Worldcrunch
PARIS — Le masculin l’emporte. In the French language, this is the idea that “the masculine form takes precedence” over the feminine form when matching an adjective or pronoun to a plural noun. If there is a group of women, adding just one man to the mix means that all words used to describe that […]
Having experienced its economic collapse a generation earlier than the 2008 crisis, Japan has become a laboratory for making the most out of meek growth.
Techno scene in Belarus faces a youth tempted by emigration, pricey vinyls and the KGB lurking in the shadows. But the nights in Minsk are still something truly remarkable.
Apple has opened the doors of its new 175-acre campus, built in the shape of a gigantic UFO, where 12,000 employees will be working. It will cost Apple $5 billion – five times as much as NASA’s Juno, which traveled to Jupiter. Because of the design of the main building, the Apple Park has already […]
For several years, the south of England has started to fill with Champagne vines. Faced with global warming, French wine-growers are choosing to diversify their production sites.
SFAX — Plastic bags litter the fields that separate the highway from the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisian fishermen sail their boats in the Gulf of Gabes, between the cities of Sfax and Zarzis — and just 120 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Indeed, recently the fishermen’s haul has begun to include migrants picked up […]
Any day now, Google is expected to achieve quantum supremacy—the use of a quantum computer to solve a problem that even the most advanced supercomputer can’t unravel. That milestone, which Google has said it will reach by year-end, will no doubt be greeted with headlines proclaiming the dawn of the quantum computing age. Prepare for lots of stories about how quantum computing will soon do everything from inventing wonderful new pharmaceuticals and almost-magical new materials (good) to rendering obsolete all existing public-key encryption (not so good). There’s plenty of momentum. Earlier this month, Intel Corp. researchers unveiled a superconducting chip […]
If you wanted to take a break from wandering the streets of Aleppo, in a then peaceful Syria, you could buy tea from this colorful vendor about to set up shop.
-Analysis- Some shoes are just too big to fill. Take the ones left behind by Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died just over a year ago at 88, and whose five-day cremation ceremony began in Bangkok yesterday after 12 months of national mourning. The longest-reigning monarch in Thai history served for 70 years, and was […]
Health and medicine were constant themes of the famed Colombian novelist. He also spent his life trying to understand how the human brain works, and why the memory breaks down…until he himself was afflicted by Alzheimer’s.
The southern city of Marawi was liberated last week after months of fighting which left some 1,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
While the world is focused on Catalan and Kurdish movements for nationhood, Taiwan lives in the shadow of both mainland China and its own political contradictions.
-Analysis- The Islamic State is now on the run in Syria and Iraq. Following the terror group’s defeat this summer in its self-declared Iraqi capital of Mosul, ISIS has now been driven from its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. This comes more than four years after ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his “Caliphate” from the […]
WASHINGTON — Almost a year after New Yorker Jessica Leeds and other women stepped forward with harrowing accounts of being sexually assaulted by a powerful man, another scandal with similar elements exploded. Only this time, the punishment was swift and devastating. “It is hard to reconcile that Harvey Weinstein could be brought down with this, and President Donald Trump just continues to be the Teflon Don,” said Leeds, who claims she was groped 30 years ago on a plane by the man whose presence she cannot escape now that he sits in the Oval Office. In Florida, Melinda McGillivray, was […]
This rock formation in Guilin, southeastern China, reminded me a lot of similar karst caves in Ardèche, in my native France. This one’s name is translated as, Elephant Trunk Hill. Do you see it?
GENEVA — It’s just before 7:30 a.m. on the train station platform. White letters on the display panel spell out the final destination of the approaching train: Geneva Airport. A-I-R-P-O-R-T. Just the sight of those seven small letters produces a cold sweat, a knot in the stomach, a slight dizziness. For most people, airports are a launching point for a world of possibilities. They’re synonymous with vacations, new horizons. But not for me. I wander around them like a zombie, clutching my box of anti-anxiety pills like it’s my best friend. I admit, I’m afraid of planes. Every time I […]
Much has and hasn’t changed in Poland since the fall of Communism. But while the country’s economy is rolling, sharp differences in ideology bring real risks for the future.
