“Warm, sexy and always a little different,” is how perfumer Alberto Morillas describes oud, a pricey oil made from agar wood and its resin. Used for centuries in Arab countries, the perfume ingredient is now also a hit in Europe. If you can afford it With ancient roots that cost more…
Demand For Sex : hidden in plain sight To guard their investment, super nightclub owners take their female employees’ passports and lock the doors of the hotel between 5 a.m. and 1 p.m. Lebanon — Twenty minutes north of Beirut, in the Christian heartland of Lebanon is Jounieh, the country’s little…
Cheap Money will Help European Banks But Not The People Boris Roessler / AFP / Getty Images A home-made euro sign is attached to the tip of a Christmas tree in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on December 21, 2011. Might the world be witnessing the first…
How the West became China’s willing servant Eurozone leaders have brought their begging bowl to China, looking for help in boosting their bailout fund. So what does this say about the shift in the global balance of power? In October 1911, China rose up in revolution. Four months later the last emperor had fallen and…
Knowledge clusters” are being built in France to kick start hi-tech industries In the United States, Europe and in rising powers such as China, there is a growth-hungry drive to invest in hi-tech research and innovation. They are looking for the ingredients that, like Google, will turn a university project into a corporation. They are…
Rosé On The Rise As More French Wine Drinkers Prefer Pink While red and white continue to be the most common colors for wine, pink is starting to gain ground. In France, the world’s leading producer of rosé wine, sales are up thanks to increases in both consumption and price. The…
Pascal Bruckner on America’s obsession with sex, and what it says about a nation with a Puritan past — and uncertain future. A few years ago, we were on a family beach vacation in Florida. After a swim, my two-year-old daughter took off her bathing suit. Suddenly, the summer visitors began looking…
All the world comes to Chungking (Cheung Fun) HONG KONG– Whoever has been to perennially pricey Hong Kong on a low budget has spent at least one night there: Chungking Mansions, “the world’s most globalized building,” offers rooms at unbeatable prices at 36-44 Nathan Road, right on the point of Tsim Sha Tsui,…
The Global Economic Crisis Has Only Just Begun After an ineffective weekend flurry of phone calls among world leaders, confidence in governments’ ability to react is eroding. And the uglier it gets, the more politicians will focus on their own skin rather than finding a common solution. Buckle up. MUNICH – This was the…
Europe’s Economic Gap Sparks New Internal Immigration, From Spain To Germany Spurred by soaring unemployment at home and Berlin’s active recruitment of skilled workers, young educated Spaniards are heading for Germany like southern Europeans last century. By Freia Peters Even though she’s lucky to have a job in Spain, Julia Casado Marco wonders if…