Worldcrunch
Colombia’s Caribbean coast used to be filled with slaves, but today in Cartagena de Indias, it’s a plethora of tourists who come to visit this World Heritage Site in horse-drawn cabs. It’s all so pretty — except for the part where the horses are overworked, and sometimes worked to death. Apparently it’s not uncommon for […]
RAFAH — When the wound eases, the real pain begins … This Arab proverb expresses well the profound disillusionment of the inhabitants of Gaza, a week since an open-ended ceasefire came into force. The end of fighting presented by Hamas as a “victory” after 51 days of conflict with Israel has up to now brought […]
BEIJING — Han Han, China’s most famous online star, is back in the spotlight. The young race car driver turned blogger/author accepted a public challenge from Guo Jingming, another former teen idol and best-selling young adult literature author and filmmaker, who said it was time for Han Han to direct his first movie. Not surprisingly, […]
I had only been retired for three years when we visited this school in eastern Nepal. As far as teaching goes, this felt very far indeed from my career as a high school philosophy teacher in France.
The words in the news from around the world.
Boys in the eastern city of Raqqa are forced into military training, and say their ISIS instructors show them how to decapitate blond-haired, blue-eyed dolls with kitchen knives.
The Russian President is again one step ahead of the U.S. and Europe, and many have begun to wonder if sanctions are even worth it. And then there is the question: where to after Ukraine?
Tiny freshwater hydrae have incredible powers of regeneration. In the quest for human longevity, researchers in Switzerland are trying to learn from their very little and long lives.
TEL AVIV — With Israeli students returning to school this week, Calcalist decided to ask a few how they spent what turned out to be an unusual summer holiday, given the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Seven weeks of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and Hamas rocket attacks aimed at targets in Israel have […]
Not far from Beijing lie the Ming tombs — a collection of imperial mausoleums built during the Chinese Ming dynasty. To visit them, you must first walk down the Spirit Way, or Avenue of the Animals, where imposing animals carved out of single pieces of stone watch tourists come and go, as they did with […]
CAIRO — Since the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared a caliphate, much has been written about the movement — but still more remains unclear. How seriously should we take their rise? How does ISIS define Islamic law, and how would it be implemented? There are also more basic […]
CHABAS — Residents in the small town of Chabás, northwest of Buenos Aires, recently put Internet chatting to good use, effectively using the free mobile texting application WhatsApp to police their neighborhood. The “real time” neigborhood watch scheme achieved what more traditional methods — such as waiting for the Argentine police to arrive, for example […]
Not the same imminent threat as Vladimir Putin, but the Hungarian prime minister is posing a bold challenge to the West, with a troubling speech in Romania that flew below the radar.
European Union regulations will now require lower maximum voltage on vacuums. It may making cleaning slower, purchase prices higher, but hopefully long-term energy saving benefits.
The Madeira Flower Festival takes place every spring. For the main parade through the streets of Funchal, 30 or so floats are decorated with thousands of flowers by associations, schools — and even hospitals and the local police take part.
Argentina’s Mendoza zoo has come under scrutiny again after a lion died after undergoing surgery. This is the second lion to die there in recent months, and suspicions have been raised numerous times over the living conditions of animals in the zoo. The cause of death in this case was not neglect, but a risky […]
Motivations and expectations of Russian volunteers in Eastern Ukraine are nothing like those who were sent to fight in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Maybe even more is at stake now.
A German series imagines the unlikely passion between the heads of state of Europe’s two continental powers. No, no: That’s not Merkel or Hollande … and certainly not Sarkozy.
Some of the notable passings during the past month.