Worldcrunch
CAIRO — Egyptian Jews are having to face the ugly truth that their community appears bound to vanish. As recently as 1947, Egypt’s Jewish community numbered up to 80,000. Today, by most accounts, there are just seven Egyptian Jews left, most of whom are elderly women in need of daily medical care. The last time […]
CONFUSION AND FIGHTING IN BURUNDI Violent broke out this morning in the Burundi capital of Bujumbura between soldiers loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza and forces who claimed to have staged a coup. The situation is very uncertain in the capital, as reports suggest the attempted coup is still ongoing, RFI reports. EXTRA! PRINCE CHARLES’ MEMOS […]
In the capital of Tunis, Hedia is the caretaker of a sanctuary dedicated to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that worships saints. Radical Muslims slit the throat of a colleague.
Despite having a Facebook page against its participation in Eurovision, and also having been copiously booed during last year’s event, Russia still went on and decided to participate in this year’s edition. Our guess is the audience really didn’t like the song, we don’t see any other reason. But still, how impolite and mean, even […]
ANURADHAPURA — More than 20,000 farmers in Sri Lanka, mostly rice farmers in the north, have lost their lives in recent years because of an unexplained surge in kidney disease. It has now reached epidemic proportions, and patients are descending on overwhelmed clinics, lining up for the few dialysis machines available. Karnu Jemanta and his brother, who are working their rice field outside the village of Rambewa, are worried. “We’re not sick yet, but we may be soon,” Jemanta says. “People from the Health Ministry came and said it could be chemicals, or that we should drink more water when […]
-OpEd- BOGOTA — When I hear about people now selling marijuana legally in the United States, I think of all our fellow Colombians who have died over the years fighting America’s absurd war on drugs. I think of Luis Carlos Galán and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, two politicians gunned down by drug traffickers, and I imagine […]
The Swiss photographer gets inside an often impenetrable community and emerges with a portrait that both shines and confounds.
Romania chose none other than its biggest pop-rock band, Voltaj, to represent the country at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The group has been one of the most popular acts in Romania for the past 20 years and their fans all across Europe will undoubtedly vote for them on the big night. Well played, Romania. […]
Morocco was among the first Arab and Muslim countries to approve the birth-control pill. Now women activists are fighting for the right to choose to have an abortion.
Millions of gaming enthusiasts tune in to YouTube videos of Wartek’s live commentating on the gaming hit Call of Duty. Meet a new kind of Internet celebrity.
Portugal’s Eurovision history is a sad one. In 47 appearances since its debut in the contest in 1964 and only four absences (once for boycott, once for poor results, once for financial reasons and once because it just didn’t feel like it), the country has never won or even finished in the top 5. A […]
Authorities in Macedonia have accused ethnic Albanians from Kosovo of planning violent unrest in the country after a Saturday police raid against an armed group early left 14 militants and eight police officers dead, the BBC reports. Officials said that the group had been “neutralized” and a massive weapons cache seized. Because of the region’s […]
The first half of this week will be spent in a bubble of reflection and waiting, with some possible economic concerns. The next steps at work may appear uncertain and cloudy, though everything starts again quickly from the middle of the week — at the urging of Mars, in favor again. In love, a spiteful […]
As boatloads of desperate immigrants land in Italy, the debate is highly charged. One writer reminds his countrymen of their own emigrant past.
KABUL — Big weddings, music and dancing were banned in Afghanistan under the Taliban. So after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime in 2001, Afghans who could afford it began throwing large, loud and expensive weddings. But the government says the tradition has become a burden for grooms’ families, who are obliged to underwrite wedding costs, and the parliament has passed a law to makes lavish and expensive weddings illegal. The new law limits the number of wedding guests to 500 and caps the per-head cost at around $7. “This law will solve huge problems facing young people that make […]
FORÉCARIAH — Assény Touré’s tightly drawn features bear testament to his harrowing ordeal. In December, after he was diagnosed with Ebola, this taciturn 30-year-old was chased out of the village where he was born, Béta, an hour-drive away from Forécariah, in western Guinea. The virus killed 19 members of his family. He survived. And yet […]
Sentenced to 18 years in prison, Franck fought to undergo a sex change operation with hunger strikes and endless mutilations. Chloe is now a free woman, and married to her former cellmate.