PARIS — Winter is coming. People here in the Northern Hemisphere are ready to start bundling up before leaving home. But if you’re in Austria, you might want to think twice about pulling your wool hat too far down or wrapping your scarf up too high. That’s because a new law, which came into effect […]
A family in El Salto in western Mexico is fighting local factories in its bid to show how pollution has ‘murdered’ one of the country’s emblematic waterways, the Santiago river.
The grandest museums increasingly share their most prestigious exhibitions across borders for both aesthetic and economic reasons.
Nondisclosure agreements and other contracts perpetuate a culture of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.
The twisted Trinity Column in Sopron, northwestern Hungary, is what they call a “plague pillar.” It was erected to give thanks, in the late 17th century, for the end of one of the various recurrences of the Black Death that struck central Europe over the years.
This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair was marred by violence amid protests against a far-right publishing house. It’s time to rethink our relationship with literature.
An Egyptian writer shares her struggle with keeping bipolar disorder from invading everything she does and everyone she knows.
Taxpayers sometimes have to pay three times for any scientific article.
In the Indian state of Odisha, the Khond, a large Indigenous community, are losing their forest and their food sources. There are environmental and nutritional consequences.
If a CEO starts quoting Churchill or some Silicon Valley titan to give pomp to their office speeches, they’re only highlighting their utter lack of originality and leadership.
Ground has been broken on the signature domestic project of the Chinese leader’s next term. It is meant to be a massive model city of innovation, forever linked to Xi’s Chinese Dream.
The northern Italian region of Veneto will hold a referendum on gaining greater autonomy from the central government in Rome — but not all its citizens are aware.
-Analysis- PARIS — Next month marks the two-year anniversary of the Bataclan attack — and the one-year anniversary of its reopening. The Nov. 13, 2015 shooting that took place at the historic Paris music venue, along with coordinated attacks at nearby cafes and a soccer stadium, left a total of 130 people dead. It was […]
They were the brides of ISIS. These days, they are detained in a camp for the internally displaced north of Raqqa city. They speak about life in the caliphate, and their hopes for the future.
The rapid rise in part-time employment has undermined what was, until now, the instrument of choice to evaluate the job market. What comes in its place?
BERLIN — Sebastian Kurz was faster than Emmanuel Macron. Following the rapid rise of this year’s other young political superstar, Kurz’s victory Sunday in Austria“s parliamentary election was even more stunning — and swift. He needed only five months to pull off three unbelievable feats: to rebuild the washed-out Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) into a […]
You’d expect the mountainous Epirus region, in northwestern Greece, to be somewhat dry. But the shores of the beautiful lake Pamvotis bring some welcome greenery to the inland.
In Switzerland, a provocatively mundane location for top avant-garde art. But can you find something more important than a full tank of gas?
SIRTE — If it were theater, it would be bad theater. Too incongruous, too unreal. The stage — buildings in ruins all along the boulevard — just doesn’t fit the happiness on the people’s faces. Some are busy decorating their cars with ribbons for a wedding. Others are drinking coffee or shopping. The cars are […]
The current challenge in rural electrification is not just connecting households, but providing sufficient, affordable and high-quality supply.
You shouldn’t play with fire, with the deepest feelings of a people. That counts for Catalonia, but also for smaller battles of belonging, like those in Swiss cantons.
The Marxist leader killed in an ambush in 1967 achieved icon status as a warrior for the revolution. But it’s his proposals about the economy that have lasting value.
Some photos speak for themselves, others can use a little explaining. Though I took this shot almost 40 years ago, seeing it brought back some vivid memories: For starters, our meal at “Chez Hans,” housed in a former church in County Tipperary in the south of Ireland, was delicious. Despite its Franco-German sounding name — […]