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France was poised for major change Sunday night when Socialist candidate François Hollande looked set to beat conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in runoff balloting for France’s presidency. Initial results revealed at 8 p.m. local time forecast Hollande beating Sarkozy by a seemingly insurmountable score of 51.9% to 48.1%. When that result is confirmed by the [...]
Lauren McPhate first arrived in Asia in 2009 after losing her job as a risk analyst at an energy company. She daydreamed about moving to tropical Thailand to start over. The 27-year-old instead landed in Seoul, where an attractive salary teaching English provided an escape from the discouraging economic landscape back home. McPhate did not [...]
The electoral dilemma facing French presidential finalists Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande is as urgent as it is heavy with risk: how to lure the nearly 6.5 million voters who backed extreme-right candidate leader Marine Le Pen in first round voting to their respective May 6 run-off bids? With polls showing Socialist front-runner Hollande beating [...]
French voters took a step toward historic change on Sunday when they handed Socialist Party candidate François Hollande a victory in the first round of the presidential election with 28.8% of the vote, just edging second-place incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s 27%. Extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen finished third with a surprisingly high 18% of the vote, followed by [...]
Probing Tragedy – The Guardian exclusively reveals a nine-month Council of Europe investigation found a “catalog of failures” by NATO warships and European coastguards led to the deaths of dozens of migrants left adrift at sea last year. “… Ambiguity in the coastguards’ distress calls and confusion about which authorities were responsible for mounting a [...]
In solidarity with the victims of the Jewish school shooting in Toulouse, the candidates in France’s presidential election had halted their campaigns. But that demonstration of national unity was all but forgotten by Thursday night, just hours after the smoke had cleared from the police raid that left self-proclaimed jihadist killer Mohammed Merah dead. Now, [...]
Beware the Librarians — Newish online-only outfit Global Mail writes about the revolt against the director of the revived ancient Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt amid corruption claims. Ismail Serageldin faces calls for his resignation and staff in revolt in a story that revolves around former first lady Suzanne Mubarak – and shines a light on the continued [...]
French economic growth is slowing, unemployment is rising, Greece is still a risk to default, and the crisis-rocked euro—while somewhat stabilized of late—is still not out of the existential woods. Yet despite those burning concerns topping the list worried French voters are contemplating as they near general elections, France’s campaigning President Nicolas Sarkozy this week [...]
President Putin — Unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin won a third term as Russia’s president Sunday. In an op-ed following the election, Russian language opposition newspaper Kommersant urges those disappointed by the re-elction of Putin the appreciate the lessons of the past two years of political protest. “Over the past 24 months, Russian society has matured to such an extent [...]
Human Rights Watch this week released its 2012 World Report. The 676-page write-up covers some of the biggest stories of the year, including China’s crackdown on dissent, ongoing attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the international community’s ambivalent response to the Arab Spring. But it also spotlights some lesser-known stories from [...]
