Worldcrunch
PARIS — France, the host of the COP21, has in its hands the most vital mission it has ever been entrusted with: spare humanity the irreversible disaster that would come from a two-degree rise of the globe’s average temperature by this century’s end, compared to the pre-industrial era. There will be no second chance. We […]
A scam at the Manila International Airport, involving security personnel planting bullets in the luggage of unsuspecting passengers to extort money, caused outrage throughout the Philippines earlier this month. As reported by KBR, carrying a single bullet on the Southeast Asian island is illegal. Several Filipino and foreign passengers have claimed in recent weeks that […]
La Croix, Nov. 30, 2015 “Climate, hope of a deal,” writes French daily La Croix on the front page on its Monday edition, with a picture of the top of the Eiffel Tower piercing a ceiling of clouds and pollution, as the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) kicks off in Paris. French […]
HAMBURG — In Birgit Böhm’s opinion, the “4” she’s looking at is balancing on one leg, like in the nursery rhyme “A little man in the forest,” and wearing a little red cloak. The “7” next to it looks like it’s made of thick gardening wire. And it’s green! The rest of the numbers and […]
COP21 SUMMIT BEGINS Photo: 1heart1tree via Instagram French President François Hollande arrived this morning at Le Bourget airport to welcome nearly 150 world leaders, who have traveled to Paris for the much-anticipated global climate conference dubbed COP21. No summit in history has brought together this many heads of state in the interest of reaching meaningful […]
My wife was walking with a lei garland of flowers around her neck on a on the beach near Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Luckily, it was a windy day, so the ocean breeze kept the smell of the local fish away from us!
The Quirimbas islands in northwestern Mozambique is the front line in the war on over-fishing.
Though 146 countries have pledged to fight global warming ahead of the UN’s COP21 conference, market realities and other forces means such commitments are unlikely to materialize.
Deutsche Bank’s new chief John Cryan believes end-of-year bonus demands harm the company. But bonus culture may be too deeply embedded throughout the financial sector.
Inside the de-radicalization program that began last year in France to undo the indoctrination that pushed young Muslims toward extremism.
BOGOTÁ — Recent election defeats for the social-democratic Peronist candidate in Argentina, and for Bogotá”s unapologetic socialist mayor, may be part of a wider trend for leftist leaders across Latin America. Both those elections — not to mention several mass protests against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers Party — suggest voters are tired of business-as-usual […]
PARIS — Colonel Eric de Lapresle had never seen anything like it. Since this month’s Paris and Saint-Denis terrorist attacks, the French Armed Forces recruitment services have received some 1,500 requests for information per day. That’s three times more than before Nov. 13, says de Lapresle, the head of marketing and communication for French military […]
NEW YORK — On a recent Sunday afternoon, David Bromwich paces his friend’s kitchen in Brooklyn barefoot, waiting for some tea to steep. As the alarm on his phone goes off, he’s already pouring. “It has a slight asparagus taste,” he says, slurping the hot green tea from a spoon. “There are so many chemicals in tea,” he explains, sticking a thermometer in another cup of water. “It’s the processing that unlocks all the different compounds.” Bromwich, a 36-year-old product manager at Thomson Reuters, has always loved tea, tasting every one he could as a kid and later mail-ordering the […]
Since Turkey shot down a Russian military jet, discord between the two sides has escalated. The upshot could be unfreezing a war between Azerbaijan and an Armenian minority who have occupied its territories.
KREMLIN WON’T JOIN SINGLE ANTI-ISIS COALITION Photo: Dai Tianfang/Xinhua/ZUMA The Kremlin said today that Western nations were “not ready” to form a single coalition with Russia to defeat ISIS, AFP reports. The comments come one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with French President François Hollande at the end of a diplomatic blitz in […]
I took this shot from the top of the World Trade Center.
An EU report issued to member states seven years ago offered an eerily accurate warning of what was to come — that areas affected by global warming and political tension (Yemen, Syria, etc.) would be vulnerable to destabilization.
The global refugee crisis forces us to rethink city planning and housing, with more focus on assuring people’s rights and needs. A chance to actually wind up with more human cities.
TOKYO — The large speakers at Quattro Labo, a music bar near Kichijoji Station in western Tokyo, mostly play U.S. rock music from the 1960s and 1970s: Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, the Allman Brothers Band. Not only that, but the sound has a depth to it — along with the distinct scratch-and-pop effect — that […]
HOLLANDE MEETS PUTIN IN MOSCOW French President François Hollande is set to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin later today in Moscow in the hopes of forming an international military coalition against ISIS. Hollande has been engaged in a diplomatic blitz this week, having met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama, German […]
When fear gets hold of me When anger seizes my body When hate becomes my companion Then I get feminine advice, because it is only feminine pain And I am told feminine pain perishes like all feminine things. — Dahabo Ali Muse, “Feminine Pains” poem, 1998 HARGEISA — “On my wedding night, it felt like […]
Thousands of people braved heavy rain on Thursday to take part in Pope Francis’ open-air mass at a university campus in Kenya’s capital on the pontiff’s first visit to Africa. The front page of Nairobi-based daily The Star, featured the pope’s arrival on Wednesday, where he was welcomed by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. In his […]
MEXICO CITY — Who’s killing Mexico’s journalists? Reporters and editors have increasingly been targeted for murder during the ongoing war against Mexican drug cartels. But a recent investigation by Mexico City-based newspaper El Universal shows that a majority of the journalists killed were not investigating narcotics trafficking, but local police news and national politics. Some […]
The baroque Merced church is something of a curiosity in Antigua, Guatemala, a city famous for its ruins of colonial churches: It held up admirably well after a series of devastating earthquakes in the 18th and 19th centuries, after which the capital was moved from Antigua to its current location, Guatemala City.
Research suggests that sustained terror attacks over time deal a crippling blow to economies, but a single act of appalling violence, like the Nov. 13 attacks in France, may have fewer lasting effects than one might think.
The Islamic State has been significantly weakened, at least from a military point of view, in Iraq and Syria. But the final blow keeps being postponed, even as jihadists strike in the heart of the West.
Tunisia is the birthplace of the Arab Spring democratic uprising, and the only to have seen democracy survive. But it is both a source and victim of homegrown terrorists.
TURKEY-RUSSIA TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH Photo: Russian Look/ZUMA “An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep […]
The story of how Lonnie Johnson, an African-American inventor just inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, beat the odds to create a water gun with seriously fun firepower.
“An unprecedented crisis,” warns Turkish daily Hürriyet on the front page of its Wednesday edition, a day after two Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Although the downing of the plane sparked fears of increased tension between the two nations, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech, […]
Watching the acrobatic show at the Shanghai Circus, one can’t help but think, “There’s got to be a trick.” But no, the stunning tower of chairs is genuine — the result of gestures perfected over 2,000 years in the quest for perfect balance.
Marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the first in an in-depth multimedia series of reports from Africa, and beyond, about the continuing practice of female genital mutilation.
The killers and victims of the Paris violence are part of the same demographic, though they share different realities. Authorities haven’t heard the angst, but rap has been telling us for years how little the two groups share.
TEHRAN — Iranian traffice authorities have announced the removal of any “Latin” spellings of names and driving instructions in Tehran. The move comes as a surprise as many Iranians are hoping for a boom in foreign visitors following the phase-out of international sanctions. The capital’s head of traffic, Ja’far Tashakkori-Hashemi, recently told Iran’s ISNA news […]