys, linking it with the past “curing” purpose of the shop.
The mysterious disappearance – and brief reappearance – of the Chinese tennis star after her #metoo accusation against a party leader shows Beijing is prepared to do whatever is necessary to quash any challenge from its absolute rule.
A top executive of the Miss Senegal beauty pageant dismissed accusations made by last year’s winner that she’d been raped, igniting furious debate across the West African nation about the treatment of women and the retrograde attitudes across society.
Lockdowns can be justified on an ethical basis to achieve an important public health benefit, even though they restrict individual freedoms. Whether selective lockdowns are justified, though, depends on what they are intended to achieve.
Surrogacy is still considered quite controversial, especially in Italy where a story has made headlines after would-be parents renounced a baby born in Ukraine. The author says we must face the ethical (and other) questions rather than dismiss the practice as “uterus for rent.”
The year-long national movement of farmers challenged the government of Narendra Modi against all odds, and ultimately prevailed by focusing on unity across India’s diverse ethnic, religious and geographic landscape.
When the author, a black Cuban immigrant living in Spain, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had to overcome not only the physical toll but also the daily humiliations by a medical system and society that treated her as a second-class patient. But then she decided to say, enough.
Since winning this year’s Eurovision contest, Italy’s rock band Måneskin has been taking its message of breaking down stereotypes around the world, while its native country’s politicians are stuck in last century’s prejudices.
Each year thousands of French people ask to change their surname or first name or choose a pseudonym. It may be a question of pride or identity, but it is never a small thing for those who call themselves something new. Here are some of their stories.
New companies have been launched around the world that employ women to pump breast milk on contract. Yet it could lead to women pumping for profit, and even sacrificing the nutrition of their own child.
The murder of a trans activist in Honduras, and new report on violence against LGBTQ+ across the region, shines a light on the place where it’s simply not safe to be a trans person.
Letters from inmates provide a crucial link with the outside world, and yet the process of sending and receiving them in Egyptian prisons is both arduous and arbitrary as an extra means of control.
A neo-Nazi has been buried in the former grave of a Jewish musicologist Max Friedlaender – not an oversight, but a deliberate provocation. This is just one more example of antisemitism on the rise in Germany, and society’s inability to respond.
In San Diego, California, a researcher tracked how in the city’s low-income neighborhoods that have traditionally lacked dining options, when interesting eateries arrive the gentrification of white, affluent and college-educated people has begun.
Crunching the numbers of South Korea’s personal and household debt offers a glimpse into what drives the win-or-die plot of the Netflix hit produced in the Asian country.
Women who have found themselves in charge of a family after the sudden deaths of family members discover rules, regulations and laws making mockery of their situation.
Winning a Nobel Prize can’t be the only criterion by which we measure a nation’s scientific achievement — but it is a matter of pride, like winning a gold at the Olympics. Lower funding on R&D alone doesn’t explain India’s abysmal show at the Nobel Prizes. Some key elements seem to be missing, beyond funding and infrastructure, vis-à-vis our scientists’ ability to produce path-breaking work.
Anesthesia, or a temporary state of “nothingness,” may be our closest experience of death without dying, and a reminder of the fragility of our lives.
CAIRO — I’ve been thinking lately about my relationship with anonymity, and the way my understanding of it — which used to be somewhat one-sided — has been evolving, both in personal writing and in political work. In a polarized environment, we become trapped in a reactive position, especially as some of the approaches adopted […]
With real estate prices high and job prospects low, a growing number of young Chinese say they choose to both work and spend less in order to escape the pressures of contemporary life.
Like the last century’s world wars, the COVID-19 crisis is causing trauma on a global scale and opening the door to enticing but deeply dangerous political impulses.
A year after the world’s second most populous nation went into quarantine, a new study aims to calculate the cost in terms of mental health illness, suicide and inability to receive medical care.
Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the highly respected former head of the European Central Bank, is tasked with fixing festering systemic failures.
The virtues that laid the groundwork for Western civilization’s many advances are being eclipsed, it would seem, by an internet-driven rush of irrationality.
The forced abortiona of a Hindu woman married to a Muslim man should be treated like murder by the state. Yet, not much is being said about it, or other ways new laws are used to disenfranchise Muslims.
Hindu nationalist groups want to force the cancellation of Netflix shows that celebrate inter-religious romance with Muslims — it’s both censorship and ethnic prejudice.
Despite decades of violence and tension between opposing army outposts, villagers caught in between have no choice but to keep living their lives.
Gaspard Koenig has returned after several months spent traveling across Europe on horseback. The journey included a conscious effort to limit his exposure to current events, relying only on the local newspapers and conversations.
As COVID-19 lingers, protective masks are recommended and even mandatory in certain places. But our faces are also our windows to the world, and covering them creates serious new obstacles across our societies.
Public discourse seems to be dominated these days by political polarization and extreme positions, but it’s largely an illusion.
LA STAMPA Meet The Doctor’s Maid Who Inspired The Mediterranean Diet A housekeeper with serious culinary skills helped feed the mind and mouth of Ancel Keys, the American doctor famous for documenting the health benefits of Mediterranean food. THE INITIUM Yulin To Paris: Dog-Eating At Center Of Animal Rights Battle A Chinese dog meat festival […]
A closer reading of the Pope’s recent treatise that challenges the way contemporary culture sees poverty in society.
Globally, 25% of all people admit they have nobody to talk to, with older people living longer and young people spending their time on line.
CAIRO — Trapped in the ordinary life of waking up early to get on with daily housework or visiting with extended family, a group of young upper Egyptian girls had a simple dream: to play soccer. But they were uncertain whether the traditional society in which they live would allow them to realize their goal. […]
Loneliness, sex and economics rule among aging singles in the Chinese capital.