Worldcrunch
RAWABI — Qatari flags, Italian kitchens, WiFi in the streets, green public transport, and apartments for 40,000 inhabitants: Welcome to Rawabi, the first Palestinian city built from scratch. Anwar Hussein, a 48-year-old professor at the University of Bir Zeit, is among the first “pioneer” families who, now that Israeli authorities have finally agreed to connect […]
Though French bread and pastries have become popular across Asia, French chains have had trouble breaking in. Now one Korean boulangerie is opening up in Paris.
Kurdish commanders have broken earlier pledges to stop the forced recruitment of children, saying it is necessary to protect individual homes.
A Bogota-based NGO is helping some 30 farmers to sell organic produce directly to consumers. An oasis of clean food in the face of rising agrobusiness dominance.
-Op-Ed- JERUSALEM — I finished my military service as a fighter in the Israeli military’s Nahal Brigade 11 years ago. That’s when, together with some friends, I founded the NGO Breaking The Silence. Since then, I’ve talked to hundreds of soldiers who’ve told me about their service in the occupied territories. From what the dozens […]
The two members of Electro Velvet, this year’s Eurovision contestant for the United Kingdom, seem like fun people. Alex Larke for instance always wears odd socks, while Bianca Nicholas can do a pretty decent impression of Christina Aguilera. None of which will help them win the contest, but hey, at least they have something else […]
For maladies from stress to unexplained itching and bulimia, hypnosis is increasingly establishing itself as a therapeutic tool among bona fide medical professionals.
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ISIS TAKES FULL CONTROL OF SYRIA-IRAQ BORDER CROSSINGS Terrorist group ISIS continues to gain territory, and its latest victory against the Syrian army on the Syria-Iraq border puts its militants in complete control of the border crossings between the two countries, and more than half of Syrian territory, The Independent reports, citing The Syrian Observatory […]
In the first half of the 20th century, French cabaret singer Maurice Chevalier was a huge star in the United States, eventually earning the right to put his footprints and handprints in the concrete blocks on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. A fluent English speaker — unlike me, unfortunately — he always put on […]
An Australian woman diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease that will soon take her sight decided she would travel the world and document her photos on Instagram.
Ireland holds a referendum Friday that could make it the first country to legalize gay marriage by a direct vote of the people. The passage of the referendum would mark a startling turn of events in a historically conservative Catholic country where homosexual acts were against the law up until 1993. Here is an opinion […]
-Analysis- BUENOS AIRES — As China extends its investment reach to just about every corner of the globe, the enormous amounts of capital at play are transforming economic and strategic relations the world over. Latin America is one of the Asian giant’s key investment targets. But of all the region’s countries, only Brazil appears to […]
PARIS — Up to 8,000 Rohingya, a long-persecuted Burmese minority, are still reportedly stranded on rickety boats in deplorable and perilous conditions, weeks after being abandoned by human traffickers in the Andaman Sea. Denied safe passage on the shores of countries in the region, the plight of this Muslim ethnic group is however just one […]
It’s her “Time to Shine,” but it is her time to win? Who knows, maybe Mélanie René”s last name will help her, as she shares it with the husband of Céline Dion — the last singer to win the contest for Switzerland, back in 1988. Unfortunately, since its first participation in 1956, the country has […]
ABU GHRAIB — This city’s streets are deserted. It would seem certain that the residents of Abu Ghraib fear the Da’ish, the Arabic word for ISIS, as fear has been the dominant emotion since the terrorists began conquering territory in Iraq. And now, the terror organization is defending their gains with brute force. A uniformed […]
-OpEd- TEL AVIV — Who would have thought that we’d miss Avigdor Lieberman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Well, we don’t really miss him, but unlike Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, Lieberman at least understood the importance of good relations with the United States. So sure that relations with the U.S. are “excellent,” she […]
ANCIENT SYRIAN CITY FALLS TO ISIS After days of fighting, “Palmyra’s fate is now in the hands of IS,” the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Le Jour writes on Thursday’s front page. Coalition forces thought a few days ago that they had managed to beat back the ISIS terror group from the ancient Syrian city, but the […]
It was a day off for these Italian nuns, who were chatting on the deck of a ferry headed to Elba, the Mediterranean island 20 kilometers off the coast of Tuscany.
