Worldcrunch
-Analysis- BERLIN — On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump released a joint statement regarding their first phone call earlier that day. The statement about their 45-minute conversation noted — in the neutral tone common to all statements of this kind — that a wide range of topics were discussed: NATO, […]
CAIRO — Strolling through Lisbon’s hilltop alleys in 2008, I came across a shop selling uniquely designed “upcycled” products, things made by reusing material that would otherwise be discarded. The items there included a milk-carton wallet, a liquor-bottle lamp and a cereal-box notebook cover. In my young, hopeful state, I felt right at home. It […]
SAN JUAN — The Puerto Rican Senate’s approval of a bill last week to hold a referendum to give voters a stark choice between statehood or independence looks like it may settle the island’s status once and for all. Leading Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día reports that the vote, set for June 11, will […]
The arrival of Russia-friendly Donald Trump in the White House has heightened concerns that Moscow is ready for its next move after Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
As you may remember, I used to conduct a traditional French music choir in my hometown. This shot was from a memorable trip abroad, to Wales, where we’d been invited to the famed Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod folk festival. The tall and handsome man signing autographs like a celebrity was not only a strong tenor […]
PARIS — President Donald Trump’s executive order banning entry into the United States of citizens of seven different Muslim-majority countries has prompted outrage both at home and abroad. But the drama comes with extra layers of intrigue and import for one country in particular: Iran. For the pragmatic government of President Hassan Rouhani, who reached […]
UNITED STATES The Washington Post Chicago Sun-Times MEXICO La Razon de Mexico BRAZIL O Globo Folha de S. Paulo URUGUAY El Observador HONDURAS La Prensa EL SALVADOR El Diario de Hoy POLAND Gazeta Wyborcza NETHERLANDS Nrc.Next Metro Nieuws RUSSIA SPAIN El Pais La Razon La Vanguardia ITALY La Repubblica GREECE E Ephemerida TURKEY Cumhuriyet EGYPT […]
I live in a small village in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France with my four brothers and sisters. My father works in industrial maintenance and my mother takes care of the family. I attended kindergarten because I had asked to go there. But I left after a year. My siblings aged 18, 15, 12 […]
-Analysis- The marker of the “First 100 Days’ of a new presidency traces its origins to Franklin Roosevelt’s arrival in the White House in 1933, when the Democratic president followed through on a series of promised measures to urgently reverse the economic policies of his predecessor, the hapless Herbert Hoover. This initial policy sprint would […]
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s elevation of his chief political strategist to a major role in national security policy, and a White House order banning refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries from U.S. entry, appeared to come together as cause and effect over the weekend. Stephen Bannon — whose nationalist convictions and hard-line oppositional view of globalism have long guided Trump — was directly involved in shaping the controversial immigration mandate, according to several people familiar with the drafting who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The order, which has ignited sweeping domestic and international backlash, came […]
-OpEd- When Donald Trump spoke at his inauguration on Jan. 20, there wasn’t even a hint of trying to be magnanimous. Instead, he called for the most narrow-minded form of nationalism. It’s tempting to see this as one of the many personal shortcomings of the new president of the United States. But that’s not the […]
ORISTANO — Club scouts and retired players from across Italy have come to this town on the Italian island of Sardinia to find new soccer talent among recently arrived African migrants. They offer their services to the migrants so that one day they might have a shot at Italy’s top professional league, the Serie A. […]
France has long been the only country in continental Europe to invest in its military. Though others are now reacting to new threats, it may be too little too late.
When I took this picture of the Sveti Stefan islet from the coast of then Yugoslavia, it was already known as the place to be for the rich and famous. The whole island, now in Montenegro, has been transformed into a 5-star hotel. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
— Analysis — To be clear from the start: No, he is not Ronald Reagan and she is not Margaret Thatcher — and this certainly is not 1981. Still, any false analogies aside, today’s White House meeting between brand new U.S. President Donald Trump and newish British Prime Minister Theresa May is charged with the […]
PARIS — When Donald Trump talks … well, that’s some kind of talking. During his successful run for the presidency, the world got to hear the billionaire real estate mogul turned reality TV star spout his own singular brand of vaguely aggressive and self-aggrandizing forms of communication. And a week since moving into the White […]
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — The declarations Donald Trump made in last week’s inauguration speech mark a major shift for the United States on both the domestic and international fronts. His nationalist exhortations, and call for other countries to follow the same path, are the kind of dangerous demagoguery that often leads to war and misery. Trump’s […]
Trump has threatened to levy punitive duties on German car imports. Companies like VW, Mercedes and others need to take that seriously, and come up with a Plan B.
