With drought comes malnutrition and a run to the slums, where fatty foods, sugar, and obesity await.
Category: Geopolitics
In all likelihood, the cause of the Notre Dame fire is linked to mundane management issues. It’s a symbol for today’s French culture.
From films to photography, artwork can help arouse the empathy we need to counter these dark days of border walls and White nationalist terrorism, not yet extinct, and art foments it.
PARIS — Firefighters said early Tuesday that they’d extinguished the final flames of the massive Notre Dame cathedral fire that began shortly before 7 p.m. local time Monday. Authorities say the cause of the fire may be “potentially linked” to ongoing renovations. The images of a blaze engulfing one of history’s most iconic sights, which […]
It started as an unlikely marriage of convenience: after Italy’s elections in March 2018, the far-right League party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) formed a coalition government. Fighting over the choice of prime minister, the two parties settled for an unknown political figure: Giuseppe Conte, a lawyer whose 12-page résumé raised more than […]
“I try to tell what’s happening, but I try to be considerate, and also make poetic and beautiful images. It’s important to be sensitive, and acknowledge the complexity of what’s going on.” That’s how Italian photographer Lorenzo Tugnoli of the Contrasto agency recently described his work to the British Journal of Photography. A long-term project focused on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen just earned him the 2019 World Press Photo award for General News, Stories. Tugnoli recounted the stories behind five of his most powerful images from Yemen for this OneShot: Cinq video production. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/zru1H440qJU expand=1] Yemen Crisis — […]
How the current Brexit debacle looks (and feels) from a member of what may be Britain’s last generation of the EU’s Erasmus student exchange program.
A group in East Amman gives men from Syria and other conflict zones an opportunity to open up and talk through the many ways they struggle.
Inflation and recession are doing little to bridge the South American nation’s deep political divide.
French was once the international language of diplomacy. In Europe, at least, it may have to resume that role now that English risks losing its status as an official EU language.
Zuzana Čaputová becomes the country’s first female head of state, and brings hope to Slovaks looking to end to corruption and to others for a response to populism across Europe.
-Analysis- Venezuela has arrived at a dead end. It is mired in misrule, socio-economic chaos, unchecked crime and a spiraling humanitarian catastrophe that is leading to steady exodus of its population. The immediate causes of these were shortages in food, water, electricity and medicine, as well as hyperinflation (3 million percent per year) in an […]
–OpEd– BERLIN — The late Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a great European who led Germany through its unification, was wrong. European integration is no longer “irreversible.” Today, in 2019, disintegration is the declared goal of many member states. It is dependency, not independence, that has until now made Europe strong. For the future, Europe does not […]
The Brexit debacle has had at least one virtue: Eurosceptic leaders from other countries are no longer pushing to leave the EU. But that is only part of the story.
Venezuela’s fate is becoming a strategic stake and source of conflict between Western democracies and increasingly aligned rivals, China and Russia.
Italy’s political leaders who rejoiced with Brexit referendum are now silent.
In northern Colombia, large-scale banana and palm oil estates have long used their clout to control land and water resources and leave peasant farmers high and dry.
The survival of more than 7 million people, 60% of the population, depends on international humanitarian aid.
Categories
Europe On Brexit: Pick Your Metaphor
-Analysis- “It’s almost like Shakespeare: Brexit or no Brexit? That was the question.” German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle resorted to a passing twist on Hamlet after the British Parliament delivered what may be the final defeat Tuesday night in Prime Minister Theresa May’s attempt to lead the UK to an orderly divorce from the European […]
Fears of an economic meltdown in Mexico provoked by the new socialist president have not materialized, even if the economy has slowed and must remains to be seen.
-Editorial- BOGOTÁ — As the world recently watched humanitarian supply trucks burn on a bridge between the Colombian town of Cúcuta and the Venezuelan border, locals anxiously wondered if aid would ever arrive in a region plagued with years of economic crisis. Colombian Attorney General Fernando Carrillo echoed these sentiments after visiting Cúcuta and meeting […]
-Analysis- NEW DELHI — U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to end preferential trade treatment for India, will end benefits under a nearly 50-year-old program for up to $5.6 billion worth of New Delhi’s exports to America. The move comes after more than a year of back-and-forth between the two countries, and pressure exerted upon the Trump administration by the American dairy export and medical devices lobbies. “I am taking this step because, after intensive engagement between the United States and the government of India, I have determined that India has not assured the United States that it will provide equitable […]
Sociologists say there are certain historical and cultural elements behind the country’s fondness for confrontation.
