Light pollution in Chile’s Atacama Desert, home to crucial star-gazing infrastructure, is threatening the future of astronomy. Can a new nationwide lighting standard make a difference?
Month: April 2024
A recent bilingual edition of Shakespeare’s complete works has turned new attention to the English playwright’s lasting (but not always appreciated) influence on French literature.
A Jewish attack on the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque during passover may be part of a plan to fulfill an obscure slaughtering rite of a “Red cow” to achieve the prophecy that will trigger the push to construct the mythic third temple of Jerusalem. The war in Gaza is raising the stakes.
Injustice and inhumanity comes in many forms and places in the Middle East, including the Iranian regime’s death sentence for the rapper Toomaj. Why can’t those protesting the deaths of civilians in Gaza take a moment to try to save this innocent life as well?
Updated April 30, 2024 at 12:15 p.m. On this day in 1993, tennis icon Monica Seles was stabbed by a deranged fan of her rival during a tennis match in Hamburg, Germany. Who was Monica Seles? Monica Seles is a former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 and won nine Grand Slam […]
Throughout the ages, convents have been adapted and transformed to fulfil the needs of growing cities such as Portugal’s capital city Lisbon. Now more than ever, with an ongoing housing crisis, researchers, politicians and developers are looking at convents to be transformed into housing solutions.
It is hard to reconcile the long list of brutalities and a government validating hate toward its Muslim minority. But the leaders are not the country. Elections are when people get to choose new ones.
The French president has voiced France’s readiness to “contribute more to the defense of Europe” through its nuclear arsenal. It’s a message fro European allies and for Putin’s Russia — and another reminder of how much hangs on November’s U.S. elections.
Besides repeated bombings of school buildings, the Israeli army also has turned many universities into military barracks and interrogation sites, before blowing them up. That’s part of a premeditated policy to destroy Gaza’s entire education system.
When a violent earthquake rocked the High Atlas in 2023, traditional earthen buildings resisted the seismic shocks better than other more modern ones. Yet despite its resilience and sustainability, this valuable cultural heritage is the victim of misperceptions and risks abandonment.
Updated April 29, 2024 at 1:15 p.m. In April of 1975, as North Vietnamese troops approached the southern capital of Saigon, U.S. President Gerald Ford ordered the evacuation of all Americans from the country. How did the fall of Saigon happen? After years of conflict, the North Vietnamese army launched a final offensive on South […]
This phenomenon appeared late on the Arabic-speaking internet. It began with the translation of Andrew Tate’s videos into Arabic, some began copying his appearance, as the Miami-based Jordanian Jalal Abu Muwais does.
On the road to the 2024 Olympic Games, the global leader of sport has launched a major offensive to regain ground lost in recent years in the athletic gear market, and is preparing a flurry of innovations to rekindle the flame of fuel-starved global sales.
Updated April 28, 2024 at 11:45 a.m. Spanish actress Penélope Cruz was born on this day in 1974, in Madrid, Spain. She began her acting career in the early 1990s. Where did Penélope Cruz grow up? Penélope Cruz Sánchez grew up in Alcobendas, a town near Madrid, Spain. She grew up in a working-class family, the […]
As technology advances, machine translation threatens to replace the art of learning languages. Will we lose the cultural richness and personal growth that comes from mastering a foreign tongue?
Have the ruling institutions in the United States learned the lesson and realized that the main means of confronting Iran’s influence — if they really wanted to — is to put pressure on Israel.
Updated April 27, 2024 at 12:45 p.m. South African citizens of all races were allowed to vote in a general election for the first time on April 27, 1994. This was the first democratic election in South Africa after the end of the apartheid system. How did apartheid end in South Africa? The end of […]
Categories
Vocational Acumen From An Early Age
The five-year-old son of our Naples-based psychiatrist has some very definite ideas about his future career.
Determined to reinterpret the roots of Islam, progressive Muslim women are breaking down conservatism that’s been blocking their emancipation, and questioning the authority of established institutions and the scholarly consensus on religious norms.
