Worldcrunch
PARIS — Jihadism in Europe seems to always be one step ahead of European security services, which despite enhanced cooperation remain fundamentally national operations. Paradoxically, terrorism is unifying Europe with a sense of common identity in the face of the attacks in Paris and Brussels, which seem as if they could have just as well […]
The renewed relations with the U.S. may have been prompted by the Cuban revolutionaries’ connection with Pope Francis.
Syria Deeply looks back at some of the history and evolution of the country’s revolutionary art over the past five years of war, including political graffiti, digital art and other mediums that have become part of the uprising’s language and culture.
DETROIT — To reach the heart of the matter in Michigan on a late-winter evening, navigate out of downtown Detroit and drive 20 miles north on Interstate 94, and continue for seven miles, the darkening way lit by the flickering yellowish glow of American commerce, until you reach yet another strip mall at the corner of Schoenherr Road. There, in a storefront headquarters stuck between Buy Buy Baby and Long Tall Sally, members of the Macomb County Republican Party emerge from the cold to watch their presidential candidates debate again on television. In the vast suburban landscape above Detroit, Macomb […]
Prince Charles believes brutalist buildings are like “monstrous carbuncles,” but there is a frenzied architectural movement afoot to save these concrete blocks.
TOKYO — Cats are all the rage in Japan these days. Bookstores are lined with dozens of photo books featuring cute little felines, and they’re popular online too. They also seem on track to surpass dogs as the pet of choice. So why are they stealing so many hearts? There are about 100 titles on […]
HAVANA — President Barack Obama’s historic three-day visit to Cuba heralds the long-awaited end of the Cold War in Latin America, 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and 15 months since the two erstwhile foes announced their surprise rapprochement. Newspapers in the region, and beyond, covered Obama’s visit — the first by […]
Beyond her late 20s, a woman in Asia faces huge hurdles in finding a husband. It’s especially hard if she is educated and has a career.
KABUL — Inside the Afghan capital’s soccer federation stadium, dozens of Afghan women, some of them recently returned from a training camp in Japan, are practicing their skills. “From 2006 up to now, the Afghan women’s national soccer team has conducted several different trips abroad, for training and matches,” says Zohra Mihree, chief of the Afghan women’s soccer committee. “The team participated in SAFF (South Asian Football Federation) tournaments in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Our team came in third place in 2014.” Currently, more than 100 women soccer players are training in different clubs around Afghanistan, up from just a handful […]
Voltaire said he never saw female inventors. A study on female entrepreneurs in 19th-century France reveals a very different reality.
A new light is shining on the Norwegian penal system as terrorist Anders Behring Breivik demands (even) better treatment.
User ratings systems on service apps and websites are making some people obsessive about their online reputations, even as customers. Where is all this headed?
-Analysis- BEIJING—In recent years, Chinese judges have regularly become the targets of physical assault. Among the most notorious cases that have made national headlines are a Hunan farmer who sent a package of homemade explosives to a court in 2005, killing one and injuring two others; and last year, a Hubei man involved in a […]
With help from agencies and the government, locals from Monte de María in northern Colombia are breathing new life into the land stripped by abuse and violence.
NEW YORK — Umberto Eco died last month in his Milan apartment, among his 30,000 books. He wrote many of them himself, and these books were translated into more than 30 different languages. He had them all. Even when translated into foreign languages, Eco owned them, because he worked hard with every single translator. He […]
PARIS — This is a new kind of police investigation. It is a terrorist affair that touches the edges of childhood, psychological manipulation and social discontent. The protagonists of this story are a group of girls torn between their teenage troubles and the traps of a tormented time. Aged between 14 and 19, they come […]
It’s normal for children to argue and fight. But those identified as bullies are often suspended or expelled far too quickly. Why don’t schools intervene earlier?
The torture killing of an Italian student in Cairo has prompted the European Parliament to cut military lead to Egypt. But the European leaders may not be able to make the break.
ROBERTSDALE — There are few clues that this is the home town of Apple chief executive Tim Cook, the place where he said his “most improbable journey” began and where he forged the beliefs that today put him at the center of a national debate over privacy. His name is not noted on the town’s welcome signs along the main drag, Route 59. There’s nothing in the local chamber’s brochures, and the local paper rarely has anything about him. His old high school keeps a glass case celebrating former NFL running back Joe Childress, Class of 1952, but not the […]
Few island nations have had better pre-conditions for economic and social development than Sri Lanka, which investors recognize is ripe for growth and tourism. The country has a high literacy rate and free healthcare. But none has suffered as long as Sri
Though a number of Asian countries have special menstrual leave policies for working women, the West hasn’t embraced the notion, in part because feminists have rejected the idea. But now a UK company has adopted time off for women facing monthly p
The twin problems of the economic crisis and university studies taking longer than expected have conspired to force many young adults to return home to their parents. Problem is, sometimes they bring their partners too.
