Worldcrunch
BERLIN — When the European parliament meets, each delegate gets a 304-euro daily stipend for participating. In Germany, this is unheard of in both federal and state parliaments. And Green delegate Sven Giegold believes that the European Parliament should dispense with the payments. “A per diem of 304 euros is absurd,” the German delegate says. […]
An orangutang at the Berlin zoo. Photo: achschav via Instagram Animal welfare groups and German zoos have been working together to fix minimum standards for the keeping of animals. An assessment, a kind of catalogue, launched earlier this month is meant to be the definitive reference point for German zoos both large and small, game […]
Below are some of the songs currently topping charts around the world. But first … Worldcrunch Pick The Rumours turned out to be true: Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac’s keyboardist and singer who quit the band in 1998, announced at the Ivor Novello songwriting awards that she has rejoined as a permanent member. Not second-hand news, […]
Continuing our discovery of Thailand’s inland wonders, we spent some time in Chiang Rai, where we watched local artisans make and decorate plates, bowls and vases in a traditional way.
Iran’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli is blaming drug addiction for just over half of all divorces in Iran, warning that “youth addiction to drugs” is growing, the official IRNA agency reports. “The judiciary has declared that the reason for 55% of divorces is one partner being addicted to drugs,” the minister told a Tehran conference […]
BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s parliament is set to debate a bill to ban plastic surgery for anyone under the age of 18, in response to reports of its increasing popularity among teens in one of the continent’s more image-conscious countries. The bill, initially presented in March, is ready for debate in the lower house of […]
Token tough questions are drowned out by heaps of praise for the general-turned-presidential candidate, and even some Hosni Mubarak nostalgia.
BEIJING — With a generous chin and a rich voice, the German vice president of Wanda Hotels & Resorts also speaks fluent Chinese. Ilja Poepper is one of several top foreign managers of Wanda — a Chinese conglomerate with various interests, including commercial properties, entertainment and hotels — who were specially recruited over the past […]
Many Syrian children are forced to leave school and work as child laborers for employers who ofter mistreat them. New statistics shows a 30% drop in school attendance since the war began.
With more than 300 dead, survivors of last week’s Soma mine disaster in Turkey say their gas masks were useless. Turns out they were 20-year-old dirt cheap models. All apparently legal.
German artist Ignacio Uriarte knows all about the tedium of life as a 9-to-5 employee, which he ditched to create art riffing on the subject. Süddeutsche Zeitung sat down with him.
Reports of the Thai army taking control in a military coup come as a growing number of activists are openly challenging the country’s long-reigning King Bhumibol.
Between the 1950s and the 1970s, we witnessed how Spain’s Costa Brava gradually lost some of its charm. Such picturesque sights as this ropemaker are impossible to find nowadays.
First established in Colombia, kangaroo care for underweight babies relies on constant mother-child contact and avoids costs and complications of incubators that rarely arrive in Africa.
Information technology was supposed to usher in a new borderless utopia, but instead new walls are reappearing.
The Chinese-born fashion designer creates clothes that react to light, sound, even a passing glance. What would Lady Gaga think?
Newsmaking images that caught our eye.
During our 2001 cruise on the Volga, we got to see some of the many faces of Russia, including the famously melancholic tunes that Slavic music is famous for. It’s a pity the photograph doesn’t allow you to hear the tear-jerking balalaikas and accordions.
Last week’s anti-Chinese protests led to vandalism of Chinese and Taiwanese factories, causing casualties and property damage. But Vietnam could wind up the worst victim in the long run.
BETHLEHEM — Venetian larches, Turkish oaks, German lead, and 1,500-year-old nails: These are the base materials that a group of 30 Tuscan engineers, architects and archeologists are using to restore the Church of the Nativity for the first time in 600 years. Originally built in the 6th century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the church is […]
ARMENIS — Much to the delight of the residents of Armenis, a small village in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains, 17 bison were released into a local acclimation enclosure Saturday. The operation, carried out by the WWF and Rewilding Europe, is part of an international effort to restore the emblematic animal in the region, more than […]
More than 300 dead in last week’s mining disaster in Soma, rage from the people, and utter insensitivity from an Erdogan government interested only in its own fate.
BEIJING — Before 2000, public space in China dedicated exclusively to young people was basically non-existent. Rock-loving youngsters, for example, had nowhere to go except for a few small, dark bars. Woodstock represented an unattainable dream. But times have changed since then. First the Midi Music Festival, one of China’s largest rock music festivals, was […]
Taking a sizable stake in Deutsche Bank, Qatari investors are once again showing a strategy that is single-minded by definition.
BOGOTA – Even if the buses in the Colombian capital ran on time, you’d never know. A Bogotá city councilman recently confirmed that hundreds of clocks on its metro-bus network platforms were no longer working. Turns out, most stopped working at least five years ago – and counting! Councilman Hosman Martínez complained that 406 electronic […]
Tunisia’s economy was flourishing in 1970, a time when the country was opening itself up to tourism. This was particularly clear in Sfax, the country’s second city, a large portion of which had been destroyed during World War II.
Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua offer vivid proof of the ravages that narco-trafficking inflicts on the environment, from clandestine landing strips to roads built to transport illegal drugs.
A sit-down with a top Ukrainian defense official, who lays bare the realities on the ground in the embattled country and draws clearly the lines that will not be crossed
Such are the results of a recent study in Germany, which knows a thing or two about automobiles.
Remember the story of Pablo Escobar’s hippos running wild in Colombia a few weeks ago? Although the late King of Cocaine’s half-wild hippos may be damaging farms and the environment in this southern region, it seems some locals are growing fond of them. Officials have warned people living near the Hacienda Nápoles park to avoid […]
Leaders in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil refuse to face the reality that the days of easy money are over, and the time is now for real reform.
Unless I have a good reason for it, I don’t usually ask people to take pictures of me. Five years after this shot in Brazil, my wife Claudine and I would again cross paths with the Tropic of Capricorn, on a different continent.
KARACHI — It’s time for the evening prayer at the Edhi Shelter Home in Karachi, Pakistan. For nine-year-old Rehmatullah Khan, it’s a reminder of a painful childhood past. His parents sent him to an Islamic boarding school in the northwestern city of Quetta when he was just three. “At seminary, my teacher would beat me and the other students,” he recalls. “The teacher would beat us for not memorizing the lessons or making a noise. He sometimes hit us with sticks and would punch me when the other students told him it was me making noise in the classroom.” After […]
Like brain cells, those of the heart were long thought unable to regenerate. Science is showing this to be false, though applying treatment accordingly is still in its infancy.
In the often tough multi-ethnic neighborhoods on the periphery of French cities, the Catholic youth organizations offer a way out.
Old battles are renewed in the May 25 vote to be Ukraine’s next president. But the first order of business is to make sure the ballot takes place.
The Fujian Tulous, mysterious circular Chinese buildings, were named a World Heritage site in 2008. It has raised both investments and fears.
CAIRO — The barbed wire blocking the road is the only indication of the whereabouts of presidential hopeful Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s campaign headquarters, located in the posh Al-Showaifat area in Cairo’s northern Fifth Settlement suburb. After many failed attempts to reach campaign officials, Mada Masr’s brief visit to al-Sisi’s campaign headquarters yielded no better results. […]
Quotes that made news, news that made quotes…
Lower visibility, a falling ruble and rising inflation: The Ukrainian crisis is taking its toll on the Russian economy.