Worldcrunch
TURKISH TROOPS HIT AGAIN IN DEADLY ATTACK Photo: Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua/ZUMA A Turkish military convoy in southern Turkey was targeted by a roadside bomb this morning, an attack that killed at least six soldiers and wounded another, Hürriyet reports. It came just hours after a car bomb in Ankara also targeted military personnel yesterday, killing 28 […]
Critics have lambasted the cover of Polish newsweekly wSIECI (The Network), which depicts a screaming white woman wrapped in the European Union flag being pulled at and fondled by six dark and hairy arms. “The Islamic Rape Of Europe” reads the cover line. In the lead article of the widely read magazine, writer Aleksandra Rybinska […]
In the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, tourists can no longer take photographs or roam under the 3rd-century Arch of Triumph. The terrorists of the Islamic State blew it up in October last year using dynamite.
Retreating glaciers are liberating bodies and objects lost thousands of years ago and revealing much about the people who once lived in these mountains.
MEDELLIN — Colombian meteorologists blame weather phenomenon El Niño for unprecedented weather changes, bringing both extreme drought and rapid evaporation of water to the South American country. Water supplier Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has announced that citizens in the Colombian city must reduce their water consumption by 10% if local water supplies are to […]
Science and medicine have yet to demonstrate exactly how and when Zika affects the brain of a fetus, yet people are rushing to conclude that abortion is the logical choice. A journalist with his own physical limitations weighs in.
PARIS — A report says the use of an anti-mosquito pesticide in drinking water could be the cause of the mass outbreak of microcephaly cases in newborns Latin America, and not the Zika virus, as the Brazilian government and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been saying. French weekly magazine Paris Match cites a report […]
NEW AID TO REACH BESIEGED SYRIAN TOWNS The Syrian government has granted aid convoys access to seven besieged towns, the United Nations announced today after talks in Damascus. The aid is due to arrive “within days,” Al Jazeera reports. The areas concerned are Deir ez-Zor, an eastern city under siege by ISIS, Foah and Kefraya, […]
FRANKFURT — It’s a Thursday morning on the No. 39 bus in Frankfurt, Germany. Suddenly, a migrant woman with an accent begins to complain loudly and aggressively about a woman wearing a niqab. “I don’t feel safe next to her,” she says to no one in particular. The other passengers remain silent, though one eventually […]
On the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, this man was using a bamboo ladder to harvest sap from a tree, which would then be processed into sugar at the local refinery.
LETAMO GAME FARM — After the depressing outskirts of Johannesburg, with its paved-over shopping centers, garages and the smell of greasy chicken, the countryside isn’t all that much better. At the local gas station, there are men in bush hats and shorts, all khaki and autumn-colored, looking like they’re either going for a friendly day […]
Plan Colombia was never the aid program touted by leaders in Washington and Bogota. But it proved to be excellent business for arms dealers and other shady characters.
“WAR CRIMES” ON SYRIAN HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS France and Turkey have denounced the bombing of five hospitals and two schools in Syria, labeling them as war crimes, the BBC reports. At least 50 people were killed by yesterday’s strikes in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces, the UN has said. Different warring parties are blaming one another. […]
Given our growing concerns about ‘traditional’ employment, some say paying people a basic living income should not be linked to work. The idea is appealing, but requires a leap of faith few politicians are willing to take.
SALTILLO — An alleged “illegal singing” case last week this city in northern Mexico might have wound up as a light source of laughter in the pages of a local newspaper. But when police in Saltillo tried to arrest a man for singing as he walked on the street, telling him he had no permit […]
Although it’s close to Petra, one of humanity’s architectural wonders, this pyramid in Wadi Rum was actually carved by Mother Nature.
The siege of Madaya began in July, but global pressure on the Syrian government to allow humanitarian access didn’t begin to build until nearly 30 people had died of starvation. Why did it take so long?
