A new scientific study raises more questions over the existence of the Aryan race —a tribe of all-conquering Central Asian chariot-riders and horse lords that supposedly swept through India and Iran (“land of the Aryans”) a bit less than 4000 years ago before depositing their linguistic legacy in what’s now Europe.
Shyne-ing in Jerusalem: How One Rapper Saw the Light and Moved to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
Doing his time for firing that pistol in the nightclub with Puff Daddy and J. Lo a dozen years ago, the rapper known as Shyne experienced a jailhouse religious awakening. The faith he says changed his life involved embracing his …
Revolt in China: After Protests, a Village Gets Blockaded by Local Authorities
In the southeastern Chinese province of Guangdong, a village is under revolt. Residents of Wukan, population 20,000, have been protesting the sale of their lands by local officials for months. The dispute escalated after the …
As the Crisis Refuses to Calm, Scenarios of Euro Collapse Appear
Despite the distracting political drama over the UK’s outlier rejection at last week’s European Union agreement on fiscal and budgetary coordination, it’s now become clear that main objective of the collective effort–to ensure …
Noriega’s Back, but Panama Has Yet to Escape Its Banana-Republic Past
Panamanians are doing their best to register indifference to the return of Manuel Noriega. The 77-year-old former military dictator, drug-trafficking convict and all-around banana-republic creep, who’s been rotting behind bars …
Can A French Sports Star Change China’s Soccer Fortunes?
Chinese online-gaming mogul Zhu Jun is used to winning big. After all, he made his fortune in part by being the first to nab China distribution rights for the World of Warcraft franchise. But the soccer team that he bought with …
After Falling Out with Europe, U.K.’s Cameron Faces Fallout at Home
“Ou est Nick Clegg?” cried one Labour MP, quite possibly demonstrating the beginning and end of his French language skills. His colleagues contented themselves with shouting the question in English. It didn’t need an interpreter …
How Not to Deal with Protesters: A Death in the West Bank
The weekend offered a hard lesson in the nature of what passes for calm between Israel and the Palestinians living in the territory its army watches over. It was a lesson in two parts, one exploding in the sandy soil of the Gaza …
Dominique de Villepin Enters Stage Right and Adds to Sarkozy’s Woes
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has yet to officially declare his imminent re-election campaign, but that hasn’t kept a teeming field of rivals from launching their own bids for the Elysée. That pack of presidential hopefuls …
Blood Money: Tsunami Recovery Funds Go to Japan’s Whaling Industry
They’re baaaaaaaccck. Whale hunting season kicked off in Japan last week as three ships set off with a security vessel on their annual pilgrimage to cull hundreds of minke and fin whales in Antarctic waters. And so begins the …
Tighter Sanctions On Iran: An Alternative to War — or a Road to War?
Pity President Barack Obama trying to stay off the slippery slope to war with Iran in an election year, while his challengers perform crowd-pleasing, spoken-word versions of Senator John McCain’s “Bomb Iran” adaptation of the …
Not So Great, Britain: After E.U. Summit, U.K. Drifts Toward Isolationism
“Mommy, daddy, where were you when Britain left Europe?” David Cameron’s deployment in the early hours of Dec. 9 of the British veto over a Franco-German plan to save the euro will be seen as a pivotal moment by future …
Deadly Kolkata Hospital Fire Shocks Nation, Kills At Least 89
A massive fire at a private nursing home in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata killed at least 89 people in the early hours of Friday morning, and before the embers had cooled the finger-pointing had already begun.