Driving back from Switzerland to Montbéliard, where I’m from, you have to go through “heaven” — Le Paradis being the name of an isolated Swiss farm.
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Next Turn, Paradise
Month: June 2014
Presidential guards in Tunis take five during a cabinet meeting at Bardo Palace.
Juliano Alves Pinto hadn’t walked since a 2006 car accident. Then, just a few days ago, the world watched as he wore a mind-controlled exoskeleton to make the opening kick of the World Cup in Brazil.
The online world’s big data and nanosecond velocity means we are losing control of the machines we’ve built ourselves. How can we avoid becoming victims of our own intelligence?
MOSCOW — According to a recent poll, the number of Russian citizens who would be prepared to vote for President Vladimir Putin if he were up for reelection now has been increasing every month since Russia annexed Crimea. In April, his approval rating was 62%, in May it increased to 73%. At the beginning of […]
MUNICH — At a simple café near the main street, a group of mountain bikers comes in, and they’re thirsty. “What kinds of beer do you have?” one of them asks the server. He starts reciting: Amber Ale. India Pale Ale. Summer Ale. White Ale. Porter. Stout. Then he adds Lager — a little sheepishly, […]
Compared to ancient times, the world is a relatively peaceful place right now. Strangely, this has begun to push economists to study the historical costs and returns of war.
Sure to be the leading candidate in August’s first-ever direct election of Turkey’s president, the current prime minister is touring Europe to woo Turks living abroad. Not all are convinced.
Below are some of the songs currently topping charts around the world. Worldcrunch Pick It’s music festival season and last weekend saw a heavy lineup at the Isle of Wight, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon and Biffy Clyro. On Saturday, the Specials performed their classic “Ghost Town” as night was settling in: […]
Mexico seems to be returning to more regulations, paperwork and taxes, which fuels the underground economy and encourages the government to overspend.
Newsmaking images that caught our eye.
A look at the rapidly evolving experimental electronic music scene in Cairo.
-Commentary- BEIJING — Seeing a strategic opportunity to dilute the global monopoly of the three major credit rating agencies, China and Russia recently announced plans to establish a joint credit rating agency. The idea is that it would evaluate Sino-Russian cooperation projects, then eventually enter the international market. But there is a deep divide between […]
The digital economy promised to create markets that were fluid by definition. But even in the so-called “sharing” economy of mobile applications, there are bound to be winners and losers.
As Islamists gain ground in Iraq and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeals for help, the U.S. says it will only help if he first resigns. But it’s not the only reason why his regime may fall.
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Hoping It Won’t Rain
The sale of natural sponges from the Aegaen Sea has become highly regulated, meaning that sights like these must be pretty rare nowadays.
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Strange Rocks International
From the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland to Arizona’s Grand Canyon, we’ve seen our fair share of geologic wonders over the years. These fairy chimneys in Turkey’s Central Anatolia region are more modest, but still as baffling as the rest.
PALERMO — It’s a genetic test, but no body parts or blood are being analyzed — it’s bottles of wine instead. A team of researchers have developed a system they say will revolutionize the concept of traceability used in proving the origins of agricultural products: in this case, the vine, the quality of yeast used […]
PALAWAN — For 25 years, Filipino lawyer Gerthie Mayo-Anda has tirelessly campaigned for better legal protection of the environment. Often called a forest hero, in the 1990s she established the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC) to halt environmental destruction through court. “I thought it was important to establish a public interest environmental law group where my knowledge and skills as a lawyer can be utilized to help the poor and marginalized communities,” she says. Her group has filed dozens of cases against illegal logging, fishing and mining. “For now, the most difficult field is mining and coal because the parties […]
The growing tendency to say ‘there is no just war’ is just a way to keep one’s hands clean, while leaving it to others to pay the consequences for your freedom. A view from Germany.
