Worldcrunch
GENEVA — It used to be that friendships ended in all sorts of ways. But these days, we simply “unfriend” instead. From the playground to Facebook, the process has evolved. You put the cursor on the name of the person you want out of your life, you slide over to the “Friends” button, let the […]
Newsmaking images that caught our eye.
France and the entire European continent, but also the U.S. and Russia, all look very different than they did at the last commemoration 10 years ago. Ghosts of the past indeed.
New data shows high crime rates among children of the millions of rural migrants who moved to Chinese cities – both those brought along with their parents, and the ‘left-behind’ children.
AUNAY-SUR-ODON — Will there ever be a place for the civilian victims in the commemoration of French liberation and of the air raids that helped hasten the end of Nazi occupation? On June 6, France, along with other European and North American countries, will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, and will rightly […]
Let me introduce Bébert, my uncle and godfather, back from plowing his field in my ancestors’ village of Chaignay — just north of Dijon in eastern France. Let me also introduce Bayard and Marceau, the two draft horses. Back then, it was customary to name horses after legendary figures such as Napoleonic commanders Kléber or […]
GENEVA — When it comes to insomnia, some use the megaphone of the digital era, posting Facebook status updates to round up companions of misfortune — one-night or lifelong problem sleepers who want to talk. But there are myriad other coping mechanisms for this growing societal issue. And though insomnia can mean pure agony, it […]
Who knew!? Koalas are (true) tree huggers, not for environmental reasons, but as a way to keep cool and regulate their body temperatures during hot summer months. The BBC explains how PhD student Natalie Briscoe was studying koalas’ behavior and she noticed that in the winter the animals would stay high in the trees, up […]
In order to maximize profits, the German automaker wants to eliminate paid 15-minute breaks for its workforce.
Dozens of dogs are lost every day in Buenos Aires. On one side of it there’s the owner who has lost their cherished companion, and on the other, the pet, confused and waiting for their human to come pick them up. If they’re lucky, someone will find them and keep them safe for a while. […]
Just over a year ago, when Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands handed her eldest son Willem Alexander the reins of the country, everybody in Britain wondered whether Queen Elizabeth II would be next. Now, as Spain’s Juan Carlos, 76, steps down to “renew” the monarchy, questions are rising again about the British queen’s succession. But […]
KIRI SAKOR — It was 8 in the morning, and families living in Cambodia“s Kiri Sakor district were desperately fleeing from their homes. Backed by the military, a company called the Union Development Group was systematically burning down people’s houses. Children were crying while their parents fought authorities, who marched on their community with guns. Nearly 2,000 families had been living in the area since the 1980s. Local farmer Prak Sareth, who is 30, says her 49-acre piece of land was seized by the Chinese-owned company last year and now their houses have been burned down. “This is our parents’ […]
A reported multi-billion-dollar U.S. fine against BNP Paribas, the eurozone’s biggest bank, puts the very heart of transatlantic relations at risk, writes France’s leading business daily.
A visit in southern China to a movement afoot to openly challenge the regime. It remains, 25 years after the Tiananmen Square protest was crushed, a risky affair.
Were these the ghosts of relatives of Catherine the Great, chatting in front of Saint Petersburg’s Winter Palace? Probably more likely employees of the city’s visitor center, as the residence of the Russian Tsars and emperors is now home to one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, the Hermitage.
Much has changed, but some has not, in the complicated relationship between Israel and Turkey.
DOUMA — Thousands of Syrians have lost limbs during the country’s three-year war. Here in the Damascus suburbs, two men have opened a workshop where functioning prosthetics are fashioned out of found materials. When Omar al-Ahmad celebrated his 13th birthday this year, he didn’t mark the milestone by shopping for new clothes with his father in downtown Damascus, coveting — as he would have done before the war — the uniform of his favorite soccer team on a mannequin in a shop window. Instead, his gift was the right arm of a mannequin, fished out of rubble by his father […]
A visit to Ansan, South Korea, where a month after 260 of its children died in the South Korean ferry sinking, the city must elect its mayor. Mourning and anger are the politics of the day.
Geraldine Chaplin once recalled her famous father’s resilient humor, which persisted even onto his death bed. At 88, Charlie Chaplin’s health was failing, and as doctors and relatives observed him, his eyes closed and barely breathing, Geraldine’s mother audibly declared that the “final moment” had come. “I’m just playing dead,” Chaplin muttered back. He remained […]
There’s a very famous Festival of Roses every year in the Kalaat M’Gouna oasis, near Ouarzazate in southern Morocco. But it’s held in May, not October, so unfortunately it smelled more of camel than flowers when we traveled there.
Brazil’s national sport of ‘futebol’ is the expression of all that is right in a sometimes troubled country. Plans by protestors to take out their anger on the World Cup are destined to fail.
TEHRAN — A trip down the 19 kilometers of Valiasr Street, the avenue that splits Tehran in two, is like walking through a metaphor for Iranian society. At one end, by the railway station on Rahahan Square, the houses are narrow and tatty; but continue towards Tajrish Square, and glass skyscrapers and shining buildings rise […]
Curious about the sex lives of the over-70 crowd? Even intimate relations among 50-somethings is usually not talked about. And teens? Now all is revealed on German television.
A young tennis champion, a controversial Polish general and an influent author were among those to whom we bid farewell this past month.
Like the Toulouse shootings two years ago, the cold-blooded killings at Brussels’ Jewish Museum show radical Islam mixing with anti-Semitism to target Jews 70 years after the Nazis’ demise.
Protesters from the political far-right denounced the funeral honors bestowed on the last Polish communist dictator, General Jaruzelski. But with him gone, their cause may disappear too.
These two watchmen, with their lamps and bludgeons, were on their way to their day jobs at Den Gamle By (“the Old Town“), an open-air historic musem and major touristic attraction in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city.
In 1930, the International Labour Organization set a goal to eradicate forced work. Today, 21 million people are exploited around the world. Globalization is making matters worse.
DIYARBAKIR — When Aykan Erdemir, a parliamentary member from Turkey’s Republican People’s Party, tried to visit the website of a Christian church located in the country’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir, he was surprised to see that the parliament’s filtering system recognized it as pornography. The preacher of Diyarbakir Protestant church, Ahmet Guvener, said he thought […]
MAYDENA — Down below, ferns and moss thrive on the surrounding humidity. Higher up, they give way first to sassafras, then to giant eucalyptus trees that have been growing for centuries, here in the Upper Florentine Valley. This thick forest in the southern part of this Australian island was added last year to the Tasmanian […]
From a once-contested region in the Russian Federation, anti-Kiev forces are spotted in the battleground eastern region of Ukraine. They are “more Russian than the Russians,” says one.