As the two superpowers get closer to an agreement, the global trade regime could suffer. History offers several precedents.
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – Ten days ago, on Feb. 23, our continent and the whole world were watching what would happen at Venezuela’s borders with Colombia and Brazil . In an attempted show of force, Venezuela’s opposition chief and self-proclaimed head of a provisional government Juan Guaidó , sought to bring humanitarian aid across the border, […]
The U.S. may need to accept that Pyongyang doesn’t give up its nuclear program.
Categories
Battle Of The Ages In Algeria
-Analysis- It’s a striking contrast in both age and public exposure. Defying a sometimes repressive police force, a bold youth-led Algerian street protest movement has risen up against the North African country’s aging and largely invisible leader. Tens of thousands demonstrated over the past couple of weeks against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision to seek a […]
How is it that analysis of the rising world power is reduced to an abstract notion from the field of genetics? Established experts on China are not looking at the future.
-Analysis- NEW DELHI — The Kashmir Valley has been gripped by fear and confusion created by a slew of unexplained government orders, which in turn have led to speculation that something major is afoot. From the sudden induction of 100 paramilitary companies (over 10,000 men) into the region, to midnight raids on Jamaat-e-Islami cadre, to cancellation of doctors’ leaves and instructions to hospitals to store medicines and food, these moves have sent people stockpiling supplies. A journalist from Srinagar called me to say that people were talking about army movement to the border. He connected this information with the recent […]
In the Colombian capital, residents are starting to balk at the arrival of so many desperate Venezuelans. There’s empathy, yes. But also caution and alarm.
NEW DELHI — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visits to India and Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of a deadly suicide attack on Indian security personnel in Kashmir have been a test of Riyadh’s policy to keep its relations with the two neighbors in strictly separate silos. As Mohammed bin Salman“s statements in Pakistan gained wide coverage, his comments on terrorism in the Indian capital were minutely parsed. His travel itinerary for Asia had been decided months ahead but finally took place under the shadow of the car bomb attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy which left […]
Six men, one flag: it is the defining image of the Greatest Generation. No bodies, no planes or tanks, and yet it has become one of the most recognizable images of that worldwide conflict that killed tens of millions and changed history forever. It was 74 ago, on Feb. 23, 1945, that U.S. photographer Joe Rosenthal captured image later dubbed Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The photograph shows five U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman planting the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in Japan. Three of the men — Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal […]
PARIS — European history has shown, time and again, that anti-Semitism is an indicator that the social state has become unstable. It’s therefore not shocking that it’s developing today in France, linked in particular to fringes of the anti-establishment yellow vest movement. The paths laid between a society in crisis and anti-Semitism have been laid […]
As tensions between Washington an Beijing continue to build, smaller nations like Argentina should stay out of the fray and instead strengthen regional integration.
The world is becoming divided again as China takes the USSR’s place facing the United States. This new situation makes the European project more relevant than ever, exactly at the moment it is most in jeopardy.
Categories
And If Venezuela’s Maduro Survives?
There is a concerted push underway to remove the Venezuelan leader from power. But there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
WASHINGTON — How long must you live, how strong must be your memory, to turn back and say: damn it, this world has really changed. Look at the millennials, they seem to be better educated than the boomers, but they are sui generis in their thinking, seemingly inspired and shaped by memes rather than historical […]
SARI — On this frigid January night, Maliheh Salimi’s home is brimming with excitement. A rental company delivered metal chairs and tables early in the morning. Pink and white balloons were inflated; lace was knotted in the shape of a butterfly and pinned on the walls. Large pans, full of rice that Maliheh had left […]
An Israeli law enacted in mid-2017 amounts to a de facto salary cut for African asylum seekers, plunging the community into a financial crisis.
In southwest France, the ‘eusko’ currency has become the centerpiece of an alternative ecosystem that is not obsessed with economic growth.