Worldcrunch
SANTIAGO – Latin America has a long and checkered history of technological innovation spreading with the confusion and occasional lawlessness of the Wild West. This is particularly troubling now with the spread of drone technology, as more and more of the unmanned craft are hovering around the region with no regulations to speak of. In […]
BERLIN — A refugee slams a briefcase down on the table, snaps it open and takes out a series of plastic cards. “Here,” he says, “health card from Italy, residence permit, identity card. We have everything. Our asylum cases are complete. We’re allowed to move around in Europe, but we’re not allowed to work, not […]
From Twitter to Dropbox to Airbnb, where office life is the good life.
PYONGYANG — Mounted on the façade of the new Haedanghwa complex is a giant screen broadcasting slick propaganda messages. Just across the way, the “people’s ice rink” glimmers with its wavy modernist roof. On the opposite bank of the Taedong River, a dozen of 50-story-high residential buildings completed last year have helped give this area […]
BEIJING — Belly dancing has long been associated with the Middle East, but there seems to be plenty of evidence to suggest that its future may be here in China. There has been a huge growth in popularity of belly dance shows, contests and schools across the country. A recent belly dancing convention in Beijing brought stars from around the world for a weekend of workshops and performances. Two dozen dancers are going through their routines at an afternoon class at the Wen Kexin Belly Dancing School, located in a plush new commercial complex on Beijing’s east side. Fan Hui […]
Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: The Rolling Stones’ “Angie” is turning 40 this year — and we’ve thought about it every time we’ve published an article on German Chancellor Angela Merkel…
The Edward Snowden leaks on the NSA spying structure reveal an intelligence approach driven by the fear of the unknown … and the “unknown unknowns.”
LAUSANNE — The idea that young people nowadays are more conservative than previous generations is a common cliché. Girls are said to be dreaming of becoming housewives while boys supposedly behave like old-style alpha-males, reproductive and career-obsessed. As Switzerland is about to vote on an initiative that aims to use tax breaks to benefit a […]
A woman’s extraordinary courage, a teen couple’s illegal kiss, and more stories that made the police blotter around the world…
Masters in the art of skirting real estate regulations…
With echos of the Truman Show, medical staff pose as neighbors and bartenders in this groundbreaking Dutch institution to treat dementia.
The troubled Colombian city has become a mecca for street art.
Social policy and mentality both must change for China to face its looming demographic crisis. Beijing’s recent decision to loosen its one-child policy is just a start.
TEL AVIV — For 40 years Arnie Druck has been a collector. He has built one of Israel’s largest and most impressive caches of Israeli and Jewish art, local photography, wines, books, artifacts linked to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and El Al airline memorablia. His four-decade foray into collecting sprouted from his Bar Mitzvah […]
After Sweden failed to qualify for the soccer World Cup, Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn’t disappoint; Nazi-era art mystery revealed; The red line for Iran in nuclear talks; and more newsworthy quotes of the past week.
HAMA — Most young women in Syria probably grew up dreaming of someday having a beautiful, magical wedding. But in wartime, many women, assuming they are able to wed at all, are settling for ceremonies that are a far cry from what they imagined. “My biggest fear was that we would book a restaurant and no one would show up,” says Sarah, a newlywed from Hama. She had planned to get married at the end of the summer. But plans are hard to make in Syria these days. Roads are so dangerous that chances are slim a mailed invitation will […]
DUSSELDORF — The air is ice cold without a hint of wind. As night falls over Düsseldorf, they come flocking from all directions: thousands of ring-necked parakeets. They land on the plane trees that line the luxury Königsallee shopping street. Men in expensive suits and women in fur coats look up in amazement. A little […]
Photo: Dave Hitchborne Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: The American R’n’B singer Pharrell Williams released the world’s first 24-hour long music video at midnight on Thursday, for his song “Happy.” The video played on 24HoursOfHappy.com and started out with Williams walking around […]
“A tragedy for the world…” is how the Manchester Guardian entitled its Nov. 23, 1963 obituary of President John F. Kennedy, killed the day before — exactly 50 years ago — as his motorcade drove through the city of Dallas, Texas. The Milan daily Corriere della Sera called the killing: “Una Tragica Pagina Della Storia […]
LONG SINGU — Lost in the Malaysian forest, the village of Long Singu — on the Island of Borneo — is engaging in righteous resistence. Between 200 and 300 Penan people are refusing to leave their land to make way for the Murum dam. “We want to keep our village and our forest,” is the […]
BOGOTA — Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian politician held hostage by FARC guerrillas for six years in the jungle, may return from self-imposed exile and become a candidate in the 2014 presidential election, Colombia’s El Pais newspaper reported. The country’s Green Alliance began to gauge her interest in returning to Colombian politics in recent weeks, and […]
A Miss Italia contestant arrested, French newspaper shooting, child porn ring and other news around the world this week…
OLBIA — Twelve hours notice. Forty-four centimeters of rain in 90 minutes. Sixteen dead, including four children. And, now, a fax alert. The blame game has begun in Sardinia after the tragic Cyclone Cleopatra hit the island earlier this week. Antonio Sanò, head of the weather website ilmeteo.it, said that Monday’s storm had been forecast […]
-Commentary- In the southern province of Guangxi, a pregnant woman was recently shot dead by a drunken policeman. After the incident, the local government proposed to compensate the victim’s family with 700,000 RMB ($115,000), which included damages for the deceased and child support for the victim’s two children. This was done on the grounds that […]
TEL AVIV — Every army needs its boots. In Israel, where the military has always played a central role in society, footwear for the troops has proudly been supplied locally since the country’s founding in 1948. But that may be about to change. Shimon Horowitz, head of the military division for Brill Company, which manufactures […]
In southeastern Congo, where a malaria outbreak is killing young children, some believe the disease has mystical origins and turn to higher powers rather than doctors.
