Bangkok is no Hong Kong right now. Once considered an Asian model of democracy, Thailand is under strict military rule since the spring, with free speech squashed and fears deepening.
Author: Worldcrunch
Barack Obama is governing in a much different world than his predecessors. How will his foreign policy be remembered? Who does he most emulate? Hint: It’s not Jimmy Carter.
One slipped away, the other killed his way out of ISIS after witnessing too much brutality from the jihadist group. But as they tell their dramatic stories, sharp differences emerge.
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Brita, Leading The Water Revolution
The German maker of water filters finds it crazy that we are still shipping bottled water all around the world. And both its message and its adaptation to different markets are paying off.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, people have come to rely on the ability to do basic financial transactions anywhere. The downside is when cellular connection crashes.
Plans for a new, 80,000-seat stadium to host to 2020 Tokyo Games has been met with fierce criticism from prominent Japanese architects – on both aesthetic and ecological grounds.
Though both parties deny it, there have been rumors and a number of signs pointing to a possible reconciliation between the Egyptian government and the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Unlike al-Qaeda, which was always meant to operate on a global level, ISIS has been much more linked to its territory in Syria and Iraq. But that’s now starting to change.
Like manufacturers globally, the world’s largest carmaker uses robots to help build its cars. But they are “trained” by a small group of human experts the brand nurtures to be the very best.
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What Brazil Owes Its Indigenous Aikewara
A Brazilian Justice Ministry committee has officially apologized and offered reparations to the Aikewara, decimated in the early 1970s by army soldiers. But one more step is still needed.
Follow the money, which travels beyond borders more than ever before. But a new paradigm should be about more than just cracking down on evaders.
The sense of unraveling across the globe is the result of a power vacuum. After the post-Cold War end of U.S. hegemony, no one is ready to impose order. And, no, economics can’t fix it.
-Analysis- One year since taking office, Iran President Hassan Rouhani and his government are confronted with an extremely unstable geopolitical situation across the Middle East. Tehran had long been seen as the main beneficiary of the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq, but it must now face unexpected difficulties in its neighboring country and former sworn […]
European universities are a bastion of original thinking, but as more and more gets taught and learned in the English-language, conformism is bound to spread.
SÃO PAULO — When it comes to freshwater, Brazil, home to somewhere between 12% and 16% of the world’s total supply, is a very wealthy country. Inhabitants only use 0.7% of the 43,000 cubic meters of water per year that could, theoretically, be available to each and every one of them. In this regard, Brazil […]
Who knew these were the reasons to visit the scenic Black Forest.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a new biometric system aims to prevent locals from pilfering supplies meant for victims of civil conflict. The aid often ends up at local markets.
While criticism of medical care in China grows, public hospitals offer a solution that is laughably shallow.
PARIS — After changing the way we listen to music with the iPod and kickstarting the smartphone era with the iPhone, is Apple Pay going to revolutionize how we pay? The least we can say is that the Cupertino giant has done everything to maximize its chances of succeeding in its objective: to relegate wallets […]
After militants serve time in Guantanamo or Saudi prisons, the kingdom tries to ease them back into society with a mix of carrot, stick and religion.
As Europe continues to be divvied up into smaller, ethnically homogenous nations, the burdern falls on larger countries, compromising the leverage and a united West.
OXFORD — The walls in this Oxford, Mississippi, bookstore are covered with pictures of authors. One by one, Richard Howorth comments on them, as if this place were an open book narrating a multitude of unfinished stories. With his wife, this keen-eyed slender man with a dry humor has owned and managed Square Books, housed […]
Troops fighting around the world are often chasing enemies from somewhere else. A global tour of how the shards of ‘broken nations’ are fed into the conflicts of others.
Sweden has long been a haven for Christians from the Middle East. Will it show the same humanitarian spirit for Muslims fleeing Iraq? The debate heats up before national elections.
Paraguay’s Ministry of Culture says the real birthplace of the game the English named football, and gave rules to, was not in fact England. The Jesuits may have the proof.
For fear of an Iran-led rise of Shia, authorities from Riyadh to Ankara fed the radicalism that now eyes them as the primary target.
-OpEd- PARIS — We French love our rentrée littéraire. But with the launch of this year’s new literary season, dedicated in part to the memory of our American World War II allies, a new war is erupting. And the alliances seem to be changing. U.S.-based Trojan horse Amazon started the fight by targeting major French […]
Will Divine Providence, or “Bible roulette,” play a role in the outcome of next month’s Brazilian elections?
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Driven by the belief that Russia is the last bastion against liberal globalization, a small band of French fighters, some of them former military officers, have taken up arms against Ukraine.
Tiny freshwater hydrae have incredible powers of regeneration. In the quest for human longevity, researchers in Switzerland are trying to learn from their very little and long lives.
GAZA — Days after Israel’s “elimination” of four senior Hamas commanders, the “hunt for traitors” is in full swing inside the Islamic organization. At least 24 suspected “collaborators with Israel” have already been executed, but the hunt continues. The same happened for several weeks in 2009, immediately after Operation Cast Lead. It led to the […]
GAZA — Palestinian human rights organizations have used the truce in Gaza to begin their difficult investigation work on a war that has already killed more than 2,000 people. They are among the few NGOs on the ground while global organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, await permission to enter the enclave, which […]
Defying U.S. and NATO pressure to cancel its $1.6 billion sale of two Mistral warships to Russia, French President François Hollande has said that the first will be delivered in October, while the delivery of the second would “depend on Russia’s attitude.” -OpEd- PARIS — France simply cannot deliver two Mistral warships to Russia. Doing […]
-Editorial- PARIS — On the Iraq crisis as well as on the others around the world, the European Union is in disarray, hiding its divisions behind a discreet veil of consensus. At an Aug. 15 emergency meeting called by France and Italy, the 28 foreign ministers congratulated themselves … for each other’s stubbornness. Because a […]
Looking for family members who have emigrated to Europe, or in search of better opportunities, Congolese girls instead find themselves prey at the hands of human traffickers.
MYITKYINA — This is a sacred place for all Burmese people. The confluence of the Mali and N’Mai rivers, known as Myitsone in Burmese, forms here in Burma’s northernmost state of Kachin. The converging rivers form the Irrawaddy river, which flows north to south over more than 2,000 kilometers. It’s a vital artery that the […]
SAJE — Father Kriakosmi, the priest of the village Saje outside Dohuk, doesn’t complain about the inconveniences caused by masses of displaced people arriving here. As he undoes the top button of his black shirt, revealing his white collar, it’s not a sign of fatigue or defeat, simply a reaction to the suffocating heat in […]
MESSINA — From the moment the plane lands, it seems as if all the beauties of Sicily — its Mediterranean vegetation, its lemon trees loaded with heavy fruits, and its groves of broom and prickly pears — have gathered to welcome you. In the distance, Mount Etna, the “immense volcano” described by French writer Guy […]