Worldcrunch
OSLO – “This year’s nominations come from all over the world … well-known names, well-known presidents and prime ministers and also lesser well-known names…” Norwegian Nobel Committee’s non-voting secretary Geir Lundestad acknowledged the controversy sparked by recent numbers, as he announced the number (not names) of nominations for the Peace Prize, which will be awarded […]
Washington’s government shutdown forced President Barack Obama to miss the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. But even if this was cited as yet another harmful consequence of the sorry state of U.S. domestic politics, it may paradoxically wind up helping America exert its influence in the long run in Asia-Pacific regional affairs. At an […]
FRIEDLAND — “Germany is a country where rules matter,” declares Martin Steinberg. The pastor in this central German city is standing before a group of people who’ve just fled a country where the only rule that mattered was that of survival. “Here the most aggressive driver with the biggest car doesn’t automatically have the right […]
BISHKEK — Russia has reached a deal with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to provide military aid to the two Central Asian nations. Though the details are still being hammered out, Moscow appears to have netted a deal with potentially major geopolitical implications. “We have agreed with our colleagues regarding the delivery of weapons, […]
So-called “click farms” in India, beer in Germany and one very long flight are among the ways the world was quantified this past week. Take the tour of the news in numbers. (photo: David Bleasdale)
DHARAMSALA — After the Dalai Lama relinquished political power in 2011, increasing attention has turned to the head of Tibet’s government-in-exile Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay, in the hope of breaking a decades-long standoff with Beijing. And yet the situation remains grim, with some 120 Tibetans having set themselves ablaze over the past four years to […]
SILAH — The men entered by the window of Silah’s police station. There were maybe 60 of them, their unmasked faces easy to recognize since they all live in the small town. “Average citizens, aged between 18 and 45,” one policeman says. That mid-August day, these “average citizens” set about sacking the station, taking radio […]
ISIS CONTROLS ONE-THIRD OF KOBANIDespite airstrikes targeting ISIS fighters in and around the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, the jihadist group has seized more than one-third of the city, Reuters quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying. While Turkey’s inaction as the battle unfolds on its border has been heavily criticized, Turkish Foreign […]
PARIS — Are Nobel Prizes a wicked luxury? This year, like every year for more than a century, Scandinavian juries will honor researchers in physics, chemistry and medicine, an author, and a man or a woman who contributed to peace. The season will end with the presentation of the latest prize, created a little more […]
GIESSEN — It will make you crazy — the pyramid simply does not want to fit into the glass cube. Melih turns it again, this time just a little, and then sticks it in the open side of the cube again. No luck. He tries more forcefully, pressing down on the pyramid. But the fifth […]
PARIS – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose global ranking of schooling levels has become a reliable source of national pride and shame, has now set out to measure how different countries in the developed world stack up in adult skills. (Read this piece by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher, who has spearheaded both […]
ISTANBUL — Last month the Turkish government unveiled its so-called democratization package, which included everything from a lifting of a headscarf ban to new multilingual education and reform of the national electoral law. Now comes another legislative push, but this time it would include a series of measures to increase the authority of the police […]
CRISSIER — Not far from a highway turnoff near the Swiss city of Lausanne, there is a wooded enclave surrounded by a national forest. On a slice of these lands — around 70 acres of woods, agricultural fields and parks — the pupils of the Bois Genoud private school are enjoying themselves in complete freedom. […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2014 AIR STRIKES PUSH ISIS BACK ISIS fighters have withdrawn from areas they had earlier seized in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani after a series of strikes from the U.S.-led coalition, Kurdish officials in the town have said, echoing previous a previous report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. But […]
Orangutan activists, trespassing veterans and Chinese floods are among this week’s most striking photographs.
TEL AVIV — A record number of undergraduate students will get their degrees this year. But what awaits them isn’t pretty: job insecurity, bosses who are indifferent to what they studied, a shortage of jobs that match their education and talents, and big debts accumulated during their years at university. All of this suggests that […]
BEIJING — As a Shaolin Temple disciple since childhood, Shi Xingfeng, president of Bojing Security Agency, often has to remind himself to hide the heroic spirit that often glows from the eyes of martial arts masters. “It’s professional discipline,” Shi says. “You’ve got to learn to be an invisible bodyguard.” As a matter of fact, […]
LAMPEDUSA — Two brothers, both with the same dream: escaping the violence and chaos of Eritrea. One has already spent nine years living that dream; the other still hasn’t been rescued from the sea that swallowed him last Thursday. Desperation and grief are in the eyes and voice of Adel, who emigrated to Sweden nine […]
BUENOS AIRES – The announcement came this weekend that Argentine President Cristina Kirchner will be recuperating for at least the next month from a brain condition brought on by a head injury in August. While the news is shaking up the nation, it is also putting a veil across a potential political crisis for Argentina. […]
BELGRADE – Clean shaven, impeccably dressed in a dark suit and tie, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is back in business. On Sept. 17, France’s former Finance Minister and disgraced head of the International Monetary Fund officially accepted a post as economic adviser to the Serbian government. DSK’s hosts in Belgrade had a hard time hiding how proud […]