The disaffected youth and religious radicals in the Muslim world are obsessed with Europe’s top football leagues. Testimony of an Italian reporter, who was held hostage earlier this year in Syria.
Using the power of light to combat the dark ideology of the Taliban. It sounds like the start of a bad movie, but that is exactly what Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of the Pakistani province of Punjab, intends to do. “More jobs will mean fewer extremists because we can give people a better chance in […]
CAIRO — “Have you seen this? The streets are so filthy, it’s disgusting!” Suzie Greiss doesn’t even live in one of Cairo’s notoriously poor corners, but rather in the middle-class neighborhood of Heliopolis, where the head of Egypt’s Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE) says she can no longer stand the filth that […]
BEIJING — Both the Internet and China’s mighty role as manufactured goods exporter have given new prominence to the Chinese language around the world. Here are 5 expressions from China already on the road to being exported themselves. 1.) The Beijing Youth Daily recently reported that a new Chinese buzzword, tu-hao, could be be included […]
Rising religious objections to the practice come 93 years after the Soviet Union became the first country to legalize abortions. Today, they are still legal – and free.
RAWALPINDI — When 40-year-old government employee Danial Ahmed has problems with his teeth, he goes to a quack on the streets of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. “The price of dental treatment is expensive,” he says. “I cannot afford it. These quacks offer cheap treatment. For just a few hundred rupees, we can get relief from toothache and other oral infections.” These cheap alternatives to real doctors can easily be found on virtually any roadside in Pakistan. They sit along the streets or in a small kiosks, where patients are treated on the spot. According to the government, there are more than 600,000 […]
Some 100 million people have emerged from poverty since the 1980s. Is that enough?
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Globalization is an inescapable process. It’s even affecting the new forms of protest against different governments and in different social contexts on our vast, beautiful planet. The problem is that this copycat trend is happening out of context. The Brazilian “black blocs” and Mídia Ninja (a group of independent journalists) are […]
Look up in the sky. No wait, don’t!
Different views on ecology, religion and the human body help explain a stunning boom in modern men and women choosing to be cremated instead of a traditional burial.
SHANGHAI — Recently, two Shanghai hospitals have held special training courses for their doctors. One invited a Taekwondo coach to teach the physicians self-defense skills, while the other featured a local police expert in crisis negotiation to brief them about violence prevention. The Chinese public of course understands what this is all about. Just two […]
For thousands of years, traditional boxing has been one of Burma“s primary national sports. But when the Southeast Asian Games are held in December, it will be conspicuously missing, as no other country fights in that style. The more internationally recognized Thai boxing, also known as Muay Thai, will be featured instead. “I was very keen on boxing, so I had sacrificed a lot. Finally, I earned a gold belt,” says Saw Ohn Myint, a former gold belt national champion in Burmese boxing. He says he would have loved to represent his country — officially known as Myanmar —before a […]
Photo: Conner Jay – Santa Rosa Press/ZUMA Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: November 18th will mark the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” performance in New York. Because you also might have worn long greasy hair and cardigans at one point in […]
Pleyel pianos, founded in 1809, built pianos for Chopin and other masters. In the end, it couldn’t find a new business strategy to survive against Asian competition.