This week also marked the launch of HuffPost India. The WorldPost collaborated with the new international edition by cross-posting content for the common viewing of what Pawan Khera labels “the most connected diaspora: Indians.” Kailash Satyarthi writes about “a child friendly world being within our reach” on the same day he jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize with Malala in Oslo. India’s bestselling English language novelist,Chetan Bhagat, takes on the widespread attitude in conservative India that the way a woman dresses invites sexual harassment or assault. Shashi Tharoor, also one of India’s best known authors, as well as a top parliamentarian, breaks the taboo and talks about caste. WorldPost editorial board member and senior Indian journalist Dileep Padgaonkar wonders if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good fortune so far means “the Buddha is smiling on India.” Nayan Chanda praises Modi’s decision to settle disputes with Bangladesh as “historic.” Saroj Kumar Rath warns that “jobless jihadis” from Afghanistan may well turn their sights on India.
Urban planner Alykhan Mohamed brings India’s jarring juxtapositions into focus by examining Modi’s plan to build “smart cities” across the country, including in the holy city of Varanasi on the Ganges River, where LED sensors will detect pollution and cell towers will rise next to funeral pyres.Sanjay Sanghoee wonders whether Uber can reach its potential in India after a rape incident involving one of its drivers surfaces.
Moving to Europe, fallen Russian oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging war on European values and that sanctions are a mistake if the aim is to change that. Mikhail Gorbachev worries that “we may not survive through these years” of renewed conflict between Russia and the West. Former German Foreign Minister and Green leader Joschka Fischer hails Chancellor Angela Merkel’s stiff resistance to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. In an interview,Mathias Döpfner, who runs Germany’s powerhouse publishing group, Axel Springer SE, sees a threat to Europe from another direction: Google.
In a new collaboration this week with the Los Angeles Times, The WorldPost published three parts of a powerful four-part investigative report on the harshly exploitative conditions of workers on the mega-farms in Mexico that export vegetables to U.S. supermarkets.
Kofi Annan and Ernesto Zedillo call for a global carbon tax this week as U.N climate negotiators gather in Lima, Peru to prepare for a new treaty to supplant the Kyoto Accord. Arriving in Lima on the heels of an agreement with China, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says that “no single country” can deal with climate change on its own.
In a whimsical report, WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Joneschronicles in photos the adventures across Cairo’s cityscape of a man dressed in a Spider-Man outfit. In a more tragic report, she cites the U.N. refugee agency as saying that nearly 400,000 migrants attempted to cross the Mediterranean in 2014 in search of a better life in Europe. China Correspondent Matt Sheehan takes a look at the welcome mat Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, including at Facebook, laid out for Lu Wei, when China’s Internet czar visited there this week. He also created a timeline to document China’s biggest political takedowns since Mao. Writing from Shanghai, Han Zhu offers a mainlander’s perspective on the lessons of the Hong Kong “Occupy” movement.