ISIS ADVANCES INTO KOBANIISIS fighters advanced into the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani overnight after a three-week siege and amid intense street fighting with the Kurds, and are now occupying southwestern neighborhoods, Reuters reports. Karwan Zebari, a representative of the Kurdish regional government, told the BBC that the town could fall into ISIS hands unless […]
-Editorial- Ten months after taking over the presidency of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto has found himself at a critical moment. His ambitious project to reform practically all Mexican institutions is meeting opposition from the right and the left, at a time when his popularity is beginning to wane. The right opposes his proposal to increase […]
ISIS ASSAULT OF KOBANI CONTINUESISIS fighters are gaining ground in Syria’s Kurdish town of Kobani, on Turkey’s border, forcing a wave of Kurdish civilians to try to cross into Turkey, where the police repeatedly used tear gas to disperse them and the press. Those who managed to cross the border told Guardian journalists stories of […]
PARIS — “Camille, watch out! Your hair!” Myriam calls to her 7-year-old daughter as she leans against the wall, temporarily crushing her blond ringlets, curled with an iron and hair-sprayed early in the morning. Though it’s Saturday, mother and daughter have woken early to leave their home in northern France by 8:30 a.m. They are […]
HOMS – This city in western Syria is nearing 500 days under siege, with no supply route in or out. Medical equipment and supplies are nearly impossible to find. There are no alternatives for the medicine, be it for chronic illness or for wounds sustained during daily shellings of the city. There are few medical personnel on the scene. In Old Homs, a critical wound becomes more terrifying than death itself. A doctor might need to amputate a limb to save a patient’s life. In more critical cases, the lack of medical facilities means the only option for patients is […]
Online business is booming in China. According to data from iResearch, an Internet market research firm, the current scale of China’s e-commerce is similar to that of the United States, at $206 billion. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group estimated that by 2020 China’s e-commerce market will exceed $1 trillion. What tangible effects […]
HAVANA — Though propaganda from the Cuban regime claims otherwise, the everyday reality for Cuban women does not involve fighting economic aggression from the United States. Instead, they struggle to provide basic necessities such as food and clothes for their families — and occasional luxuries such as cosmetics — sometimes having to pay with their […]
LAMPEDUSA — “Follow me,” said Jesus, “and I will make you fishers of men.” A disturbing parallel is evoked from this famous passage of the Gospel of Matthew, as nets tossed into the sea off the Italian island of Lampedusa fill up with the bodies of men… of women and children. After the latest tragic […]
BERLIN — Ritual circumcision for Muslim and Jewish boys remains legal in Germany. Germany’s legislative body, the Bundestag, decided as much last year in what was a win for the country’s religious minorities. But Muslim girls must participate in co-ed swim classes, according to a recent decision by Germany’s highest court on such matters — […]
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. (photo: Khaled – David Bascunana) Worldcrunch Pick: “Knock, knock. – Who’s there? – The. – The who? – Yes.” Our pick of the week is The Who’s “Quadrophenia.” Oct 19 will mark the 40th anniversary of the British band’s […]
TEL AVIV — “One of my mentors and a very dear Jewish friend once shared with me the meaning of the Hebrew words Tzdakah (“alms’) and Tikun Olam (“healing the world”)…” So began Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing, speaking in Tel Aviv recently, just before his Hong-Kong foundation signed a $130 million grant to the Technion, […]
MUMBAI — At the height of the Mumbai rush hour, boarding a train is about as easy as finding a comfortable position in a rugby scrum. On the overcrowded platform, those wearing glasses carefully tuck them away in their cases before taking a deep breath and pushing into the compact crowd of passengers until they […]
BASEL — Niklaus Blumer is an architect by training, and his partner Pascal Wirth is an economist. These two men from the Swiss city of Basel are the unlikely creators of Idilio Origins, a brand that specializes in pure, designated-origin Grand Cru chocolate. They tell of prospecting in Latin America in search of a cacao […]
The past week (Sep. 27-Oct. 3) witnessed a Madagascar mob, Brazilian motel mystery, the suprise end to a search in France, and other crimes and misdemeanors around the world. (photo: alvara_qc)
Since the opening-up of China, the hukou system — a household registration system that basically divides citizens into urban and rural categories — has come under increasing fire. As urban citizens enjoy a range of preferential public services such as free schooling and social security, migrant workers living in the same city but with rural […]
KEFLAVIK — The first thing that strikes you on landing at Keflavik International Airport is the weather. It’s raining. The clouds hang so low that it looks like you could reach out and touch them. Welcome to Iceland. A land mass covering 103,000 square kilometers, Iceland is a little larger than Hungary, but at 330,000 […]
ISTANBUL — A series of reports shows a growing number of recruitment campaigns to sign up young Turkish people to fight in the Syrian war — on all sides. The youth, generally ranging in age from 18 to 30, are mostly from the Adiyaman province in southeastern Turkey, though others come from a number of […]
AUSTRALIA APPROVES ANTI-ISIS STRIKESAustralia has become the latest country to join the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s cabinet approved Iraq strikes against the group, the BBC reports. The Turkish parliament also voted yesterday to send troops to Iraq and Syria, and to allow foreign forces to use its territory for operations. But […]
-Editorial- The fact that Dilma Rousseff decided to postpone her official visit to Washington, which had been planned for Oct. 23, has clearly illustrated that the United States’ decision to spy on the Brazilian president was not in the best interest of the United States. Washington has very little to gain from reading Rousseff’s emails […]
BENI — On a recent Friday, soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) were spending the morning helping civilians clean the road that leads to the new cemetery of this northeastern Congolese city. Here, AK-47s have been replaced by hoes, spades and rakes. Colonel Tito Bizuri, who is in charge […]