Worldcrunch
-OpEd- BEIJING — Lawyers are undeniably critical to any society that values judicial due process. The fact that they are still marginalized in China is another notable sign that the country’s justice system is still fledgling compared to its Western counterparts. After 30 years of legal construction and judicial development since China opened up in […]
From rock’n’roll pioneers to soul legends and flamenco gods, here’s Worldcrunch’s tribute playlist to 16 of the great musicians who died in 2014. Joe Cocker — Night Calls Phil Everly, Everly Brothers — All I Have To Do Is Dream Paco de Lucia — Impetu & Panaderos Tommy Ramone, The Ramones — I Don’t Want […]
After it was burned down during the 1990s, Dublin’s Old Jameson Distillery re-opened in 1997 as a tourist attraction, guiding visitors through the stages of whisky making. I even had dinner inside the beautiful distillery — although, for some reason, I’m having trouble remembering what I ate that night …
The Argentine embassy in Paris has gathered pictures and objects that piece together the life of Eva Peron, the loved and loathed first lady who became a “mother” to the poor in 1940s.
Activists fighting the social plague of acid attacks against women in India have opened a new cafe in Agra staffed exclusively by survivors who have been disfigured in this way.
Fleeing war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, and even Crimea, some Ukrainians are finding life difficult in the capital.
Chess has been a favorite hobby of mine long before 1963, when I took part in the Franche-Comté regional finals in Besançon. (I finished third.)
Travel for Iranians is hard, which is why the young have found hosting foreigners is a way to explore the world vicariously. The latest twist to the private breaking of Iran’s myriad restrictions.
The past few years have seen Switzerland forced to reveal secret banking details to national authorities. That means a brutal job for the bankers of Geneva
Man’s best friends have long followed their owners through hard times and stormy weather — and now, even into rehab. Germany’s Schloss Tessin center is the first of its kind in the country and integrates pooches as part of the therapeutical process, Die Welt reports. The center has even been adapted to accommodate its four-legged […]
Ukraine’s Pro-Russian Separatists Are Bad News For Russia The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, located on the Moldovan border with Ukraine, has relied on Russia for the past two decades. A perfect example of potential new burdens for Moscow. — KOMMERSANT In India, The World’s First Vegetarian City After monks went on a hunger strike to push […]
(March 21 to April 19) After a slightly tense Christmas, the turbulence starts to ease. You regain control of your choices, and are once again able to take on new challenges and turn them to your advantage. In love, if you haven’t already done irreversible damage, a period of truce unfolds. Beautiful Venus ushers in […]
Although it was built to protect the Chinese Empire against military incursions, the Great Wall of China faces a more insidious enemy: erosion caused by sandstorms, which has chipped away at the massive structure for centuries. I witnessed the potency of the assault when I went there almost 20 years ago: The haze in the […]
Germany is tracking the growing number of so-called “protective” marriages, arranged among friends to avoid an immigrant being sent back to poverty and peril in their home country.
DAMASCUS — Maher knows more about trash than a nine-year-old should know. “Some of it stinks more than others,” he says, chuckling at his own remarks. “At first I used to feel like I was about to faint before I finished my job, but I got used to it.” It’s not unusual in different areas in and around Damascus to see children and sometimes older men or women climbing into garbage cans, foraging for scraps of food. Passersby often turn their faces away from the scene. The young children who collect goods from the garbage can are often insulted or […]
Why do our hands wander toward our faces: stroking chins, scratching eyebrows, rubbing noses? German researchers have discovered the neurology and psychology at play.
Is this the rise of another Hugo Chavez for Latin America?
As China faces a glut of graduates with fewer employment opportunites, its education ministry is pushing student entrepreneurship, even if it means dropping out.
Driven by economic necessity or pushed into prostitution after traumatic abuse, sex workers in Egypt lay bare grim realities in a conservative country with little empathy for their plight.
Once the noise dies down over the deal with the U.S., Cuba’s educated populace may not take it so well when it realizes the communist regime will budge very little at home.
