The inside story of the Syrian army photographer assigned to log images of the victims of torture. One day, he’d seen enough, and joined the opposition – photos in hand.
Month: January 2014
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: Earlier this month, Legacy Recordings released “Elvis, The Movie Soundtracks,” a box set of not 2, 3 or 5 albums, but 20 complete CDs compiling the King’s best movie songs. Between 1956 and 1969, Elvis played in […]
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Taking A Break On The Grand Canal
Venice … Dove la terra gira intorno al mare, as they say there — “where the earth revolves around the sea.” En route to Greece, we drove from France in our Peugeot 404, which we had to leave outside the Venetian lagoon before taking a vaporetto, the local waterbus. It’s cheaper than renting a gondola […]
KIEV — “Dude, are you drunk? Get out of here!” says Evgeni Dudchenko, a pro-EU protester who works security for the so-called Euromaidan movement, named for the square where the dissidents gather. He checks out everyone who wants to enter the demonstration area. “If someone is drunk, he’s out of here. Alcohol is forbidden here, […]
DAR ES SALAAM — Tanzania has a lot to offer: safaris, mountains, tropical islands. But hardly anyone knows about Dar es Salaam. The country’s largest city offers not only culture but also beautiful beaches. In the early evening, before the tropical night sinks into the Indian Ocean’s deep blackness, the beach at the Oyster Bay […]
China tries to come to terms with its not-so-distant past.
MUNICH – After soccer star Robert Enke took his own life in November 2009, public dismay at the news was considerable. At a memorial service in the Marktkirche church the next day, followed by a funeral march in Hannover attended by some 35,000 people, fans were out in force for the German national soccer team’s […]
A heinous mob killing in Italy, an abusive nurse in France and a bad idea at the Arc de Triomphe made our latest global police blotter…
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French Infidelity And The Internet
A website created by and for women to arrange discrete extra-marital escapades has attracted 800,000 users in France. Another tale of French sexual morals, now with a digital twist.
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Albanian Newlywed Drama
Getting married is hard work. This Albanian couple was taking a break from their wedding photo shoot in the ancient Roman theater of Butrint. Located in the very southern tip of modern-day Albania, this archeological site was known as Bouthroton in Ancient Greece and later as the Roman city of Buthrotum. This is one of […]
Like others around the world, Iranians have watched the evening news’ bloody scenes of civilians targeted by terrorists in places like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. But now, the BBC’s Persian-language channel is reporting on growing concerns among Iranian officials about the threat of Al-Qaeda-type terrorism on their own territory. Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani recently […]
TEL AVIV – New research from Ben-Gurion University found that 91% of those working in human resources in Israel are women. It is data that largely conforms to recruiting and personnel departments around the developed world. According to the figures released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in the UK, 72% of […]
Khaled’s family is one of the 190 from Syria that have recently moved to poor and isolated Gaza. Doors elsewhere for refugees are closing, especially to the Palestinian minority fleeing Syria.
French hotelier Alain Auneveux moved to Buenos Aires eight years ago and is utterly enchanted by the Argentine capital, which some have called the Paris of Latin America.
Philosophers debate the meaning and sincerity of social network friendships, finding affirmation or disagreement from the words of long-dead forebears. Because there’s no app for that.
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Andalusian Graffiti
“The electoral campaign is like selling detergent,” reads this graffiti just one month after the first general election held in Spain since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
BEIJING — When he was 17, Zhao Bowen was a bored student who made an audacious decision. In a country where the cult of diplomas knows no boundaries, he quit school and decided not to take the exam that would have allowed him university entry. “All that fuss just to learn things that you can […]
As overnight clashes in Kiev leave at least two dead, the Russian daily reports that the violence is being fed by nationalist groups that advocate open revolution.
BANGUI — The motorbike stops abruptly. “If the French don’t want to help us, al-Qaeda will,” the teenager shouts before driving away. All around him, this road of the Begoua neighborhood in north Bangui — the Central African Republic’s capital — is covered in bundles full of the belongings of hundreds of people waiting to […]
BERLIN — According to a popular German carnival song, “fat girls have pretty names.” Perhaps, but what’s abundantly clear is that heavier models have much prettier faces than their gaunt, undernourished counterparts. Any visitor to last week’s Curvy is Sexy expo in Berlin could see that. During the simultanous Fashion Week, stressed-out, expressionless stick models, […]
Gay rights activists condemn the accusations from the man once responsible for the safety of the Pope as the “worst stereotypes” that homosexuals have long been subject to.
