Worldcrunch
You won’t find it on any map of the world nor see it mentioned in any geography book. And yet it certainly exists. In the middle of the North Sea, surrounded by nothing but waves and wind, is the smallest self-proclaimed state in the world. The Principality of Sealand, as its inhabitants call it, is […]
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, winner of the 2014 Pritzker, has used material like paper and cardboard to rebuild homes in disaster zones. The displaced of Ecuador await his singular eye.
A book published recently by French writer Pascal Bruckner cuts to pieces the taboo of money in French society. For him, it’s one of the barriers French needlessly impose on themselves.
People with particularly high IQs are often viewed as difficult and socially awkward, a new survey suggests. But in reality, they’re not so different from the rest of us.
When in Rome, on a particularly hot day, do as the Romans do: Leave town, head for the nearby Villa d’Este and walk behind the water of the Fontana dell’Ovato.
CHINA AND RUSSIA TO U.S.: CAREFUL ON KOREA In a joint press brief today, China and Russia urged the U.S. not to put a new missile defense system on the Korean peninsula in response to recent North Korean muscle-flexing and weapons testing, Reuters reports. The U.S. and South Korea had opened talks on expanding defense […]
-Analysis- BEIJING — After 30 years of domestic reform and opening up to the world, China is a changed country. Society has progressed, but also diversified, resulting in a true plurality of opinions about various issues. With a wink to earlier liberalizations in China, included Mao Zedong’s aborted call to let “100 schools of thought […]
PRAGUE — Czech Republic was the first country I visited that wasn’t either Latin or Germanic. Czech, as I found out the hard way, is a very tricky Slavic language, one of those that rarely lets you deduce the meaning of a word and in which entire sentences seem to have been written by somebody […]
CARACAS — It might be funny if it weren’t true — which Venezuelan reporter Nitu Pérez Osuna didn’t think it was before witnessing it with her own eyes: people lining up along a Caracas street to get a “shot” or “lick” of deodorant. “I’d seen something similar two years ago on Twitter and thought it […]
SYRIA SLIDING BACK TO OPEN WAR Few had dared to consider the five-year-long conflict in Syria over. Yet for the past two months a fragile truce among some, though not all, the warring sides had offered a bit of hope that peace might not be too far off. Casualties were down, diplomats were talking, life […]
Kathimerini, April 28, 2016 “Greece hands the Olympic torch to Rio,” writes Athens-based daily Kathimerini on its front page Thursday, featuring a picture of Wednesday’s handover ceremony in Athens. To mark 100 days before the start of the 2016 Olympic Games due to take place in Rio de Janeiro from Aug. 5 to 21, thousands […]
-Analysis- PARIS — It all adds up to a major mea culpa. For the most prominent economists, the U.S. presidential campaign feels like an act of contrition. Yes, we were wrong about the virtues of global free trade. No, French philosopher Montesquieu’s beloved doux commerce (“gentle commerce”) thesis wasn’t necessarily a win-win recipe for all. […]
At the markets of Peć, in western Kosovo, there was no real way for me to tell whether I was in the 19th or 20th century.