It’s been a year of both earnest and outrageous comments from across the globe.
It’s in this picturesque town hall of St. Gilgen, on the shores of Lake Wolfgangsee, that the birth of Anna Maria Walburga Pertl was registered in 1720. The name rings no bell? Well then, you’ll recognize her son’s: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A heartwrenching court case in France poses thorny questions as the very meaning of family evolves more quickly than the legal system, or even the experts, can keep up with.
JERUSALEM — I was walking down Via Dolorosa — the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem. In front of me were three young Germans. They found the whole thing laughable, and kept confirming this to each other by pointing out all the stupid details. “Here, look, we’re at the next station. What does it say […]
French researchers have made significant discoveries that lead them to believe that a vaccine is imminent. It would target the protein that allows the HIV virus to multipy.
Looking back on 2014, month by month, summing up the news — by the numbers. JANUARY According to a study published in the journal Science, at least 20% of the Neanderthal genome can be found in modern-day Europeans and Asians. Between 1% and 3% percent of human DNA comes from Neanderthals. “Individually, we are a […]
Becici, a sea resort near Budva in western Montenegro, boasts one of the most beautiful beaches in the country — and the hotel from whose terrace I snapped this picture offered one of the best beers I’ve ever had.
Poles in the United States, Brazil and Britain recount how they’ve tried to adapt to the season in their new homelands. It can be bittersweet, as Polish traditions for them still hold sway.
KARLSRUHE — Both of Annette Röser’s parents suffered from dementia, and she remembers a precious means of connecting with their hidden world was music. Her mother’s eyes would light up when Röser played folk songs or “Memories of Heidelberg.“ Röser’s experience with her late parents led her to found SingLiesel Verlag, a German-language publisher specialized […]
A charmless pariah city for 20 years, the Serbian capital is finally reclaiming its standing and artistry. Belgrade’s residents are torn between pride in their city and dreams of leaving it.
Here are some of the best stories we ran this year, from our fair-minded but ever subjective staff of journalists, translators and editors. Crunchers united! From Ukraine To Syria, Mercenaries With A Cause Hurriyet / TURKEY Le Monde / GUINEA, SIERRA LEONE, LIBERIA Süddeutsche Zeitung / GERMANY Economic Observer / CHINA Kommersant / RUSSIA, UKRAINE […]
I’ve already told you about the knitting abilities of Peruvian men and women. But the Uru people living on Lake Titicaca take it to a whole other lever: Not only do they use bundles of dried reeds to make boats like the one on this slide — but they weave the artificial islets themselves!
Despite FARC declaring a ceasefire, peace won’t come to Colombia until warring parties in decades of civil war admit to all the people they’ve kidnapped, tortured and killed.
Though some top executives have learned the art of apologizing, others compound their company’s PR problems by failing to take responsibility. Welcome to the “aquarium!”
For the second straight year, there is an unwelcome Christmas visitor in northern Argentina. A variety of piranha fish called palometas have returned for a second year to bite Argentine swimmers in the Paraná River, near the city of Posadas. On Christmas day last year, some 60 people were attacked by the palometa piranha, an […]
The Raj Ghat memorial in Delhi is a black marble platform that marks the spot of Mahatma Gandhi’s cremation. Comparing my slide to recent pictures, I noticed that an eternal flame was now burning on one end of the memorial; it doesn’t look like it was there when we visited the monument.
(March 21 to April 19) Family reunions for the holidays could reignite some old friction. At work, there could be tension with a colleague or boss that will test your patience when they try to make you adopt their way of seeing things. In love, this is not the time for discussions, especially in relationships […]
The rising battle between the forces of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and exiled imam Fethullah Gulen is a high-stakes power struggle. But some in Turkey want no part of it.
Splashed ever more across popular culture, mermaids are now something very real for enchanted girls and women who can don tails and dive in. Some are better at it than others.
Another so-so summit on the climate, and another set of tepid, if not useless, commitments to curb emissions. If the governments can’t get it together, the people must act on their own.