Worldcrunch
PARIS — He looks the part. Michel Barnier, the former French cabinet minister and longtime EU political fixture, could easily be plucked by Hollywood casting agents to play the role of European Commission president. Whether he gets the job in the coming days is a question too complex for any movie script — or news […]
The U.S. president has little regard for the rules of trade and diplomacy, as evidenced by the extortion tactics he just pulled off with Mexico.
The trend of what the French dubbed décroissance (degrowth) overlooks how progress and technology are bound to improve our lives.
What’s the point of pretty produce if you can’t squeeze it and smell it too? Columnist Michelle Arévalo Zuleta makes the case for plastic-free fruits and veggies.
It’s not that Italian women don’t enter politics. But they don’t, for the most part, rise through the ranks to national leadership positions. Why?
Record temperatures are likely to be broken this week as a brutal summer heatwave hits large swathes of the European continent. As mercury rises, so do our concerns about climate change, with France’s health minister Agnès Buzyn warning that “we are going to have to change our habits and stop thinking these episodes are exceptional.” From above, this OneShot captures these dog days — in the heat of the moment. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/qoFkqb8db4w expand=1] Heatwave and Waves (©Hauke-Christian Dittrich/DPA/ZUMA) | OneShot OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow […]
It used to be South America’s shining star. But these days, things seem to be a bit rotten in the state of Chile, where corruption scandals are eroding public confidence.
For the first time in 25 years, the party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not be running Turkey’s biggest city. With his landmark victory in Sunday’s election rerun, Ekrem Imamoglu will be the new mayor of Istanbul, with significance that reaches well beyond the city’s 15 million residents. Imamoglu, who won easily 54% to […]
As people enter old age, they become increasingly vulnerable, not only physically and economically, but also as victims of culturally-coded forms of discrimination.
When it comes to human health and the planet’s well-being, certain activities are simply untenable. Researchers also know that self-regulation never works.
-Essay- NEW DELHI — I’m convinced Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I have one thing in common: We both practice our version of yoga regularly and desperately want to be yogis. Sure, the prime minister encouraged the United Nations to declare June 21 as International Yoga Day and millions of Indians watch videos of Modi’s animated self perfectly executing various asanas, while I haven’t even managed to convince my husband to join me in a surya namaskar (sun salutation). Still, I believe Modi and I are kindred yoga spirits. After perusing many videos and images of the prime minister doing […]
The crush of migrants trying to flee Venezuela is only part of what makes the border region so chaotic. There’s also a dangerous power struggle between guerillas and criminal gangs.
CAIRO — If Egypt’s daily newspapers are your only source of news, you might have woken up Tuesday to discover that a citizen by the name of Mohamed Morsi al-Ayat died yesterday during a court hearing on espionage charges. In actuality, the seemingly unremarkable 67-year-old was the first democratically elected, civilian president of Egypt. A […]
This shot dates back from the very first of my 11 trips to Greece. My wife (whom you can see in the car) and I had driven our Simca Aronde from France through Italy, then onto a ferry, and up the Epirus mountains — to finally park smack in the middle of the ruins of […]
Though seductive as pure financial innovation, Facebook’s crypto currency project risks a concentration of power that must be stopped at all costs.
The author grew up in the city. On a recent trip back, he finds the Slovenian capital revitalized in a way he’d dreamed about during his youth.
Facing U.S. brinkmanship over tariffs and migration, Mexico’s president must act to unite his country with sensible policies and end his ‘confrontational’ strategy with domestic critics.
NEW DELHI — While growing up we were subjected, like most school-going children in this country, to rather boring texts in class. The texts were taught by teachers who were even less interested in the excruciatingly painful narratives than we were. The results of such exchanges were obvious: we remember little of what we were taught. Amid all our vagrant behavior, when we were trying our level best to – in the words of Mark Twain – not allow school to interfere with our education, there were things that were somehow imbibed and some of them have remained embedded in […]
Social media dialogue and reader comments on news stories suggest that the far-right’s xenophobic rhetoric resonates for immigrants.
Coca leaf is part of the traditional fare of Andean people. So it is ‘absurd’ and wasteful for Colombia to ban its cultivation to hinder cocaine production.
A new study shows Germany must look for other ways to convince automobile buyers to switch to electric cars. Shall we say: quota?
Beyond the geopolitical ramifications, what’s happening in Sudan is our problem too. Between the violence from those in charge and the meaning of citizen movements, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Overproduction has become a blight not just to the planet, but to profitability itself. It’s time for economics to revise its idea of the cost-benefit relationship.
To survive and prosper, large firms must have adaptable leaders and constantly revise targets and performance.
By distinguishing between refugees and migrants, international law underestimates the plight of people displaced by poverty and climate change.
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Now unlike Ernest Hemingway, I never actually lived in Paris as a young man, or otherwise. I was a visiting 20-year-old […]
A recent trip to Caracas showed a city where many people continue to function for better or worse, and where the rich are still living large.
I was not at Tiananmen those weeks in the spring 1989, when thousands of students occupied the square, demanding more room in a modernizing China. Nor was I there in those horrid hours between the third and fourth of June, when under the cover of night the People’s Liberation Army first surrounded the area, then […]
Sure, Naples has sun, sea and amazing pizza. But it’s also violent and corrupt, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. A look from Italian city’s celebrated author.
Germany’s first post-War generation had cause for optimism. But their descendants have a different, darker outlook, poll numbers suggest.
First adopted in 1989, the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child is “the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced.” Since then, 196 countries and non-state entities have signed it, making it the most widely-ratified international human rights treaty in history. Unfortunately, the rights of children continue to be violated every day around the world. In 2019, for example, an estimated 10% of children around the world work, undermining their education and/or damaging their health. It is a chilling reminder of the Convention’s Article 32: “States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected […]
Wind-powered homes are expected to generate power and kickstart development in a ‘dreamy’ but isolated part of the southern province of Santa Cruz.
Italian soccer has had its fair share of icons — and prejudices. With the Women’s World Cup underway, it’s time to rewrite the rules of the beautiful game for the beautiful country.
Instead of perpetuating an established propensity toward ‘asymmetrical’ trade ties, Mexico can boost relations with China with an eye on environmentally-friendly opportunities.
Against a tide of right-wing nationalism, Germany’s Basic Law — with its emphasis on fundamental rights — is as relevant now as it was 70 years ago, when it first appeared.
Caught between the image-first expectations of social media, and consumer ideas about healthy eating, pâtissiers struggle to find a new recipe for success.
From France to Poland, the far-right draws people in with plot lines that offer fast and easy answers but no long-term solutions.
In the rugged terrain of the Antioquia department, a group of former guerillas recently helped scientists discover 14 new plant and animal species.
May marked the 25th anniversary of the ceasefire that ended Armenia and Azerbaijan’s war for the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. It wouldn’t take much to reignite fighting.
The airline industry certainly has room for improvement, but dreaming of a rail-only future ignores some practical and even environmental realities.