SAO PAULO — João left Brazil to study abroad and expand his horizons thanks to the national program Science Without Borders. He intended to return home afterwards, but something unexpected changed the script: While he was studying in Europe, his dreams, his ambitions and his beliefs changed as Islamic militants tried to recruit him for […]
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Parliament leader Ismail Kahraman said Turkey’s new constitution should be based on religion, not ideals of secularism. Needless to say, this created a fuss. And yet, it is no secret what Mr. Kahraman thinks. The Unity Foundation, of which the parliament head is a founder, had a committee that proposed a draft […]
ABDESLAM EXTRADITED TO FRANCE Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the terrorist group that carried out the Paris attacks last November in which 130 people were killed, was extradited this morning from Belgium to France. He will be tried by French courts for participation in terrorist murder and the activities of a terrorist organization, […]
Rock music, tight spandex bodysuits and staged maneuvers aren’t just for audiences in working-class America. Wrestling is thriving in Switzerland and elsewhere across Europe, where it’s seen as a different kind of performance art that even
Venezuelan public workers woke up Wednesday to newspaper headlines that told them to stay home. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced in a televised address Tuesday that the government is slashing additional working hours for the country’s 2.8 million public workers in a bid to save energy, reducing the working week from four to two days. […]
On our first trip to Norway (driving from France in our Peugeot 203), we stopped for a moment in Oslo before making our way to the country’s inland regions. You can see the capital’s new two-towered City Hall, which had been completed 10 years earlier. Three decades later, in 1990, it would become the site […]
Twenty young couples in southeastern Hangzhou recently decided to get hitched without a stitch, wearing only leaves and flowers in rejection of the materialistic concerns frequently associated with marriage in China, Hong-Kong-based Oriental Daily News reports. This was the second year that the Songcheng Anthomaniac Festival organized such a collective wedding ceremony in Hangzhou. Couples […]
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — Eight years ago, I spent an election night in a basement gymnasium in Manhattan, watching Hillary Clinton and her campaign advisers take up residence in a parallel universe. It was June 3, 2008, and Barack Obama had just clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, making official a victory that had seemed inevitable for months. But Terry McAuliffe, then the campaign chairman and emcee of this Clinton “victory” party, recited a list of Clinton’s primary wins and introduced her as “the next president of the United States.” Clinton that night made no mention of her defeat, boasting that she […]
A cooperative that’s giving formerly jobless Argentines a second chance has evolved from a recycling enterprise into a flourishing sustainable-design business. Many of its partners could never have seen this coming when they lost their jobs back i
In the best case, take Socrates as your instructor.
REMEMBERING CHERNOBYL Photo: Celestino Arce/ZUMA Memorial services are scheduled across Ukraine today, as the country commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that killed dozens and shot deadly clouds of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. CANADIAN JOURNALIST BEHEADED IN THE PHILIPPINES Government officials have confirmed the death of kidnapped Canadian journalist John Ridsdel […]
On the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Kiev-based daily Den remembers “the red button that changed the world” on its front page, featuring a picture of Chernobyl’s “trumpeting angel” memorial. The Ukrainian-language newspaper tells the story of the April 26, 1986, nuclear catastrophe, one of the worst in history, and the fateful chain […]
It’s easy to be lulled into a sense of calm by the Canadian Rockies’ peaceful lakes and beautiful landscapes — and to forget that they’re also home to deadly grizzly and black bears. I was kindly reminded of their presence, in both English and French.
In the absence of a professional industry, amateur sex videos pose legal, ethical problems in a country that’s among the world’s biggest consumers of online porn.
As plants and wildlife struggle to survive in the area contaminated by the April 26, 1986 nuclear disaster, some elderly villagers have returned.
TEHRAN — The Iranian capital used to boast 1,400 public baths, which the daily Shargh observes were among its “main public spaces,” an integral part of Iran’s social culture and an efficient way of facilitating hygiene for the masses. Yet today, just 10% of the baths remain, in spite of the needs of thousands of […]
Bolivia’s president lost a referendum earlier this year that could have kept him in power beyond 2019. The long-serving leader may try to seek reelection regardless.
CRUZ AND KASICH TEAM UP AGAINST TRUMP U.S. Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich have announced their plan to team up against rival Donald Trump in order to prevent him from gathering the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination outright, The Washington Post reports. Sen. Cruz (Texas) is set to stop […]
“Enough!” writes the Mexico City daily La Prensa on the front page of its Monday edition, a day after more than 5,000 women participated in Mexico’s first national march against gender violence. Marches took place in more than 40 cities, including the Mexican capital, where a sizeable crowd protested what they see as government apathy […]
BEIJING — A few days ago, somebody posted a video taken somewhere on a street in China. It could be almost anywhere. The video showed a little boy defending his grandma, a street vendor, and brandishing a steel pipe against the local “chengguan,” agents of the Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau. The chubby little […]
Rio“s Sambadrome is not always this quiet: Picture countless samba school dancers parading down the 700-meter stretch of street, with up to tens of thousands of spectators cheering from the concrete bleachers.