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Anti-colonialism’s echo: India balks at Mark Zuckerberg’s plans of offering free but limited Internet access, which is ultimately aimed at boosting Facebooks’ numbers. Will the rest of the world follow?
LEIDEN — Over the years, several journalists have dug into the corporate structure of Swedish furniture giant IKEA and the business dealings of founder and CEO Ingmar Kamprad. But the probes have turned up little dirt. But now, the European Parliament’s Green Party group say they have managed to map out IKEA’s complex revenue scheme […]
PRE-CEASEFIRE, SYRIA FIGHTING ESCALATES Fighting has intensified in Syria just days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced that an agreed ceasefire would begin by the end of this week. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital 70 […]
“If War Comes Tomorrow,” read this week’s edition of Moscow-based magazine The New Times, quoting the title of a famous 1938 Russian propaganda movie on a very Soviet-looking cover, as it wonders what the consequences a new “big war” would be for Russia. The weekly magazine focuses on the dangers of what it calls “the […]
MINSK — Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko has been dubbed “Europe’s Last Dictator,” and ties between Brussels and Minsk have been virtually frozen since a new series of sanctions were imposed in 2010. But now, it appears, Lukashenko and his country will be welcomed back into the continent’s fold as the European Union is set to […]
Not only is the Great Stupa, in the ancient Sri Lankan capital of Anuradhapura, considered an architectural marvel, but it is one of the holliest places for Buddhists, as the shrine is believed to contain relics of Buddha.
TEHRAN — Repeating something Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, said years ago — long before Iran’s latest clash with Saudi Arabia — Moussa reveals much about the current mindselt in the streets and cafés of the Iranian capital: “With the Great Satan we could forgive and forget,” he says. “But with the Ibn […]
GENEVA — War is reshaping Syria, causing massive displacements of populations that, even more than the rising casualty numbers, have shifted the roles played by the country’s principal ethnic and religious communities. Some groups have emerged strengthened, others weakened, now and perhaps forever. These demographic gains and losses will carry more weight in the long […]
A visit on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the neighborhood where Jews were forced to live, giving the world the culture, confinement and indignity of the ghetto.
A new surge in deforestation can be traced to an unauthorized road connecting La Macarena to San Jose del Guaviare. What is the origin? What will be done?
Gotland is Sweden’s largest island, home to some 57,000 people and a popular tourist destination during the short Swedish summers for its many beaches and hiking trails. During the Cold War, the island also served as a key military base in Sweden’s defense against the Soviet threat, which loomed just 80 miles away to the […]
There’s nothing the man in Kremlin wishes for more than Angela Merkel’s fall, which could give him plenty of leverage to play with and mould Europe.
Donald Trump has met his egomaniacal match in Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj, who boasted that his far-flung support for Trump could be decisive in the U.S. presidential campaign. “I am convinced that all Serbs who live in America will vote for him, also many other Americans who appreciate my political views and the ideology […]
Maya and Mehdi were seriously injured at Le Carillon café during the Paris attacks. Three of their friends (including Maya’s husband) were killed in front of them. Three months later, moving on is almost impossible.
HOW FAR CAN SYRIAN TRUCE REACH? Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, announced this morning that they had agreed on the rapid delivery of desperately needed aid to besieged Syrian cities. Talking to reporters in Munich, the two top diplomats expanded on yesterday’s announcement of what amounts to an extremely […]
La Prensa, Feb. 12, 2016 “Welcome!” reads Friday’s front page of Mexico City-based daily La Prensa, greeting Pope Francis as he’s set for an afternoon arrival in Mexico for his first visit as pontiff. Ahead of his five-day trip, which includes a visit to a prison in the crime-riddled city of Ciudad Juarez, the Pope […]
“Trump Tells All,” reads the cover of this week’s edition of French right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, which nabbed an exclusive interview with real estate mogul and 2016 Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “If I’d been at the Bataclan or one of the cafés, I would have opened fire,” Trump told the French magazine, when asked […]