Worldcrunch
MUNICH — After tallying the results of Santa’s wish list comes the next step: wishful thinking. With the turning of the calendar comes another New Year full of hopes and expectations as the list of resolutions pile up. It’s like closing-down sales: Everything must go, everything must change. Around the world, the vows look similar: […]
-Analysis- WARSAW — In Poland, hatred is clearly fueling violence. But after six racist attacks were registered in a four-day period, this was the reaction from the country’s Interior Minister: “”There is no racism in Poland.”” The victims of these attacks are foreigners from the Polish cities of Wrocław, Legnica. Lublin and Ozorków. Four kebab […]
TEHRAN — When a major political leader dies, the labels and comparisons acquired over a lifetime can tell us much about both the leader and the nation itself. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a veteran of the 1979 Iranian Revolution who later evolved into a reformist, has been called over the years everything, from the “General of […]
VERSAILLES — With the attention to detail that comes with doing something for the last time, Béatrix Saule checks on the 200 clocks that chime one after another. She unfolds a shutter to protect the drapes from the sun. She tests the floor to see if there’s any movement in stonework. Saule has been doing […]
BUENOS AIRES — Places speak through their names, and the stories of their foundational origins constitute an intangible heritage as significant as any famous building or monument. Toponymy is the study of place names and their origins, the relationship, in other words, between a place and its name. And names often give us information on […]
BERLIN — One recent underreported case of a 24-year-old Afghan in Germany is a perfect example of how hard it is for security authorities to track potentially dangerous Islamists. The suspected radical, who has disappeared near Hannover in Lower Saxony, had previously traveled to Afghanistan to be trained in the handling of explosives. Since July […]
Kim Jong-un will be celebrating his 33rd birthday this Sunday. Wishes and presents are usually in order on this type of occasion, but it’s difficult to see any desire the North Korean dictator hasn’t already seen fulfilled in his five years in power. For starters, the cult of personality has never been bigger in North […]
The Spanish island of Ibiza is not reserved for beach-goers and party animals only. It’s also rich with nice villages and seaside resorts with old olive trees like this one. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Hong Kongers really like soup. Is that the secret to their long leases on life?
PUNTA DEL ESTE — From this Argentine beach resort, it was business as usual this week for the Trump family empire. But the appearance of Eric Trump, the second-born son of the next U.S. President, to promote the family company’s new luxury flats in Argentina was also another flash of the unresolved questions about major […]
This is part of a Syria Deeply series “Bags and Belongings,” in which we ask refugees what they packed in their bags and what they left behind. Here we meet Mustafa Awad, a Syrian badminton coach from the northwestern city of Idlib who recently arrived in Athens with his wife and three children. Read the first installment here. ATHENS — We come from Idlib, a city that was once so beautiful it was nicknamed the Green, but is now known as Red Idlib from the amount of blood spilled over it. We love peace and quiet, but the war forced […]
This is the face of civil disobedience, circa 2017. Cédric Herrou, a 37-year-old farmer from southeastern France, appeared in court yesterday in Nice for having illegally helped undocumented African migrants cross the Italian-French border. “I do it because it has to be done,” Le Monde quotes him as saying. An olive and egg farmer and […]
Sunda Kelapa, the old port of Jakarta, was the perfect place to snap some portraits of Indonesian stevedores at work. Balance is everything. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Trade with Asia will be all the more important for Latin American countries once President Obama leaves office.
BEIJING — It’s been more than a year since China abolished the one-child policy ntroduced in 1979 to control the population. The politburo came up with a new two-child policy and simplified the government-approval process for couples seeking assisted reproductive treatment. The shift prompted older couples to use frozen semen and eggs, and test-tube babies. […]
Sorry, little spider monkey of Crococun zoo, near Cancun: My favorite zoo is still Hamburg’s Tierpark Hagenbeck. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
PARIS — The victory of the Russians, Iranians and of the Syrian regime in Aleppo is a strategic turning point in the organization of international relations. It marks the West’s fading out and the return of power politics in the Middle East. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the war. Here are four […]
Like elsewhere in Syria’s largest city, parts of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, where this man was praying peacefully more than 20 years ago, have since been destroyed.
All signs say the 56 prisoners killed inside the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex are part of an ongoing drug gang feud on the outside.
ISTANBUL — The New Year’s Eve terrorist attack at a popular nightclub in an upscale neighborhood of Istanbul has left 39 dead and dozens wounded. As Turkish authorities continue their search for the suspect, the terror group ISIS claimed responsibility Monday for the attack at the Reina nightclub, which some have noted came after loud public debates about the celebration of Western secular holidays. Here are seven questions and answers to better understand what happened, as well as the broader context in Turkey, and beyond. 1. What is the symbolic meaning of the nightclub Reina? Reina may be out of […]
The rise of Donald Trump, as well as the growing power of populist leaders in Europe, will require a vigilant eye when the signs start appearing that puts basic democratic values in harm’s way. It is just beginning.
