Worldcrunch
Note: This article was originally published on July 13, before the failed coup attempt -Analysis- ISTANBUL — This newspaper (Turkish daily Hürriyet) published the following report last month: “Syrians who want to spend the Ramadan Bayram (Eid al-Fitr) holiday with the relatives they left behind in their country where a horrible civil war is still […]
LAHORE — Over the past few months, the prestigious Al-Hamra Theater in this Pakistani city has been staging a first-of-its-kind play, one that very much pushes cultural boundaries in the conservative Muslim society. The play, called Teesri Dhun, focuses on the discrimination transgender people endure in Pakistan, where they are often shunned by families, schools and employers. Not only that, but the actors themselves are members of the transgender community. “The play highlights the problems transgender people face here,” says Neeli Rana, 40, who plays the lead role in Lahore. It’s a story line that resonates with Rana. “In 2006 […]
Whoever wins the election in November, America is poised to have its most consequential first daughter since Anna Roosevelt.
Can we accept cultural “sensitivities” as an excuse for undemocratic behavior? Can we accept a Muslim father not shaking the hand of his child’s teacher because she is a woman? Yes, it’s all connected to recent terror attacks in
In a number of Brazilian states, judges are ordering those guilty of domestic violence to join group discussions. Participants say they’re resistant at first, but eventually find the experience to be a real eye-opener.
For some students, summer is a time to rest; for others, a time to work. But for a growing number of China’s female youth, the summer break is a chance to go under the knife. According to a report last week in China News, plastic surgery for Chinese women has begun to spread from the […]
SPOTLIGHT: RIO IN TROUBLE, ONE WEEK FROM OLYMPICS Just seven days from the opening of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is still reeling from a succession of emergencies that tarnish the country’s image as it prepares to play host to the world’s top athletes. A long-running political and economic crisis continues […]
Correio Braziliense, July 29th Friday’s edition of the Correio Braziliense daily features images of final preparations for the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, which are now just one week away. As the Games near, concerns about security and logistics are rising. The country is still reeling from a series of political and economic crises, and […]
PARIS — This month’s Republican and Democratic national conventions put an end to whatever doubts may have persisted about the parties’ respective presidential candidate choices. There were grumblings to be sure — from Ted Cruz and the “Anyone but Trump” crowd at the Cleveland convention, to the “Bernie or Bust” folks among the Democrats in […]
There are no more “Beguines” in the Beguinage: In the early 20th century, these lay nuns were replaced by Benedictines, pictured here walking in front of the convent, with Bruges’ Church of Our Lady visible through the leaves.
PARIS — Never before had this kind of effort been so successful in France. In the span of two weeks, starting in mid February, an online petition to say “No, thanks!” to a proposed labor-reform bill collected a million signatures. The government decided, subsequently, to amend the imitative and put off submitting it to the […]
Nice, Turkey, Wurzburg, Ansbach. The escalating violence of the last few days raise the pressure on the German Chancellor, whose refugee policy is again in the spotlight. The political repercussions could strike where it matters to her most.
LIMA — The Sheraton hotel chain is being accused of threatening Peru’s cultural patrimony by building a new hotel in protected parts of Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Accusing Sheraton of violating the conditions of an earlier municipal permit, Peru’s culture ministry has decided to appeal […]
SPOTLIGHT: THE POWER OF NOT INFORMING With the increasing number of terror attacks in France comes an intensifying debate on the role of media coverage of the events. French news outlets have begun to ask whether spreading the identity of terrorists, who often are seeking some twisted sense of glory, feeds the problem. Reporting on […]
Statues of Buddhas are famously plump, but these chubby figures at Kelaniya Temple near the Sri Lankan capital Colombo really take the cake.
This is the second installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing (And Keeping Secrets) In Palestine.” Read Part 1 here. -Essay- We wake up at 9 a.m. “I need to go to work,” Ehab tells us, implying that Samuel (the American who was sharing the room with us) and I also need to go. Quickly, we […]
Women in the government-controlled province of Latakia must decide between love and danger if they are to marry men from opposition-held areas in Syria.
