Worldcrunch
PARIS — With all its historical warts, the United States has managed to hold on to its status as a model of a robust democracy. But the spectacle of Donald Trump’s run for the White House is reminding the world just how fragile democracies can be. Trump has used his campaign for the presidency to […]
Momentous national referendums in Colombia and Britain have shown how dangerous it can be to put complicated decisions in the hands of a fickle populous.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s first question at Sunday night’s presidential debate was, not surprisingly, about the just-released lewd 2005 recording of Donald Trump boasting of being able to force himself on women. Cooper looked up at the billionaire Republican nominee: “You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?” After Trump circled […]
The Candelabra of the Andes is even more mysterious than the neighboring Nazca Lines. No one knows with certainty what it represents, or when, why and by whom the 600-foot tall geoglyph was carved into the hill.
H&M, Zara, Mango and Irish upstart Primark are flooding the market with new styles at low prices. Is this good for us? Or for the world?
TEHRAN — Some Iranian legislators want to end the Islamic Republic’s systematic execution of drug dealers, saying it does little to reduce the country’s massive drug abuse problem. More than 150 members of Parliament are preparing a motion to amend the country’s drug enforcement laws and restrict death sentences to particular cases such as recidivism […]
The great paradox of our time is that we’ve never had access to so much information, and yet have never been so badly informed.
The ills of the Smartphone industry go beyond the meltdown of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7. A market sector that was still booming not so long ago is now expected to suffer losses this year for the first time, and is forecast to stagnate for the foreseeable future, a recent report from tech research and advisory […]
Le Figaro — Oct. 12, 2016 “Paris-Moscow: the big chill” writes French daily Le Figaro on its front page Wednesday a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin postponed his planned visit to Paris next week, amid rising tensions between Russia and France over the Syrian conflict. Tensions between French President François Hollande and Putin have […]
The quaint fishing harbor of Polperro, on southwestern England“s Cornwall coast, is having a hard time delivering on its promise: Unscrupulous parking lot owners have been known to capitalize on car park fees.
Viktor Orban is the only leader in the European Union who has benefited from the refugees crisis. But his ambitions know no boundaries.
ISTANBUL — There is an Italian saying: “Una faccia, una razza.” It means “One face, one race,” and is used by Italians and Greeks to note the characteristics the two peoples share. When it comes to Turkish and Greeks, I use this phrase as “One face, one mentality.” I don’t know how similar Greeks and […]
The well-publicized death of the popular Vatican exorcist, Gabriele Amorth, and an award-winning documentary have stirred new interest in ridding the devil from within.
Beyond the threats and name-calling, foreign policy was high on the agenda of Sunday night’s second U.S. presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Russia was mentioned 35 times. Syria 14 times. China, usually a Trump favorite, was uttered a mere four times by the candidates during the 90-minute debate. That was still more […]
JEJU ISLAND — Kang Ok-ja, 75, looks out toward the ocean from the roadside. It’s not a good day for diving, she tells me. Waves crash against black volcanic rocks that line a stretch of Jeju Island’s north coast. Wind and rain are common on this South Korean island. “The waves don’t look so high now but the wind is picking up and they’ll get bigger,” says Kang. “It won’t be safe for us to dive today.” She would know. Kang is a haenyeo, or “sea woman,” and has been diving in these waters since she was a teenager. For […]
For more than a century now, the Coastal Express has been a staple of the wonderful Norwegian coast, taking passengers through barren landscapes and fertile lands, large towns and fishing hamlets nesting in magnificent fjords.
Europe, the United States and other parts of the so-called West may not be booming, but they’re not about to be superseded either. Quite the contrary, in fact.
When Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination from a major party, the historic moment got a rather lukewarm response. Many young women who had grown up taking gender equality as a given were unmoved. One twentysomething concluded that Clinton’s nomination was “greeted with a collective millennial yawn”. Was there really […]
Droughts, demographics, industrialization, pollution, climate change … The need for more clean and accessible water is growing urgent in many places around the world. But beyond praying to the rain gods, what real-life responses are out there? Innovation is key both to help preserve clean water sources, as well as finding new ways to purify […]
These half-timbered structures of the Den Gamle By open-air museum in the Danish town of Aarhus remind me of some houses in the eastern French region of Alsace and across the border in Germany.
Like other Latin American countries, Bolivia has squandered commodity revenue and failed to make the hard reforms necessary to bolster the economy for the long haul.
His beloved hometown grows more dangerous every day, but he can’t kiss her goodbye.
BORNHOLM — A meadow on this Danish island looks like it’s straight from the Middle Ages. Small, robust cows, sheep, geese and pigs are kept cool by the rains. Only a history expert would be able to recognize the small details that contradict what appears to be the perfect historical accuracy in depicting a medieval […]
Nuray ÇeÅŸme arrived from Turkey as an infant, and yet still struggled to integrate. She worries that today’s refugees will have an even harder time making into the mainstream.
“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe …” Father Bertrand, a Catholic priest and expert in martial arts, must have long meditated on this quote from Luke (11:21). And on Friday morning, the 48-year-old cleric finally had a chance to live the gospel. Father Bertrand was woken by […]
LIPUA LIPUA — He’d been away for some time in Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern Équateur province along the Congo River. But when Pierrot Mawambe returns to Lipua Lipua, a fisherman camp on an islet 80 kilometers downstream, he was stunned by the void where huge waka trees used to stand. “Timber harvesters cut […]
In August, Chile broadened the protected sea zones under its watch to create a marine park that covers an area of 300,000 square kilometers, the largest such reserve in Latin America. Fishing and mineral extraction will now be banned from this area, which surrounds the Desventuradas islands in the Pacific Ocean. “At a time when […]
House for rent, move in date after Nov. 8. Quiet neighborhood, 18 acres of grounds, well-equipped security system. (Exterior unchanged from date of photograph, alterations to interior; tenant at the time: George H. W. Bush.)
The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize does not approach its task the way the Academy assigns the Oscars. The Nobel is not a trophy to crown an achievement as much as a message … or more precisely, a “shot in the arm.” The Nobel committee has long made it clear that they choose […]
Many young Muslim women in the West have a modern lifestyle, yet want to be a virgin on their wedding day. But what if they aren’t? One woman’s story from Germany.
The worst fear in the capital is a lasting truce between Russia and the United States, which they believe would halt the Assad regime’s offensive and delay the total victory.
Since its birth in the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations has faced innumerable crises. The eternal messiness of global affairs is, of course, exactly why the UN was created. But perhaps never in its 71 years of existence has the biggest of global institutions been faced with so many simultaneous fires — […]