WARSAW — Jakub Kwiecins and Dawid had been together for nearly seven years, living rather anonymous lives as a couple in Warsaw until their 15 minutes of Internet fame arrived last July after posting their own version of Roxette’s hit “”Some Other Summer“”. And while the exuberant clip prompted articles in the international LGBTQ media, […]
Like the jousting events of the Middle Ages, modern-day tennis tournaments combine skill and courage with unparalleled excitement and drama.
MANAUS — There’s a gang war raging across northern Brazil. It has led to prison riots in which close to 100 inmates have been killed since the beginning of the year. This violence is linked to the flow of cocaine from Peru to Brazil’s northern, northeastern and central-western regions. The money involved is huge — […]
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, having propelled his presidential campaign to victory while often disregarding the truth, now is testing the proposition that he can govern the country that way. In the first five days of his presidency, Trump has put the enormous power of the nation’s highest office behind spurious — and easily disproved — claims. He began with trivial falsehoods about the size of the crowds at his inauguration but has since escalated a more grave claim that undermines the trustworthiness of the nation’s electoral system. In a White House reception Monday night for congressional leaders, Trump alleged that […]
Climate change is giving meteorologists an added incentive to make accurate, ever more timely predictions. Supercomputers are helping them do it.
PARIS — Even as President Trump appears clearly convinced that eight years of Obama environmental policy were bad for business, other governments are betting on the massive investments that energy transition requires. Le Figaro reports that France has become the world’s second country to issue green bonds, raising a record 7 billion euros ($7.5 billion) […]
Mexico does not need more reforms. It needs a complete overhaul of the political system that was put in place a century ago.
-OpEd- ROME — The ongoing crisis in Libya poses the gravest threat to Italian national security, for multiple reasons. Halting flows of undocumented migrants and maintaining energy security are important, but a far more fundamental interest is at stake: ensuring that Libya recovers from chronic instability and civil war and avoids becoming a safe haven […]
Ten years had passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union when my wife and I returned to Russia. The people were clearly hooked on the newfound entrepreneurial freedom, big and small scale alike. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Trump’s vow to end NAFTA and bring back factories to the U.S. isn’t typical right-wing ideology. Or is it that we’ve misunderstood the purpose of ideology?
In India’s patriarchal society, there’s a cultural tendency to favor boys, which leads to too many parents each year abandoning their baby girls. At least there is a way to avoid the worst outcome.
If Washington cracks down on Chinese imports, Beijing is sure to respond in kind. Companies that would suffer include makers of everything from sneakers to semi-conductors.
Among the world’s many gloomy corners, it is hard to get any gloomier than Brazil. After a drug war broke out among several criminal groups, leading to huge prison riots and the death of close to 100 inmates, what looks like a worrying yellow fever outbreak and the death of the Supreme Court judge leading […]
Legendary 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith is buried at the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh, in the shadow of the iconic cliffs of Salisbury Crags. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Well that was quite a first weekend. After Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, an estimated two million people took to the streets worldwide to protest against the controversial new president, who continued his open warfare with the American press — and some would say, with the truth itself. Now, he faces a first work week […]
MUNICH — What a crappy year you were 2016. With your terrorist attacks, the British going mad with Brexit and the Americans electing a Twitter troll as commander-in-chief. In Syria and other war zones, people were drowning all year in blood. On top of all of that, many of our most beloved artists and performers […]
‘We wondered how we should react until they told us they’d been wounded by the regime forces and had nowhere else to go …’
Newspapers across the globe featured a defiant, ‘America First’ Donald Trump taking over the White House.
The 45th U.S. president took office by discarding the postwar precedent of values-based U.S. leadership of and engagement with the rest of the world.
-OpEd- GENEVA — When it comes to choosing a future leader, a candidate’s personality tends to be as important as his or her proposed policies. In the case of Donald J. Trump, the political ideas he expressed in his presidential campaign were simplistic, outrageous and Manichaean. His conduct was deliberately extravagant and he made no […]
MINAS GERAIS — After two failed attempts to get vaccinated against yellow fever, 72-year-old José Pedro de Jesus woke up before dawn to get the job done. He lives in a municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais in Brazil called Piedade de Caratinga, where four people are believed to have died of the […]
—Analysis— Back in the 16th century, it took Ferdinand Magellan“s crew more than two years to sail around the world. Yesterday, a new record was set in the prestigious Vendée Globe solo sailing race, as French skipper Armel Le Cléac’h took just 74 days to circumnavigate our planet. When such records are set, we tend […]