A surprise victory turns the keys to Frankfurt city hall over to Peter Feldmann, the German city’s first Jewish mayor since 1933.
Author: Worldcrunch
Exclusive: Alina Fernandez doesn’t expect to ever again see – or even speak with – her famous father, Fidel Castro. As Pope Benedict XVI visits Cuba, Fernandez tells La Stampa that she doubts a late-in-life conversion for her father. “He assumes
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Syrian government accepts Annan peace plan
Syria’s government accepts the peace plan put forward by the United Nations and Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan.
President Nicolas Sarkozy urges television networks not to broadcast video footage of three deadly shootings in southern France filmed by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman using a camera strapped to his body.
An NGO in India has started to use Google Earth satellite technology to shine a light on whole neighborhoods of wretched slums, which authorities had long pretended didn’t even exist. But not all are happy about what happens when people suddenly
Maoist rebels ambush a patrol team in central India, setting off a land mine and killing at least 15 paramilitary policemen.
Thanks to particularities of the Chinese language, China’s largest Internet service provider has launched a mobile app with a name — Weixin — that means “little message,” but also can mean something else. Its geo-location feat
Europe’s job seekers can expect tough years ahead. Cedefop, an EU agency, predicts slow employment growth will continue to come down disproportionately hard on the educated youth. Some are even asking if a university degree is still worth the time and mon
According to a new study published by financial communications network AMO, European firms are becoming more and more proactive in looking for financing from China. The enthusiasm is not shared across the West.
Determined to make their new pay-as-you-go garbage system work, municipal authorities in Yverdon are hot on the trail of trash cheaters. But before they can issue fines, the Swiss town must identify the violators – which means rifling through the refuse
Oscar-winning director James Cameron resurfaced after plunging to the deepest known point in the world’s oceans in his one-man submersible, making him the first man to travel alone to the near 7-mile depth of the Marianas Trench.
China and the US have agreed to co-ordinate their response to any “potential provocation” if North Korea goes ahead with a planned rocket launch.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade says he has kept his promise by conceding defeat just hours after results showed his opponent Macky Sall winning, in one of few established democracies in western Africa.
Mohammed Melah invoked Islamic jihad in the killings of three French soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Muslims in France, who comprise some 8% of the country’s population, are worried about a major backlas
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s conservative Fidesz and KDNP parties are using a two-thirds majority in Parliament to govern at will. After new controls over the media, the government wants new regulations over religious gro
International organized crime networks earn billions of dollars every year from illegal logging. A new World Bank report suggests that if authorities really want to save the forests, they should follow the money.
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Will China’s Economy Burst, Japan-Style?
Some nervous observers in China are seeing too many similarities between the current state of the Chinese economy and what happened to Japan in the 1990s. For starters, the super-rich are cranking up real estate values, and the middle class is paying the
Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Mexico, one of the world’s most Catholic countries. But other religions are gaining ground, especially in the state of Chiapas, where even Islam has made inroads. Adopting a different religion, however, can be ris
Is it OK for doctors to remove the organs of people who are brain dead but whose bodies still function metabolically? The German National Ethics Council grappled with the issue this week. One panelist supported the practice, saying the brain dead &quo
How did French intelligence track down Mohammed Merah, the presumed responsible for last week’s slayings in and around Toulouse? Agency director Bernard Squarcini walks Le Monde through two years of surveillance and shares some of Merah’
Coroners report that pop legend Houston died from accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub after taking cocaine.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon says police had no grounds on which to arrest gunman Mohammed Merah before he carried out three attacks in which seven people died.
EU foreign ministers have imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on the UK-born wife of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and other family members. Asma al-Assad is among 12 people added to the sanctions list, which already includes her husband.
In late 2010, the art world was stunned when retired French electrician Pierre Le Guennec made it known that they were in possession of no fewer than 271 previously unseen Picassos. Digging deep, Le Monde finds connections directly to the master himself.
In 1998 when Pope John Paul II made a historic trip to Havana, Vatican diplomacy was on full display. Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Cuba, after a visit to Mexico, reminds us that the influence of the Catholic Church is based above all on its vas
Analysis: Bashar al-Assad has benefited from Russian and Chinese support to stay in power. But from neighboring Turkey, where many top Syrian exiles are based, one observer says the splintering of the opposition may be the real force to ensure Assad&#
Vladimir Putin rival Prokhorov is keen to launch a new political party. Consolidating support from the recent election, in which he finished an impressive third, the businessman billionaire is first going straight to the people to help him find a name for
In Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s most conservative province, billboards showing women are regularly torn down and music shops have been repeatedly bombed. So how is it that under the noses of Islamist forces, adult movie houses continue to flou
Op-Ed: The bloodshed in Toulouse is sure to affect France’s presidential campaign. Predictably, the far-right’s Marine Le Pen is already using the terrorist killings to stir anti-immigrant sentiment. It’s a trap that Sarkozy and the other candida
Essay: There are cultural explanations for why that man next to you on the Shanghai subway has his finger in his ear, or his shirt sticking out. Some, however, are ready for grooming and good looks to become as important for Chinese men as a good job and
Not wanting to risk the wrath of unhappy neighbors, New York’s Guggenheim Foundation has decided against setting up a “mobile laboratory” in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. The lab, a joint project with BMW, is currently on a tour of major world capitals.
A Marine sergeant who started an openly anti-Obama Facebook group is facing possible dismissal from the Corps.
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Gunman dead as French standoff ends
Mohammed Merah, the man suspected of killing seven people in southern France has died during police assault, after 32 hour-long standoff in Toulouse.
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Renegade soldiers seize power in Mali
Mutinous soldiers are looting the presidential palace in Bamako, hours after ousting Mali’s president Amadou Toumani Toure and imposing a nationwide curfew.
Long appreciated in the U.S. as an icon of Italian style, the vespa scooter is now making real inroads into the American mainstream. Last year, it became the top-selling European two-wheeler in the States, with more than 5,300 units sold.
Belachew Girma is the World Laughter Champion. The man, who can laugh for more than 3 hours non-stop, has just opened Ethiopia’s first laughter school where they teach that cackling away is the best medicine for life’s ills. Girma should
Former Turin mayoral candidate Alberto Musy was shot multiple times by a man wearing a black motorcycle helmet who was waiting for him in the stairwell of his apartment building.
French police are negotiating with a man suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in southwestern France.
With a decisive win in the Illinois presidential primary, Romney sets his sights on Louisiana where he hopes to impress in a southern state.
Former Turin mayoral candidate Alberto Musy was shot multiple times by a man wearing a motorcycle helmet who was waiting for him in the stairwell of his apartment building.