VILLA CARLOS PAZ — In 2005, Damián Guzmán, a resident of Villa Carlos Paz, in central Argentina, gave his son Miguel a present: a German shepherd mix they named Capitán. Miguel died a year later and was buried nearby, and Capitán left the house soon afterwards. The family assumed the dog was lost or that […]
The Saudi Embassy in Tokyo is closely following the case of a Saudi citizen studying in the country, recently arrested for breaking four 300 year-old Buddha statues at a temple in the capital. The embassy has reportedly condemned the statues’ destruction as “contrary to the principles of Islam,” and has reached out to the temple’s […]
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A Challenger For Erdogan
The main opposition parties have chosen Edmeleddin Ihsanoglu to run against Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Aug. 10 presidential election. A summer campaign is about to heat up.
Another twist on the geopolitical and economic chessboard. As relations sour with Russia over Ukraine, Europe looks at an increasingly accessible Iran. But it’s not so simple.
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Buffaloes And Burials
Funeral proceedings for the Toraja people, in southern Sulawesi, include the slaughtering of a water buffalo. Four of them were killed in this case — a sign we were told that the deceased must have been from a wealthy family. Weirdly enough, the ritual throat-slitting and skinning of the bovid was followed by a Protestant […]
A Latin American call for the global soccer chief to step aside amidst ongoing corruption investigations. Yet even a Blatter-less FIFA would still have a long road to rectitude.
-Analysis- SHANGHAI — The evolution of megacities is a common worry in various countries: Beijing and Shanghai in China, Seoul in South Korea and Mumbai in India all are concerned about how to manage skyrocketing urban populations. But while other countries typically regard population expansion as the result of economic development, and base their future […]
NAKHON PATHOM — Why did the thousands ducks cross the road? Drivers and pedestrians in Nakhon Pathom, in the central Bang Len district, were trying to find an explanation to the stampeding, quacking duck-nami that took them by surprise Saturday. It is captured below on the video below that will strike true fear in anyone […]
The abduction of three young Israelis unfolded across the Internet, even as newspapers in Israel were barred from reporting it. What does social media mean for both democracy and security?
There is growing evidence that different species of animals can actually become what we humans think of as ‘friends.’ This is science, not Walt Disney…
The ISIS assault in Iraq is spectacular proof that the U.S. has failed in the Middle East. It’s time for a return to power politics and a bloc of former enemies to take on the extremists.
Some German companies that used concentration camp victims as forced labor during World War II took decades to own up to their wretched acquiescence to the Hitler regime.
BOGOTA — Blame it on Rio. Colombia officials arrested one of the country’s most sought-after leftist rebels after noticing an enormous satellite dish he had installed on his jungle hideout so he could watch the World Cup, Spanish news agency EFE and Colombian media reported. No civil war was going to deprive the 15-year veteran […]
BEIJING — Earlier this month, in the central Hunan province, the family of a cancer patient beat up the attending doctor and a pregnant nurse because they had been unable to save the patient’s life. The nurse nearly had a miscarriage afterwards, while the hospital ward facilities were badly damaged. On June 5, the Chinese […]
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Vintage Vehicles
Our brand new Citroën BX may look like an antique to you now, but it was definitely more comfortable than a donkey to visit the dry but picturesque rural Alentejo region, in central Portugal.
The Islamist radical group’s conquests in Iraq could help it take control of parts of eastern and northern Syria it had been forced to abandon.
Argentina and Uruguay have the highest collective ages in the tournament. In Africa, youth is treasured. Experience? Energy? A demographic snapshot of Brazil 2014.
The Arab Spring is now but a tiny trickle, as the new Egyptian government jails not just the Brotherhood but activists of any kind. Those still standing continue, despite the poor odds.
BEIJING — With President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that the United States will remove all military forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2016, American foreign policy is preparing to turn a page full of blood and tears. But this also may mark the beginning of another era: when China will play a prominent role […]
BERLIN — Peter Seher sits on his balcony in Berlin-Wilmersdorf enjoying the late afternoon sun. He looks at the large puddles of water beneath his feet. It was nice and warm today, so after work the stockbroker set up a little wading pool on the balcony for his young daughter Hanna. “She really got going […]