To this day, Poland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times, achieving its best result with a second place on the year it first participated, in 1994. About this year’s entry — the Bonnie-Tyleresque ballad “In The Name Of Love” — singer Monika Kuszynska said: “This year’s Eurovision Song Contest’s motto is Building […]
LONDON — What all British pollsters foresaw as the tightest election in decades turned out to be a night of triumph for incumbent Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party and a stinging defeat for the Labour opposition. The Conservatives won 331 seats, enough to form a small majority, Labour won 232, the Scottish […]
When a country acknowledges atrocities it has committed, it implies a mix of democratic culture and confidence that is more the exception than the rule.
This is the church where El Greco was baptized. The Spanish Renaissance painter, whose real name was Doménikos Theotokópoulos, was actually born in Crete — hence his nickname, “The Greek.”
Colombia’s health minister has opened up to euthanasia and imposed new bans on herbicides — news in a conservative country, and one so close to the U.S. for so long.
NEW YORK — Four different credit and bank cards, an International press card, a health insurance card and a gym membership card, a monthly MetroCard for the New York subway, a couple of prepaid international phone cards — probably expired — and $32 in cash. In the inside pocket, my Italian driver’s license and a […]
FUEL SHORTAGES HIT AID AGENCIES IN YEMEN Aid agencies working amid airstrikes in Yemen have warned that they might have to halt their efforts due to fuel shortages, thus preventing them from helping hospitals and carrying humanitarian aid to millions of people, Reuters reports. Airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition meanwhile continue to hit Houthi rebels’ […]
By satellite phone and email, people living in ISIS-controlled Raqqa, Syria, say fighters have stolen their houses, killed family members and even forced them to pay rent on properties they already own.
Loathed and feared in the art world, Vladimir Medinsky has shown a clear willingness to quash what he believes casts Russia in a poor light.
Despite the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, religion still dominates the public sphere. Against the odds, the founders of a new party are fighting for the separation of mosque and state.
Photo: Eurovision Song Contest We’ve got so much to say about Moldova’s entry for Eurovision 2015. Not about the song per say, which is just kind of blergh, but about the music video — a cops-and-robbers-BOOM-BANG-BANG car chase directed by a second-hand Moldovan version of Michael Bay. In this masterpiece, which is a bit NSFW […]
Religious offerings are important on the Indonesian island of Bali. Long processions of women can be seen threading their way to the Hindu temples, carrying towers of flowers, fruit, cakes, meats and eggs on their heads, often for long distances.
It is time to start asking harder questions about the world’s largest company, both how it runs its business and how it conditions our lives.
A view from France of Thursday’s high-stakes election across the Channel.
Spaghetti produced from the wheat of local farms is served in the restaurants of Ethiopia, which discovered pasta during Italian colonial rule but only now are developing an entire economy around it.
Malta is one of the few Eurovision participants that have not missed a single contest since 1991. But despite such dedication, the country has always preferred finishing in the top 10 without winning — probably a way to make the most of the glory without the burden of organizing the party the following year. Classic. […]
MINQIN — Here, where the sand threatens to encroach, China is waging a long-term war against desert expansion. Just a few steps beyond the cultivated fields, the desert stretches as far as the eye can see. Minqin is menaced by the Tengger Desert to the west and by the Badain Jaran Desert to the east, […]
A filming accident left French equestrian stuntman Bernard Sachse paralyzed below his tenth vertebra. But his career is busier than ever.
Lithuania’s history in the Eurovision Song Contest is unfortunately pretty bad. Since its first run in 1994, the country has made 15 appearances, more or less interspersed by failed attempts to qualify, lack of funds and threats to boycott the show if Russia didn’t stop invading countries. This year, it will be represented by the […]
A growing number of Syrians have been trying to escape to Europe over the past year, some meeting their tragic ends after paying smugglers to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats.
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German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is a fighter. The authors of two new books about the daughter of the very conservative Ernst Albrecht envision the unconventional leader as the next chancellor.
Latvia ran in 15 editions of the Eurovision Song Contest since its first participation at the turn of the millennium. The former Soviet satellite failed only to qualify in 2004 with this song — we have no idea why it didn’t work, people probably forgot what real rock’n’roll was at the time. But Latvia also […]