1. My Yacht, My Shell Company: Cheating, Divorce And Panama Papers GERMANY — Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 8 2. Living In Space, Russia Probes 55 Years After Yuri Gagarin RUSSIA — Kommersant, Aug. 12 3. A Yogurt Story, When Immigrant Dreams Feed American Capitalism UNITED STATES — La Stampa, May 3 4. Sexism In Chivalry? A […]
PARIS — Our crack staff of serious but seriously subjective journalists, translators and editors have chosen what we believe to be the year’s most engaging and provocative Worldcrunch stories. America And Us, Trump’s Victory Is Very Bad News For The World FRANCE — Les Echos, Nov. 21 Panama Papers: Link Between Magnitsky Probe And Putin’s […]
What has Germany done to make people feel safer after the events of last New Year’s Eve, when hundreds of women were sexually abused in Cologne and other cities? Not much, writes author Birgit Kelle.
PARIS — There was enough news (real and fake) to keep our heads spinning for all of 2016. Yet one project we are particularly proud about this past year is our new Rue Amelot ongoing series of essays. These pieces may or may not take news as a leaping-off point, but ultimately wind up somewhere […]
The architectural icon begun by Antoni Gaudi in the late 19th century is still incomplete. Now city hall wants to end a century-old legal exception, as debate continues about protecting the original architectural vision.
Ceding to Russia’s influence in Syria is a “rare public humiliation,’ for Erdogan and his ambitions to make Turkey a world diplomatic power.
BIALYSTOK — There are plenty of cities in Poland that have something to hide. Bialystok is one of them. That’s where 80,000 Jews disappeared. Twice. The first time was during World War II; the second time, right after the War, when residents desecrated the Jewish cemetery and used it in the winter for riding their […]
For a fistful of dollars (actually, pesetas), I was able to visit Tabernas and its movie sets that were used in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns in the 1960s. Cue some chords from Ennio Morricone …
[dailymotion //www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x55f778 expand=1] Goodbye 2016: A Zapping Video Year In Review by Worldcrunch
For some, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become both the economic and moral leader of Europe. From tackling the eurozone’s debt crisis to countering Russian ambitions to bucking the tide of populism to welcome a million refugees into her country last year, Merkel has been lauded for her quiet but principled pragmatism in the face […]
Several decades of reflection and study have led neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux to stake out a new field that shows how art influences the brain.
A county in China long known for its poets and philosophers is now in the news for something far more notorious — renting out children as thieves for hire. In Dao county in the southern Chinese province of Hunan, a child can be rented for 200 yuan ($29) a day, or 50,000 yuan ($7200) a […]
Make it stop! That’s the message delivered this week by an organization of Protestant churches in El Salvador, Central America’s smallest but deadliest country. The group, known as the Pastoral Initiative for Life and Peace, or IPAZ, is hoping that for the week between Christmas and New Year, gang members, security forces, operatives of so-called […]
The killing of Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov has set off comparisons to 1914 and the singular spark for World War I.
Another week that will be stained in blood. For people in the West and throughout the (non-Orthodox) Christian world, this happens to be the week before the Christmas holiday, which leads us toward a new year. Few, at this point, have any illusions that 2017 can really be any less dreadful than 2016. Monday’s attacks […]
“Fear of terrorism in Berlin,” read the front page of Berlin-based daily Der Tagesspiegel on Tuesday, a day after a seven-ton truck plowed into a Christmas market in the heart of the German capital, killing 12 and wounding dozens. German police are investigating the event as a terrorist attack. Early this morning, police raided a […]
Thirty years before Hitler’s crimes, Germany’s southwest African colony was the scene of mass killings of ethnic Hereros, whose descendants are still waiting for answers.
In a normal election cycle, the meeting of the U.S. Electoral College goes virtually unnoticed. The 2016 race to the White House, however, has been anything but normal. Recent allegations from both the CIA and FBI that Russia essentially “hacked the election,” come as the apparent state-by-state electoral college loser Hillary Clinton leads the overall […]
CERIGNOLA — Franco Metta is the mayor of the small town of Cerignola, located in the southern Italian region of Apulia. He recently received a box of biscuits as a Christmas gift from a local businessman, but upon opening the box he discovered 20,000 euros ($21,120) expertly rolled into two packs of 10,000 each — […]