Worldcrunch
CASABLANCA — Jews in Morocco stand in front of 2,000 years of history, and some more recent events. Seventy years ago, some 300,000 Jews lived in the country, which was then the largest Jewish minority in the Arab world. Today only about 5,000 Jews live here – the others have migrated for a variety of […]
RIO DE JANEIRO — The sign outside this modest hair salon in the Rio das Pedras favela, or shantytown, of Rio de Janeiro reads “Belos Fios” (“beautiful hair”). Inside, customers can find Matrix hair color products stacked behind the salon’s two only chairs. This is just one of some 30 small salons, most of them […]
Gender, virility, violence and fear: warmaking has long been thought to have a very specific and masculine identity. But a French researcher has shown that it’s not so simple.
A group of young people of all religious backgrounds are living proof of religious tolerance, as they volunteer to clean Jakarta houses of worship, whether they be Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian.
Hong Kong’s umbrella protesters have all but conceded defeat, and China is taking a victory lap. The showdown offers a glimpse of Beijing’s new use of smart power, and its deeper weaknesses.
GOMA — Teachers raping their students is tragically all too common in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But in the eastern region of South Kivu, it is a reality that is now finally being confronted, with the establishment of local committees in which parents, education officials and students report and track sexual assaults in […]
Martial law has brought calm but not peace to Thailand. A report released this week by the International Crisis Group warns that the military regime’s stifling of dissent could ultimately lead to greater turmoil. The military claims that the coup d’etat last May was staged to maintain order after six months of street unrest by anti-government protests. They took TV channels and radio stations off the air, and only heavily censored versions have been allowed to return. Several hundred academics and activists have been detained. Many others have fled to the west where they are applying for asylum. From his […]
PARIS — The stage is set in the middle of the vast, empty and decidedly cold shed of the Halle Freyssinet, a building formerly used as a shipment hub for trains and trucks near the Austerlitz railway station in Paris. After the presidential lectern is installed, with French and European flags in the background, in […]
For Renaud Laplanche, it all began with a credit card statement that seemed all wrong. Now, after helping to bring banking into the digital era, it’s time for a major IPO for his SF-based firm.
-OpEd- DOURADOS — Large imposing walls and fences have become a compulsory part of construction plans for the luxury gated communities mushrooming all around Brazil. But there is one particularity about the Ecoville Residence in Dourados, in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul. On the other side of its three-meter electric fence sits […]
MACENTA — Just a few months ago, people would queue outside the shop of Jean Segbé Bavogui, 41, a tailor in Banizé, a neighborhood outside the Guinea town of Macenta. But the small workshop is now empty. Bavogui hasn’t seen any clients or received any orders for over a month. Even the well outside his […]
In a reversal of economic fortunes, Sweden’s under-25s are leaving the high unemployment of their home country to seek more money and secure jobs in Norway.
Japan has slipped into recession, the ultimate mark of failure of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ambitious but misguided efforts to turn around the nation’s economy.
Chile has the largest Palestinian population outside the Arab world. This neighborhood in Santiago is bound by a singular mix of history, soccer and headlines coming out of Gaza.
MILAN — The International Highrise Award enjoys great prestige because, unlike other similar competitions, it is granted neither for a building’s height nor form. Instead, the prize — bestowed by the German Architecture Museum, the city of Frankfurt and Deka Bank — honors criteria such as sustainability and innovation. And this year’s winner, Milan’s Bosco […]
HAMBURG — When Kathrin Fiesel talks about lunch breaks at her company, people can’t believe it: “You do what? You go dancing!?” Her employer, the e-commerce giant Otto, in Hamburg’s Bramfeld district, has for several months now been trying out alternatives to the classic visit to the canteen. One of the things they’ve come up […]
REYHANLI — At the beginning of this year, Jamal Maarouf was regarded as the new white knight of the Syrian insurrection. Over the course of just a few days in January, Maarouf and his men drove ISIS jihadists out of northern Syria’s Idlib province. Armed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, the leader of […]
Reducing the strain on the environment, and opting out of a “growth-at-all-costs” logic, may be the only path forward for the future. And it will require the smartest new ideas.
WALIKALE — They swapped their firearms for spades, machettes and hoes. Until very recently, the young people here used to be members of armed groups in Congo’s North Kivu that boasted names such as Kifua Fua (Stuck-out Chest) or Raia Mutomboki (Revolutionary People). But on this Saturday in early November, they are repairing a road […]
A 6.6-billion-kilometer space mission flew with the spirit of Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral and some of the old continent’s other great achievements of vision and steadfastness.
SAO PAULO — During my time in the early 1980s as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo in Buenos Aires, I covered more demonstrations of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” — and then of the “Grandmothers” — than I could count. Brave women, their faces furrowed by time and pain, their heads […]
Thomas Sankara, the Marxist icon of the 1980s, was killed in a coup by now ousted Burkina Faso leader Compaore. Today’s youth movement is still inspired by the African revolutionary.
The midterm elections were a stinging defeat for Barack Obama. But it was also a wholesale indictment of U.S. politics, which is both disturbing and confounding when viewed from abroad.
A reporter witnesses a city fall to the hands of Boko Haram, as locals recount the brutality they’ve witnessed. Meanwhile, slim hopes for a negotiated solution.
Since Syrians began fleeing the war zone for safety in their neighboring country, schools are overcrowded, jobs are scarce and tensions are high. Especially vulnerable are school children.
Haiphong, the third largest Vietnamese city, could become a new Asian transport hub to compete with Hong Kong and Singapore.
The once sleepy coastal city is now buzzing with activity, and foreign investors.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff edged out reelection, thanks in part to her charismatic predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. What role will he seek in her second term? Is he preparing to run in 2018?
Grave doubts about the health and capacity of longtime President Bouteflika are pulling Algeria apart at the seams. Who’s in charge? What happens next in this pivotal North African country?
Looking at the business fundamentals, there are both very good and very bad signs for Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella. Is there a (positive) lesson in IBM’s evolution?
Radical Islamists zero in on young people in the West who are lonely and disaffected by modern life.
MUNICH — Tobias Fröhlich no longer wears a suit and tie to work. The former BMW salesman dons a white polo shirt and blue trousers for his job at a new branch of the Munich firm where he greets customers with a smile, iPad in hand. Fröhlich is a “product genius” and as such is […]
Two new books and a docudrama ask hard questions about how so many can still go hungry in a world of technological advancement and economic growth.
As China holds its 18th CCP Fourth Plenary Session with the theme of the “rule of law in China,” it is clear that the corrupt system that fueled the country’s economic boom is bankrupt.
Despite the fanfare of the huge financial commitments from Arab and Western countries to rebuild Gaza after the latest Israel offensive, collecting the cash is a whole different story.
Even as President Sirleaf is criticized by some, one opposition parliament member has decided to donate his own time and money to work directly with those affected by the outbreak.
-Analysis- PARIS — A decade after development began in earnest on the “continent of lions” — the result of vast riches in raw materials, and of Africa embracing globalization — the countries from the northern sub-Saharan Sahel region and large parts of central Africa are facing a double threat. Over the past few weeks, panic […]
Not far from the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a growing number of cases of cholera have spread. If these two contagious diseases overlap, it could be a catastrophe.
A full 25 years after the fall of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the brutal commandant of a labor camp for political prisoners is finally being tried for alleged atrocities.