Worldcrunch
PARIS — The number of young French people applying to join the army since the Nov. 13 attacks has tripled. After first refraining from making these figures public during the three-day period of national mourning, the French Defense Ministry told Le Monde Thursday it had received 1,500 applications per day since Friday, compared to 500 […]
ZAGREB — The firepower displayed in Friday’s attacks in Paris, including multiple explosive devices and at least five Kalashnikovs, raises the inevitable question: Where do the terrorists’ weapons come from? Terror investigators and crime experts say the most likely source are Balkan countries, a vestige of the wars that consumed the region through much of […]
BELGIAN POLICE RAIDS IN BRUSSELS Belgian police conducted a series of raids in Brussels today to find information related to one of the Paris suicide bombers and also arrested someone during a separate house search, Reuters reports. FRENCH PM WARNS OF POSSIBLE CHEMICAL ATTACK ISIS could attempt chemical attacks in France and other European countries, […]
Libération, Nov. 19, 2015 “Abdelhamid Abaaoud, The Face Of Terror” writes French daily Libération on its Thursday front page, as French experts were trying to determine whether the suspected mastermind of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks was killed in a Wednesday police raid on a terrorist lair. At least two individuals were killed in the […]
There’s a famous nursery rhyme about the bridge of Avignon, in southern France, that goes: Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse, l’on y danse Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse tous en rond (On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing, we’re all dancing On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing in […]
FRENCH POLICE LAUNCH BLITZ, TWO DEAD Photo: Ying Qiang/Xinhua/ZUMA At least two suspected terrorists died and seven others were arrested in a large-scale French police operation early Wednesday in the rugged Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The location of the raid is not far from the Stade de France stadium where three jihadists blew themselves up […]
“Tony” the Cypriot shoe seller definitely had a knack for presenting shoes in a novel way.
During its years of international isolation, Iran saw “culture” solely as a way to promote its Shia Islamic heritage. Yet Iranian officials recently have begun to take an interest in questions of national identity, heritage and Iranian civilization that are unrelated to the Islamic clerical regime and its values. As the country prepares to move […]
PARIS — The French government has authorized the country’s hospitals to be equipped with atropine sulfate, the only antidote available to certain toxic gas attacks, the daily Le Parisien reports Tuesday. The decision was made Sunday, two days after the deadly attack in Paris that killed at least 129 people. Authorities had already been considering […]
Charlie Hebdo, Nov. 17, 2015 “They’ve got the guns. Screw them, we’ve got the Champagne!” reads Charlie Hebdo“s much-awaited cover four days after the latest terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris on Nov. 13. The ever-provocative satirical weekly was targeted in the last round of Islamist attacks in Paris, when 12 […]
HOLLANDE: U.S. AND RUSSIA MUST COOPERATE During a joint parliamentary session at the Palace of Versailles Monday, French President François Hollande called on the United States and Russia to combine forces against ISIS after Friday’s terror attacks in Paris that left at least 129 dead. The speech, in which Hollande reiterated that France is at […]
In the late 1950s, some villages in southern Portugal still didn’t have access to running water. I guess you could call this walking water?
PARIS TERROR ATTACKERS NAMED As Paris continues to mourn its dead, five of the seven dead ISIS terrorists responsible for Friday night’s attacks have been identified, Twitter”>Le Figaro reports. Four of them were French citizens: Omar Ismaïl Mostefaï, 29, who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert venue, where close to 90 people were killed; […]
Le Soir, Nov. 16, 2015 “Brussels, Jihadist Hub,” writes Belgian daily Le Soir on its Monday front page, as details about a Belgian connection to the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris are starting to emerge. The suspected mastermind of the attacks that left at least 129 killed and 352 wounded is a 27-year-old Belgian […]
This isn’t even the most famous or the most monumental of the 27 gates in northern Morocco“s city of Meknes.
Follow the latest news on the Paris attacks on French website France 24 PARIS — France declared a state of emergency and sealed its borders Friday evening after a series of apparently coordinated terrorist attacks struck at sites across Paris, leaving scenes of horror and carnage outside a soccer stadium, at a café and inside […]
Combining kung fu with soccer? This was a fantasy depicted in Stephen Chow’s 2001 martial arts comedy film Shaolin Soccer. But now, in Henan province, home of the Shaolin Temple famous for its superhuman martial-arts monks, we are set to see a real-life attempt to kick some life into Chinese soccer by applying the methods […]
Andorra, one of the smallest nations in the world nestled between France and Spain, is a monarchy headed by two Co-Princes: the Spanish-Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell and … and the president of France. Back when we visited, the latter was of course Charles de Gaulle.