After days of fighting, “Palmyra’s fate is now in the hands of IS,” L’Orient Le Jour writes on Thursday’s front page. Coalition forces thought a few days ago that they had managed to beat back the ISIS terror group from the ancient Syrian city, but the jihadists came back stronger than before. Government and rebel […]
MAMBURAO — In partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), those who fish the waters here in the town of Mamburao are using traditional handlines rather than large trawler nets in the deep waters off Mindoro Strait, in a bid to position the area as a Philippine hub of sustainable tuna fishing. With traditional handlines, or kawil, they catch only the mature and high-quality tuna. “We go out there into the Mindoro Strait, about 300 fishermen in several boats,” says the Tuna Fisheries Association’s Roberto Cueto. “When we’re not catching much, we stay there for days.” But Cueto, who started […]
-OpEd SANTIAGO — Over the past half-century, two fundamental social changes have taken place in the United States around the issue of race. One was the end of segregation laws that explicitly discriminated against African-Americans, and the other was the decline in racial prejudices. Polls show that such racist sentiments among individuals persist today in […]
Having won five times, Sweden is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1974, a song about Napoleon’s defeat meant victory for the first time for the Scandinavian nation. And three years ago, Loreen gave Sweden its fifth win with the song “Euphoria” — which did not exactly trigger the […]
Munich considers a different kind of police sweep of the city streets.
MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA TO RESCUE MIGRANTS Malaysia and Indonesia have pledged to provide temporary shelter to the estimated 7,000 migrants believed to be stranded at sea, a move that AP characterizes as “a potential breakthrough in the humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia.” Most of the migrants are members of the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in […]
USA Today, May 20, 2015 USA Today dedicated most of its front page to David Letterman and the last episode of his Late Show slated for Wednesday night. Having hosted talk shows on NBC and CBS for more than 30 years, the affably sarcastic Indiana native has decided to retire. To honor Letterman, USA Today […]
With the choir of traditional folk singing I was part of, we went to many national — and international — gatherings of groups of singers and dancers who were trying to preserve their local cultural heritage. I took this picture of these two Cannettes with my very first camera, an Exacta Varex.
VILLENEUVE D’ASCQ — Envelopes and calendars, decorative stickers, headscarves, prayer rugs and small copies of the Koran: Samia el-Alaoui Talibi, 54, has her car’s trunk packed full of gifts. A trained mathematician, she’s one of the only Muslim women in France to work as a prison chaplain. The presents she brings are for the convicts […]
PALO ALTO — Tucked away on Waverley Street in Palo Alto, California, the house where Steve Jobs used to live is an inconspicuous brick Tudor with rambling roses climbing all over. As one of the residential areas favored by Silicon Valley software engineers, a big house here usually costs well above $10 million. Over the […]
Spain’s contestant this year, 29-year-old Edurne, said that taking part in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest was the most important project of her career — and honestly, we don’t know whether that makes us happy or sad for her. The lyrics (in Spanish, bonus points) to her song “Amanecer” are about that emotional instant before […]
Dave International: 8 “Lettermans’ From Around… par Worldcrunch
-Essay- PARIS — Once again, the Nepalese are burying their dead and tending to their wounds. It’s impossible to rebuild for now while everything is still so wobbly. Between the houses that disappeared, the villages erased, the roads cut, the survivors are trembling — for the present suffering as much as for the colossal task […]
25,500 FLEE ISIS-OCCUPIED RAMADI At least 25,000 people have fled Ramadi, Iraq, after ISIS fighters captured it from government forces after fierce clashes Sunday that killed at least 500 people, the UN reports. EXTRA! “I won’t be Charlie Hebdo anymore, but I will still be Charlie,” the cover headline in today’s Libération reads, quoting Charlie […]
Rolling sand dunes and ascetic silence. Kites and boards flying over lagoon waters. And tomato farms. It’s Dakhla, the windy Moroccan city of sustainability.
On the Saintes archipelago in the Lesser Antilles live the green iguana (which appears on the coat of arms of the Terre-de-Haut municipality) and the local Iguana delicatissima. Everything was going just fine until the two started to mingle, giving birth to a hybrid iguana threatening both species.
Libération, May 19, 2015 “I won’t be Charlie Hebdo anymore, but I will still be Charlie,” the cover headline in Tuesday’s Libération reads, quoting Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz, who has decided to leave the staff. Libération has hosted Charlie Hebdo since the January terror attacks that targeted the weekly, killing 12 of its employees. In […]
When Islamic terror groups arrived in their Syrian hometown of Al-Hasakah, Assyrian Christians were systematically victimized. The lucky managed to flee.
Bitcoin has had its ups and downs, in both value and public trust. But some recent deals in Latin America offer signs that the online currency may be here to stay.
ISIS TAKES IRAQ TOWN OF RAMADI ISIS is gaining ground again in Iraq, capturing the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. It’s a heavy blow to the Iraqi government and any hopes of rooting out the terrorist group. Shia militias, who already played an important part in retaking the city of Tikrit two months ago, […]