China and the US have agreed to co-ordinate their response to any “potential provocation” if North Korea goes ahead with a planned rocket launch.
Month: March 2012
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade says he has kept his promise by conceding defeat just hours after results showed his opponent Macky Sall winning, in one of few established democracies in western Africa.
Mohammed Melah invoked Islamic jihad in the killings of three French soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Muslims in France, who comprise some 8% of the country’s population, are worried about a major backlas
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s conservative Fidesz and KDNP parties are using a two-thirds majority in Parliament to govern at will. After new controls over the media, the government wants new regulations over religious gro
International organized crime networks earn billions of dollars every year from illegal logging. A new World Bank report suggests that if authorities really want to save the forests, they should follow the money.
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Will China’s Economy Burst, Japan-Style?
Some nervous observers in China are seeing too many similarities between the current state of the Chinese economy and what happened to Japan in the 1990s. For starters, the super-rich are cranking up real estate values, and the middle class is paying the
Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Mexico, one of the world’s most Catholic countries. But other religions are gaining ground, especially in the state of Chiapas, where even Islam has made inroads. Adopting a different religion, however, can be ris
Is it OK for doctors to remove the organs of people who are brain dead but whose bodies still function metabolically? The German National Ethics Council grappled with the issue this week. One panelist supported the practice, saying the brain dead &quo
How did French intelligence track down Mohammed Merah, the presumed responsible for last week’s slayings in and around Toulouse? Agency director Bernard Squarcini walks Le Monde through two years of surveillance and shares some of Merah’
Coroners report that pop legend Houston died from accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub after taking cocaine.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon says police had no grounds on which to arrest gunman Mohammed Merah before he carried out three attacks in which seven people died.
EU foreign ministers have imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on the UK-born wife of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and other family members. Asma al-Assad is among 12 people added to the sanctions list, which already includes her husband.
In late 2010, the art world was stunned when retired French electrician Pierre Le Guennec made it known that they were in possession of no fewer than 271 previously unseen Picassos. Digging deep, Le Monde finds connections directly to the master himself.
In 1998 when Pope John Paul II made a historic trip to Havana, Vatican diplomacy was on full display. Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Cuba, after a visit to Mexico, reminds us that the influence of the Catholic Church is based above all on its vas
Analysis: Bashar al-Assad has benefited from Russian and Chinese support to stay in power. But from neighboring Turkey, where many top Syrian exiles are based, one observer says the splintering of the opposition may be the real force to ensure Assad&#
Vladimir Putin rival Prokhorov is keen to launch a new political party. Consolidating support from the recent election, in which he finished an impressive third, the businessman billionaire is first going straight to the people to help him find a name for
In Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s most conservative province, billboards showing women are regularly torn down and music shops have been repeatedly bombed. So how is it that under the noses of Islamist forces, adult movie houses continue to flou
Op-Ed: The bloodshed in Toulouse is sure to affect France’s presidential campaign. Predictably, the far-right’s Marine Le Pen is already using the terrorist killings to stir anti-immigrant sentiment. It’s a trap that Sarkozy and the other candida
Essay: There are cultural explanations for why that man next to you on the Shanghai subway has his finger in his ear, or his shirt sticking out. Some, however, are ready for grooming and good looks to become as important for Chinese men as a good job and
Not wanting to risk the wrath of unhappy neighbors, New York’s Guggenheim Foundation has decided against setting up a “mobile laboratory” in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. The lab, a joint project with BMW, is currently on a tour of major world capitals.
A Marine sergeant who started an openly anti-Obama Facebook group is facing possible dismissal from the Corps.
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Gunman dead as French standoff ends
Mohammed Merah, the man suspected of killing seven people in southern France has died during police assault, after 32 hour-long standoff in Toulouse.
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Renegade soldiers seize power in Mali
Mutinous soldiers are looting the presidential palace in Bamako, hours after ousting Mali’s president Amadou Toumani Toure and imposing a nationwide curfew.
Long appreciated in the U.S. as an icon of Italian style, the vespa scooter is now making real inroads into the American mainstream. Last year, it became the top-selling European two-wheeler in the States, with more than 5,300 units sold.
Belachew Girma is the World Laughter Champion. The man, who can laugh for more than 3 hours non-stop, has just opened Ethiopia’s first laughter school where they teach that cackling away is the best medicine for life’s ills. Girma should
Former Turin mayoral candidate Alberto Musy was shot multiple times by a man wearing a black motorcycle helmet who was waiting for him in the stairwell of his apartment building.
French police are negotiating with a man suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in southwestern France.
With a decisive win in the Illinois presidential primary, Romney sets his sights on Louisiana where he hopes to impress in a southern state.
Former Turin mayoral candidate Alberto Musy was shot multiple times by a man wearing a motorcycle helmet who was waiting for him in the stairwell of his apartment building.
Investment bankers are often young men with too much testosterone. To add a bit of rationality to the global financial system, maybe it’s time banking giants like Goldman Sachs bring on more women and older men.
Climate change is wreaking havoc on Greenland’s sensitive ecosystems. But it is also giving miners and energy explorers easier access to the Arctic island’s valuable natural resources. Greenland is thought to be particularly rich in “rare earth” minerals.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is the daughter of a Protestant pastor. Germany’s new president, Joachim Gauck, is an ordained minister. Coincidence? Overall, Protestantism in on the decline Germany – with one notable exception: politics.
For those firms looking to cash in on the booming Chinese economy, there are as many recent tales of failure and retreat, as those of runaway success. Certain patterns have begun to emerge, both universal and China-specific lessons to be learned.
A spate of car bombings has rocked Iraq, killing at least 41 people and wounding 190, on the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and days before the nation hosts a meeting of Arab leaders.
One of the biggest manhunts in recent French history is under way after four people were shot dead at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
At least 14 children are feared dead after a school bus carrying them fell into a canal in Khammam district of Andra Pradesh in India.
A campaign that was focused on economic struggles and personality comparisons may suddenly shift to the topic of crime and security, which could benefit President Nicolas Sarkozy. There are echoes of the campaign of 2002, marked by a brutal shooting just
Samar Badawi was one of several women just honored at the International Women of Courage Awards. But her personal courage has been displayed in her native Saudi Arabia, potentially the most misogynist country in the world.
Sportsmanship is next to godliness, or so the Vatican thought when it helped launch a soccer league in Rome made up of teams of seminarians. Competition quickly became fierce, and eventually too fierce for the Vatican to be a part of.
The next Copt patriarch will have big shoes to fill: not only will he be succeeding to an immensely popular pope, considered by many as a pacifier and protector, but his political role, in a context of Islamic radicalism, will be closely monitored.