While busy delivering the best international journalism, the Worldcrunch team also stumbles on a fair deal of downright strange stuff happening around the world, reported in every language.
For the Colombian trans activist Álex Rodríguez Pineda, there is no single way to be a person with trans life experience; our gender identities and our bodies are in constant construction. He speaks with Colombian daily El Espectador about masculinity and trans activism.
Visit Scotland’s capital for a few days of good food and even better drinking.
When the U.S. and other Western countries recently defended Israel against Iran’s drones and missiles, Ukrainians began to blame themselves for not receiving similar protection against Russia’s attacks. But the reality is very different.
April 29 – May 5, 2024
In an ominous speech in Paris, the French president warned that Europe is in mortal danger. Macron also suggested he may be just the man to save it.
Updated April 26, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on this day in 1986, on Ukrainian territory of the Soviet Union. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, both in terms of the human and environmental impact. How did the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happen? The […]
While the whole world was shocked by Iranian drones attacking Israel, which caused no casualties, nobody pays much attaention to the attacks being carried out by the same Iranian drones in northwestern Syria, where they regularly kill civilians.
Gugliemo Marconi, the legendary Italian inventor of wireless communication, the man who connected the world, is not celebrated as he should be — because of his politics. As Italy marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, it may be time for the nation to finally come to terms with Marconi the inventor and the entrepreneur — and let go of the fact that he was a member of the Fascist Party.
Washington has vetoed Palestine’s full membership to the United Nations and is using talk of the “two-state solution” to distract from Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Pushed by the U.S. to normalize ties with Israel, what will Arab states do?
It all started on April 25, 1974, when some frustrated military officers — who had seen with their own eyes the effects of colonization in Western Africa — decided to overthrow the military regime. And over the past half-century, Portugal has gone from an archaic dictatorship to bona fide cool corner of the Western world.
Hong Kongers who moved to the UK following the 2019 pro-democracy protests to seek political asylum face many social, mental and administrative challenges. Yet the organizations that have been building a safety net for them are now facing funding changes.
Updated April 25, 2024 at 11:450 p.m. On this day in 1945, Allied troops entered Milan and other major Italian cities, signaling the end of fascist rule and the Nazi occupation. The Italian resistance movement played a significant role in the liberation of the country. What was the fascist regime in Italy? The fascist regime […]
Israel’s recent strike on central Iran was a warning shot for Tehran, tempered by a desire to close the recent spate of tit-for-tat attacks and by pressure from the U.S. Yet this may have only ended round one of the Iran-Israeli showdown.
We love prequels and sequels to TV series and novels, from Harry Potter to The Handmaid’s Tale. We want to rediscover the characters we loved and know everything about them. But is it right to pursue something that never ends?
The Israeli Army Unit operating in the West Bank has been sanctioned by the Biden administration, accusing it of human rights violations. It’s the first time this has happened and it embodies a highly symbolic gesture that puts a stop to the excuse of “holy mission” that turn into crimes.
Switzerland announced, on April 10, that it would hold a peace conference on Ukraine in June. While some 100 countries are expected to attend, Russia will not. So what is behind these talks, and what can be expected from them?
Updated April 24, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. The Armenian genocide began on this day in 1915, when the Ottoman government arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople (now Istanbul). What led to the start of the Armenian genocide? The Ottoman government had long been hostile towards the Armenian population, who […]
Researchers are testing eDNA as a tool to locate lost soldiers’ remains. Can the approach one day help solve crimes?
Iranian authorities are enforcing Islamic dress norms with renewed vigor and the backing of a new law, and insist a “hostile West” is goading Iranian women into living indecent lives.
Governments spent 2.3 trilllion euros on the military, a 6% increase over 2022, the highest growth recorded in over a decade. This is the first time spending jumps were registered on all five continents, and not just countries at war. What does it say about this inflection point in history?