SPOTLIGHT: HOW TO AVOID A RELIGIOUS WAR A spate of terror attacks across western Europe continued yesterday as two assailants took hostages in a church in the northern French town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, killing an 86-year-old priest and injuring three others. The two men, who declared allegiance to the Islamic State, were shot and killed by […]
A developmental psychologist in Turkey offers some answers.
Dziennik Polski, July 27th Wednesday’s edition of Polish daily Dziennik Polski features extensive coverage on the World Youth Day celebrations in Kraków. Pope Francis arrives Wednesday, slated to lead an estimated two million Catholics in prayer during his five-day trip to Poland. It is Francis’ first visit to the homeland of his late predecessor Pope […]
Too bad slides can’t convey the sounds and odors of a given time and space. Coming across this image from Paris, I can still hear and smell the flower and bird market on the Île de la Cité where my wife Claudine and I were taking a walk one day.
PARIS — This summer, like every year, we’ll take more and more photos. We’ll send selfies and snapshots, any and all kinds of pictures and videos. Like 64% of French people recently surveyed, we’ll take photographs of the meals we’re about to eat at restaurants. These tens of billions of shots will be added to […]
BERLIN — Four attacks in 11 days have us worried that Germany is at the beginning of a campaign of attacks by individuals that will not be easy to stop. Like the July 14 attack in Nice, France, the perpetrators in recent days in the German cities of Würzburg and Ansbach most likely did not […]
LAUSANNE — Inside Studio Furinkazan’s offices, the Celestial Cascades suddenly appear. The heavenly jungle, naturally, can only be seen through your smartphone screen: A red light flutters around in the room until it is caught on the corner of a desk. Then it turns into a Tudù, a small iridescent blue bird with squirrel ears. […]
SPOTLIGHT: MASS KILLINGS AND MENTAL INSTABILITY A knife-wielding man killed 19 people in their sleep and injured at least 25 others overnight at a care center for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara. The man has been identified as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the center, and has turned […]
BEIJING — Chinese people watching American television series are exposed to an enviable image of an average middle class American family. Bound for a leafy neighborhood in the suburbs, a Chevrolet leaves the bustling city and rolls into the driveway of a wooden home on a quiet street. Two or three kids are playing on […]
Just like nearby Venice, Commachio is built in a marshy lagoon across dozens of little islands, joined by bridges like the Ponte dei Trepponti here.
-OpEd- The Democratic National Convention will feature plenty of well-earned criticism of Donald Trump’s isolationist, revisionist, immoral and self-contradicting foreign policy agenda. But if Hillary Clinton wants to win the argument, she must also convince voters that the world is not in the catastrophic state that Trump would have them believe. Foreign policy was always going to be a big part of the 2016 presidential election, as far as the Clinton campaign was concerned. Its candidate spent four years as secretary of state and is running on her record of service. What the Clinton team did not anticipate is that […]
Criminals of the 21st century do not have to go to clubs to sell their drugs or drive across the border to buy their weapons. They only have to smuggle malware onto someone’s computer or sell their goods at the black market of the digital underground.
SPOTLIGHT: TERROR REACHES GERMANY Though Germany has been at the center of Europe’s debate over refugees, it had largely been spared the kind of terrorist attacks that have struck neighboring France. But now, in the span of just a few days, Germany suddenly finds itself struggling to make sense of a string of violent attacks […]
RIO DE JANEIRO — Authorities in Rio de Janeiro have inaugurated the first part of a light city railway designed to ferry about hundreds of thousands of visitors and sports players arriving in the Brazilian city for the Olympic games due to start in August. The new VLT network, a multinational project involving firms like […]
Die Tageszeitung, July 25 The Monday edition of Berlin-based daily Die Tageszeitung shows how, in the span of just a few days, Germans are suddenly faced with terrorism and attempted mass killings. With a photograph of survivors exiting from Friday’s deadly attack in a Munich shopping center, the newspaper asks how to react to any […]
Aleppo’s al-Madina souk, the world’s largest covered historic market, was a highlight on our visit to what was then a bustling, cosmopolitan and altogether very pleasant city. It has been sad to watch from afar as so much of it has been devastated during the ongoing Syrian Civil War.