Worldcrunch
Desperate for all the help they can get, backers of French President Nicolas Sarkozy are welcoming a recent show of support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Sarkozy is trailing his socialist rival, François Hollande, ahead of France’s May election.
In the swinging 70s, the long-locked “German Hair Force” was a major source of embarrassment for the country’s military leaders. Forty years later, the German Armed Forces are once again struggling with image issues, this time related to tattoos and pierc
In the face of both economic and identity crises in Europe, Italy’s leading public intellectual pleads for more human exchanges across borders, to go beyond Erasmus university students, who in any case, are beginning to get together to breed a ne
Five things to watch in Florida: Newt Gingrich hopes to hang on as Mitt Romney appears to be pulling ahead in the polls.
Dozens of people are killed in clashes between Pakistani soldiers and militants in the northwest region, casting further doubts on exploratory peace talks with the rebels.
Eurostat agency reports jobless rate in the 17 countries that use the single currency at 10.4% in December. Some 16.5 million people were out of work in the euro zone in December, up 751,000 on the year before.
Slavery and states’ rights are what most say sparked the Civil War. Now a German scholar cites “youth bulge” demographic theory, which ascribes outbreaks of violence to the preponderance of young men in society.
Mani, a photojournalist with Le Monde, was in Homs, Syria on Jan. 26 when he finds out about a massacre of a local family. Rebels lead him past enemy territory to see the bodies of the victims, including several young children. This is his account.
Ciccolella is an Italian family business that leads Europe’s flower market. In 2004, the company forged a unique partnership with Edison, to use hot-water runoff from a new power plant to heat its green houses. Now more expansion — and innovatio
In the early 20th century, European migrants headed in droves to Latin America in search of work and to escape wars and poverty. A century later, the ongoing euro zone crisis is prompting a new generation of Europeans to set out across the Atlantic.
The 71-year-old Brazilian soccer icon is an ambassador for both his sport and his booming homeland. Those two hats are set to blend into one with the next World Cup slated for Brazil in two years. In the meantime, he’s also glad to talk about &am
The U.N. Security Council will take up a draft resolution this week that calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down and transfer power.
Oakland City Hall is set to reopen after municipal employees worked to clean up damage they said was caused over the weekend by Occupy protesters, about 400 of whom have been arrested following clashes with police in this Northern California city.
European shares are falling, dragged down by banks after Greece and its private creditors failed to come up with an agreement on a debt swap before the start of a European summit focused on growth and the region’s debt crisis.
Two decades after its own civil war, Algeria was relatively calm as the revolutions of the past year rolled across most of its North Africa neighbors. But with legislative elections slated this spring, both pro-democracy and pro-Islamist parties are deman
Part military strategist, part philosopher-king, Frederick the Great ruled what is today the heart of Germany through nearly half of the 18th century. Exactly 300 years from his birth, one German writer takes an unflinching (and ironic) look at Frederick&
In a new book called “My Father, Kim Jong Il and Me,” Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi offers a rare glimpse into North Korea’s ultra-secret halls of power. The book is based on lengthy interviews and e-mails with Kim Jong Nam, the late Kim
Analysis: The sheer volume of producers, along with arcane systems of public oversight, means tainted food scandals are a regular affair in China. Beijing would be wise to look westward for business-driven systems of reducing food safety risks.
As the New Year vacation closes and presidential election nears, Russia’s attention is turning to the planned anti-Putin demonstration on Feb. 4. But with protesters spanning the spectrum from extreme left to Neo-Nazis, some wonder if opposition unity is
Analysis: Elections are scheduled this year in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Venezuela. In Mexico, the centrist PRI is favored to regain control of the government. In Venezuela, Chávez is looking to hang on to power – health permitting.
Some 500 people annually spend a night in Zurich’s so-called “Boozers’ Hotel,” a sober-up facility run by local police. City officials agree they need to keep the drunk tank operating, but debate over who should pay for
Zurich’s “2047 Crew” is believed to be using paint-filled fire extinguishers to reach higher and wider with their signature tags in the otherwise immaculate Swiss city. It is another sign of graffiti writers getting bolder – both in terms of tools and tar
With French stepping up enforcement, more and more prostitutes are commuting across the border to work in Switzerland, where the practice is state regulated. It is part of an ongoing migratory ebb and flow in Europe within the world’s oldest prof
Argentina could soon jump on the shale gas bandwagon. The South American country has one of the world’s most significant shale gas reserves. And its government has finally moved to make production more cost-effective. Investors are starting to line up.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says economy still faces big challenges to repair damage of financial crisis.
An explosives-packed car slams into a funeral procession in a Shiite neighborhood, the latest in a wave of attacks on Shiites across Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops last month.
Passengers on the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship are expected to receive a compensation lump sum of 11,000 euros each. Sixteen are confirmed dead, and 16 others still missing from the roughly 4,200 people aboard the cruise liner when it crashed.
More than ever before, the economic leaders gathered for this year’s annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos are turning their attention from finance to science – or at least recognizing how intimately the two are related.
By some accounts, private jet traffic around the Swiss mountain resort of Davos has doubled for this year’s edition of the World Economic Forum. Airport parking spots for lear jets are running out…just like the locals’ patience.
Israel is home to roughly 100,000 Falashas, black Jews of Ethiopian descent. They have no government representation and say they’re treated like second-class citizens. Led by a hitherto unknown man named Molat Araro, the Falashas are finally starting to s
In Milan’s principal wholesale fruit and vegetable market, shelves are empty due to an ongoing truckers strike in southern Italy. Truck drivers are livid over austerity measures being pushed through by Italy’s new reformist Prime Ministe
The Kirchners – first Néstor and then his wife, Cristina Fernández – have occupied Argentina’s Casa Rosada presidential palace since 2003. Could son Maximo, a rising political star, keep the family in power beyond 2016, when Cristina’s second term ends?
DEVELOPING – AP reporting that the Iranian President has declared his country’s readiness to negotiate with the West over Iran’s nuclear program.
At least 100 people have died after taking what officials suspect may have been tainted heart medicine in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.
Australian PM Julia Gillard and leader of the opposition Tony Abbott have been rescued by the police after becoming trapped by an angry mob of protesters in Canberra.
Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of the French firm that produced the faulty breast implants at the centre of a global health scare, has been arrested in the south of France.
Germany is Europe’s only country that has roared back to pre-crisis employment numbers. Still, the International Labor Organization accuses German exporters of being no less than the structural cause of the current euro zone problems.
The French Senate passed a controversial law this week that makes it a crime to deny that Armenians were victims of a Turkish genocide. Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan had angry words for France, but a closer look shows Ankara may have another st
With new no-nonsense Prime Minister Mario Monti committed to cracking down on tax evasion, La Stampa explores the time-honored (and cutting-edge) tricks that some Italian merchants use to duck requirements that all purchases are registered in official sal
Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” where he lays out his Aryan ideology, remains taboo in Germany. A British publisher’s plans to sell excerpts of the book at German newsstands was scuttled at the last minute after legal thre