Two suicide bombings claimed by ISIS killed 43 people and at least 239 others Thursday evening in the Lebanese capital’s southern neighborhood of Bourj el-Barajneh, a busy commercial and residential and stronghold of Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah. The Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour called the attack “unacceptable” on its front page Friday, which was decreed a […]
“JIHADI JOHN” BELIEVED DEAD AFTER U.S. AIR STRIKE, ISIS STRIKES BEIRUT ISIS terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, better known by the nickname “Jihadi John,” was the target of a U.S. airstrike in the Syrian city of Raqqa and U.S. officials believe with a “high degree of certainty” that he was killed, the BBC reports. “Jihadi John,” a […]
KURDS LAUNCH IRAQ OFFENSIVE Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes last night, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a major offensive today to retake the strategic northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS fighters, Al Jazeera reports. According to a statement from the Kurdish Regional Security Council, about 7,500 Peshmerga fighters aim to cut off ISIS supply lines […]
Two years after hosting a costly FIFA World Cup, Brazil will once again be on the world sporting stage next summer at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But now, with the Brazilian economy facing a deepening crisis, the government has an idea for some help from a pillar of the “sharing economy”: […]
The lunar landscapes of the Tabernas Desert, near Almeria in southern Spain, were used as filming locations for some of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns in the 1960s. When my wife and I went there in the 1980s it was pretty much abandoned, but it has since become a major tourist attraction.
TEHRAN — Both at home and abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has become the public face of his country’s willingness to sign a deal with the West to limit its nuclear program. The Vienna accord, inked in July, has also made Zarif the main target of Iran’s religious hardliners, whom he confirmed Wednesday […]
Activists on the small Pacific island, with their legendary statues, are taking concrete actions to obtain more autonomy from Chile. But does full independence make sense?
SYRIAN ARMY TAKES BACK KEY AIR BASE FROM ISIS The Syrian army has regained control of the Kwairis military airbase, near the northern city of Aleppo, ending a siege that started in April 2013 and was reinforced by ISIS in the spring of 2014, the Syrian Arab News Agency reports. According to experts quoted by […]
Our dog, whom we had gotten soon after the end of World War II and named “Jeep,” was keeping a benevolent eye on our cat.
PARIS — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has refused a dinner invitation at the French presidential palace with his counterpart François Hollande, because wine was on the menu, French broadcaster RTL reports. A formal dinner was planned at the Elysée to mark the end of Rouhani’s November 16-17 visit to Paris, as part of the first […]
MYANMAR ACCUSED OF DELAYING RESULTS The National League for Democracy (NLD), the Burmese opposition party headed for a sweeping victory after Sunday’s general elections, has accused the government of Myanmar of deliberately delaying release of the results, The Irrawaddy reports. The NLD is expected to win at least 75% of contested seats, according to party […]
This stork decided to keep company with these Romanian haymakers near Covasna, a scene reminiscent of my childhood in the French countryside.
LISBON — Portugal is relearning one of the basic tenets of democracy: Majority rules. The country’s four left-leaning parties are expected to bring down the minority center-right government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho with a vote of no-confidence on Tuesday, newspaper Diário de Notícias reports. The center-right coalition that has been governing since 2011 […]
PARIS — Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund whose sexual exploits cost him a shot at the French presidency, has been working as a lobbyist in France for cigarette maker Philip Morris, Le Journal du Dimanche reports. The French weekly cites anonymous sources linked to the U.S. tobacco giant who […]
OPPOSITION LOOKS TO WIN BIG IN MYANMAR Photo: Jack Kurtz/ZUMA The National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi is on the verge of a sweeping victory in Myanmar, where party officials say they expect to win at least 70% of parliamentary seats, The Myanmar Times reports. Yesterday’s historic election […]
“Uncertain to the end,” Croatian-language daily Poslovni dvevnik writes on its Monday front page, a day after Croatia’s conservative opposition claimed a narrow victory in the country’s first election since it joined the European Union in 2013. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has declared victory after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, but the leading opposition party failed […]
Oysters are my péché mignon — literally my “cute sin,” or guilty pleasure. I’ll have a shovelful or two, thank you very much.