Reactions from both officials and the media to the murders of two Argentine women in Ecuador suggest that old-fashioned misogyny still commands in modern Latin America.
BERLIN — Employees at German companies say they don’t get enough pats on the back, their superiors too stingy in praising a job well done. But even amid such rising expectations for positive reinforcement, some experts warn that managers must dole out praise in moderation. Too much approval, for a variety of reasons, can prove […]
CAIRO — International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world on March 8. Egypt celebrates Egyptian Women’s Day on March 16, and March 9 marks the infamous day when members of the Armed Forces performed virginity tests on female protestors detained in Tahrir Square in 2011 — a crime no one has been held accountable […]
A woman’s movement challenging a centuries-old practice of denying women entry into the most sacred areas of worship in Hindu temples and Muslim shrines is generating a heated debate across India.
NANTERRE — He’s got Palmyra on his mind. Sitting as his desk in the judicial police office in Nanterre, near Paris, Ludovic Ehrhart is staring at his holiday pictures: four black-and-white snapshots of the ancient Syrian city. He put them up last summer, just after ISIS started to destroy it. He’s been to Palmyra twice, […]
Restaurant, cell phone and clothes: People usually buy what others appear to want, so companies use the illusion of low supply to create new demand. But there are paradoxes to human instincts and desires.
PALAWAN — It’s the middle of a grueling practice for young women competing in a local beauty pageant. They sashay back and forth in high heels to perfect their walk without tripping. Their trainer, Thom Avila, explains the rigors of his beauty boot camp. “When the girls wake up, we start the day with jogging,” he says. “After jogging, we have breakfast, followed by walking exercises. After that, we teach them how to put on makeup and that is followed by question and answer exercises.” Most of his students come from impoverished backgrounds. One of them is Janicel Lubina, 20, […]
When a feminist argues that male courtship rituals toward women are a form of gender subjugation, a Portuguese journalist takes his own kind of offense on behalf of the male sex.
At 79, Frank Serpico, the former New York police whistleblower immortalized by Al Pacino is still a rebel at heart, as cranky and idealistic as ever.
When the owners of the tiny, unspoiled island of Budelli went bankrupt and a would-be New Zealand buyer’s bid failed, middle school students stepped in, starting an ambitious global fundraising campaign that has gone viral.
The streets of Mexico’s capital are littered with plastic and styrofoam, the constant remnants of an irresponsible culture of consumption, an essayist writes. If we can’t change simple habits only we can control, no summit or government in
European rocket company Arianespace doesn’t get the attention of Elon Musk’s U.S.-based upstart SpaceX, but its approach may be better equipped for the long haul.
KABUL — Here at Pol-e Sokhta, in a spot in western Kabul where hundreds of drug addicts gather each day, Afghan government workers have become a regular presence. The government workers have been given the mission to round up the city’s drug users and move them to a former NATO base, less than 10 kilometers away. The Afghan ministries of counter-narcotics, public health and economy have joined together in the initiative to provide treatment for drug addicts at the camp. Salamat Azimi, Minister of Counter Narcotics, says the state has the means to treat thousands of drug addicts, and will […]
Did you know the funny yellow stuff was born in the land of beurre?
After suffering a stroke seven years ago, Egon had to move to an assisted living facility. And for the second time in his life, he finally mustered the courage to be his true self.
SALLA — On the door of the tourism bureau in Salla, Finland, there’s a poster proudly informing visitors that they are “in the middle of nowhere.” That much is indisputable: Salla is a dark, remote place, lost in the middle of hundreds of miles of Laponian pine forests and covered in a thick mantle of […]
When the legendary 87-year-old film composer finally won his first Oscar, he chose to speak in his native language. It was a subtly powerful message back home in Italy.
PARIS — One of France’s state institutions is under fire for what critics call a textbook example of “biopiracy,” an issue that is also at the heart of a new bill the French Senate approved just last month. Last year, the country’s Research Development Institute (IRD) earned a patent on a molecule extracted from the […]