China’s notorious re-education-through-labor system, abbreviated as laojiao in Chinese, has come into the spotlight with the recent reform announcement by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The system was born out of the “Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries” and the “Anti-Rightist Movement” of the Mao era. It was designed to eradicate opposition elements after […]
Longer life expectancy is changing the demographics of our politicians. Wiser and less worried about reelection, the elderly are bound to make better leaders in our fast-moving society.
The comparisons to the present are striking: a 1830s Swiss banker who helped launch the newly formed nation of Greece on the back of credit it could never pay back.
SAO PAULO — With the arrival of the summer season and hot temperatures in South America, a new revolution has begun in the Brazilian workplace — for the right to wear bermuda shorts at the office. Author and fashion consultant Gloria Kalil calls the would-be movement this season’s “sensation.” To encourage and convince directors and […]
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My Grand-Pere’s World
For more than half a century, my grandfather has spent every spare moment exploring the world, and photographing his journey. 80 countries. 20,000 high-quality, old-fashioned slides. Now each day, thanks to our digital world (and with a little help from his grandson!) he can share those places and faces and memories of a life well-traveled. […]
Ceyda Sungur became the symbol of the Gezi Park protests that shook Turkey because of photograph of a police officer spraying her with gas. That officer now has an unlikely defender.
TOKYO — The mackerel comes from Iceland, the salmon from Norway or Chile, and the king crab is from Russia. Less than half of the 2,000 tons of fish and seafood that passes through Tsukiji Market is caught in Japanese nets. The world’s largest fish market is a bustling trading center, with its early-morning auctions […]
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Will Iran Be At Geneva 2?
Iranian officials have spent plenty of time recently in Geneva to negotiate a deal with the West on its nuclear program. The next pressing question is whether Iran will be back in the Swiss city for the so-called Geneva 2 conference to discuss ways to try to end to Syria’s civil war. Officials in Tehran […]
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Smoking Bans In Saudi
Ten of thousands of Saudis die every year from smoking-related causes, and the government is taking notice. A public awareness campaign alongside heavily increased tariffs is working to discourage the purchase of cigarettes. Some of these ads – as well as some homemade additions – are showing up on twitter under the hashtag “#smoking in […]
A new study says some 90 percent of investments by China’s businesses in American operations don’t succeed. Chinese experts explain.
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Smog On The Water
Sometimes photo slides don’t age too well, colors can fade a bit — but in this shot, taken less than 20 years ago, that is all pollution, as smog fills the Yangtze River Delta.
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Befriending Bedouins In Sunny Syria
We stop for a moment by the side of the road, 40 kilometers from Aleppo, and enjoy a chat with local Bedouins — intrigued by our French car, with which we drove… from France!
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UK’s Risk Of Double-Dip Secession
It’s not recession, but secession that’s worrying many: Scotland will vote on independence from the UK, while Britain’s own potential exit from the EU could stunt an economic rebound.
PARIS — After he was in a car accident, Serge Fortuna was left with an infected wound that wouldn’t heal. When his doctors started talking about amputation, he refused and decided to try something else: a trip to the Republic of Georgia for phagotherapy, a treatment that uses specific bacteria-fighting viruses to heal antibiotic-resistant infections. […]
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Tough Labor For Syria’s Refugee Students
GAZIANTEP — Syrian university students unable to complete their degrees due to the country’s ongoing conflict and displaced to Turkey are now jobless, or scraping by as day laborers. Fares, a 29-year-old from Kfar Nabal in the Idlib province, was studying for his final university exams when the security situation in the country made traveling to campus impossible. After years in medical school, he had just completed his training at the Ibn Rashed Hospital in Aleppo. He planned to specialize in the cardiovascular system, but was forced to drop those plans when it became impossible to travel to Aleppo for […]
Times are tough for corrupt officials who have long counted on cashing in when the Chinese New Year festival arrives.
A Washington D.C. jury has convicted a 49-year-old German man of killing his 91-year-old wife in their home in the capital’s posh Georgetown neighborhood.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: This year’s Sundance Film Festival (Utah), which runs through January 26, will feature the new documentary “20,000 Days on Earth,” by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. The film focuses on the ever fascinating Australian musician Nick Cave, […]
Just three years after wave of democracy, Egyptians appear ready to trade in freedom in order to have more stability. Is Cairo set to usher in a new era of pure military rule?