Worldcrunch
-Analysis- LIMA — Last August, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration published its Western Hemisphere Strategic Framework paper, which designated the Western Hemisphere — North and South America — as a “geo-political priority for the United States.” National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who presented the document, insisted the region was incredibly important to the United […]
Under pressure both at both home and abroad, the Islamic Republic’s clerical regime is using capital punishment to sow fear and force compliance.
As the pandemic’s first wave of lockdowns began, there was plenty of chatter about how it would affect couples, relationships and sex — and consequently what it would mean for contraception. Earlier this year, the UN warned in a report that more than 47 million women in 114 countries could lose access to contraception if […]
“Amazon is ‘un-Swedish”…” Yes, in my country too, you’d probably hear something called osvenskt in one of those low-budget conference halls where “patriots’ gather to drink domestic beer and worry about the Moderland. So, you’ll be surprised that slap at the U.S. e-retailer was delivered by my old Swedish Econ101 professor, 10 years ago, as […]
There’s plenty of talk these days about forgoing children for the sake of the environment. But are people really opting out of the reproduction route?
In mid-September, fires destroyed Greece’s largest migrant camp, the vastly overcrowded Moria facility on the island of Lesbos. The disaster left some 13,000 already desperate people with no shelter at all, and raises new questions about Europe’s collective responsibilities toward migrants five years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously opened her nation’s doors to fleeing […]
Even the region’s top hospitals were caught off guard by the pandemic. However, some proved adept at adapting and are looking at ways to better prepare for the next big crisis.
-Analysis- NEW DELHI — It was mid-September 2014, India was abuzz with the visit of Chinese president, Xi Jinping and his wife, folk singer Peng Liyuan. Televisions channels played an extended video loop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting on a swing with Xi on the banks of the Sabarmati River, while excited anchors foretold an era of Sino-Indian peace, forged between the two strongmen who had come to power within two years of each other. Six years later, the Modi-Xi relationship lies in tatters, as do ties between New Delhi and Beijing. With Chinese soldiers having marched across the […]
Eight months after cutting itself off from the world, the Chinese megalopolis is coronavirus-free and back to business as usual, albeit with a healthy dose of propaganda.
Italian populist party leader Matteo Salvini’s disappointing results in regional elections is being blamed on his erratic handling of the health crisis in one of the worst-hit countries.
Even in its more profitable heyday, the ad-driven media model had its fundamental flaws.
Viewed from the proverbial (and literal) 30,000 feet, the most stunning consequence of the coronavirus pandemic may have been the sudden closing of national borders. In an increasingly open world, the past six months of severe international travel restrictions continues to disrupt lives and hobble the global economy. Last week, the six-months-long closure of the […]
The World Health Organization is far from perfect. But the WHO was never, as Trump and others suggest, involved in some sinister plot with China to hide the truth about COVID-19.
Movie houses, music venues and art galleries are showing signs of life after a long lockdown. They’re also having to be creative with how they reopen, as certain health restrictions still apply.
Iranian authorities have proven themselves amenable to online pressure. But to effect lasting change in the Islamic Republic, people also need to engage in real-world action.
An indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon region has seen plenty of coronavirus cases, but zero deaths.
From Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai to Golda Meir and Corazon Aquino, women activists and political leaders have led the fight for gender equality and human rights around the world over the past century. But as the tributes keep pouring in for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18 at […]
Our Italian columnist has a chuckle at those wagging their social media fingers at the new movie that pokes fun at quarantine life.
Hindutva is a menace of Indian society, and to confront it head on, liberals need to stop celebrating the supposedly tolerant Hinduism of yesteryear, historian Partha Pratim Shil argues.
Around 140,000 Germans are residents in Spain, with large enclaves established on the southern coast. But in the last few years, numbers have been dwindling. Coronavirus could spell the end of retiring to the sunshine.
Though it may undermine free speech, Ethiopians seem accepting of government-ordered Internet shutdowns to curb rioting fomented online.
While the U.S.-China rivalry is not yet a repetition of the Cold War, it will have repercussions for Latin American states at a time of acute regional weakness.
A new study in Spain found that middle-aged women are by far the most likely demographic to be suffering long-term effects of coronavirus.
In southern France, a family asked the local elementary school to call their child a new name.
How is the Chinese economy doing these days? Start by asking Louis Vuitton, whose flagship Beijing boutique boasted record sales in August.
A recent speech by former ECB chief Mario Draghi hit close to home in his native country.
It has the makings of another TV spy drama with a family plot line. But the disturbing revelations of a Le Monde investigation come as a shocking reality for thousands of Uyghur families in China, who may have been infiltrated by agents sent by Beijing to monitor how members of the Muslim minority group lived. […]
The easternmost island of the Dodecanese archipelago is just a stone’s throw from the coast of Turkey, where the president’s neo-Ottoman rhetoric is cause for concern.
It’s now been four months since most of the world reached the agreement that Sweden’s no-quarantine strategy had failed. In the end, it was the only European country to never go into lockdown, and as the virus spread inside nursing homes, Sweden’s death toll raced beyond that of its Northern neighbors to eventually pass the […]
As Israel and the Arab world roll toward a major rapprochement, Iran continues to resist pressure to start talking to its own nemesis, the United States.
With the advancement of AI technology, certain aspects of our individual being may survive beyond the grave. Will we live forever, in other words, just as some artists already do?
The accord to normalize relations between two Arab countries and Israel is a major diplomatic victory for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made good on a pledge to bring a breakthrough to Middle East negotiations just before his bid for reelection in November. Still, the fast-moving events of the last month — culminating with […]
-Analysis- CHENNAI — “What is this?,” my curious seven year old asked, picking up a pack of sanitary napkins, as I found just the right position to take a picture to accompany an article on a menstrual hygiene movement in Chennai. I paused for a minute, and replied, “These are like thin diapers that girls wear for around one week every month.” I was caught off guard, and mentally kicked myself for the diaper reference. He looked suitably impressed with the design on the package and inspected the pads as well. We don’t have cable TV so he hasn’t been […]
The pandemic closed classrooms and pushed the education process online. It was a desperate measure for desperate times that avoided the worst, but shouldn’t be the norm.
The pandemic has delivered yet another blow to the increasingly irrelevant, UN-led multilateral system that was created after World War II.
Truth be told, the post-World World II frenzy for straight lines and exposed concrete never really left. But it has evolved, as demonstrated by Kouichi Kimura’s ‘Tranquil House’ in Japan.
Testimony from Afghan and Somali migrants, as well as locals on Greek island of Lesbos, where Europe’s largest migrant camp has burned to the ground, leaving 13,000 migrants without shelter.
TURIN — Two months from election day, we can leave no doubt: Donald Trump is taking the Republican Party for a ride toward the Apocalypse. The Republic convention was a frantic exercise in stoking of fear, violence and social unrest in the U.S. — a country already burning, scared, angry and almost never so divided. […]
The halting of AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial is not only a reminder of the challenge of finding a cure, but will feed growing public mistrust of states and scientists.
With edgy lyrics and an attitude that’s too legit to quit, rapper Houda Abouz — aka Khtek — is pushing against the grain and gaining a substantial following.