Socially conservative Italy isn’t likely to embrace gay marriage anytime soon. That hasn’t stopped one same-sex couple from trying. While Savona’s Francesco and Manuel haven’t yet managed to tie the knot, they did come
Author: Worldcrunch
After friendly fire deaths from NATO air strikes, rebels realize the West’s air support is not enough to topple Gaddafi.
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Is It A Sin To Be Elite?
Protestants of power and wealth in Germany struggle to balance faith and money, while Church leadership seeks a new way of addressing the modern quest for personal achievement with the greater good – and the Christian gospel.
Essay: Approximately 250 North African migrants died this week when their boat capsized off the coast of Italy’s Lampedusa island. According to writer Ferdinando Camon, the tragedy challenges everything Europeans thought they knew about immigrati
Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest last December, launching the Arab Spring from the small Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid. Now his family has moved away, facing the scorn of locals who say they’re cashing in at the city’s expense.
Working hard doesn’t always work. Mental health experts say “burnout” is a real – and potentially dangerous – possibility for today’s highly driven professionals.
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That Timeless Chic Of The Parisian Woman
The fashion sense of Parisian women is renowned worldwide. Swanky Paris department store Galeries Lafayette salutes Parisian chic this month in a special event fronted by former top model and face of Chanel Ines de la Fressange.
Masters at preparing food, the French are also pretty good at tossing it away — to the tune of 44 pounds per person annually. They are not alone. According to an FAO study, only half of the world’s food actually makes it in to people’s
There was a time when Central Bankers were just supposed to look out for rising inflation. The 2008 financial crisis and the ongoing European debt crisis is forcing them to search for a new identity.
The German director talks about his new film on the work of the late German choreographer, Pina Bausch. Capturing the creative genius — and mystery — of one of the 20th century’s great artists. And doing it in 3D.
Essay: The upheaval in the Arab world is a reminder that the Turkish military — a NATO member — can play a major role in the region. The secularist military’s political power at home has been greatly trimmed in recent years, but some look to th
Ten candidates, including the 35-year-old daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, square off in this Sunday’s election, which is likely to result in a runoff.
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The Polar Bear Autopsy Of The Century
Knut, the Berlin Zoo bear who captured the world’s attention after being abandoned by his mother, died last month. After the most complex investigation of an animal’s death in memory, officials say Knut died of a viral infection.
A project from highly touted French street artist JR lets Tunisian photographers take over the boulevards once patrolled by Ben Ali’s security forces — and watched over by his image.
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Everybody Loves… The Germans?
Nearly 70 years after WWII, have Germans finally come in from the cold? A recent BBC poll found that “friendly” Germany has the world’s best international image – for the third year in a row.
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How Laughter Saved Tunisia
Essay: Who says that all revolutionaries should be grim and gloomy? It certainly wasn’t the case in Tunisia, where humor has always been used as a political weapon.
The revolutionary wave has not reached Riyadh. The Saudi authorities are getting ready for only the second elections in the Kingdom’s history, and women are still shut out.
French umbrella manufacturer Veritable Cherbourg has unveiled a range of defense umbrellas straight out of a James Bond movie. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s security detail has already put in an order for these high-tech gizmos.
Frederic Monneyron, fashion sociologist, explains how Gaddafi uses his extravagant style as political propaganda.
From the Internet’s real-time encyclopedia of information to GPS navigators, new technology makes our brains work slower. But scientists show how we can kick our minds back into action.
While John Paul II relied on Polish nuns, Benedict XVI has turned to members of a Catholic lay association to maintain the papal apartment. His personal secretary Mons. Georg Ganswein keeps up his daily schedule. And when it’s lunchtime, they all
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China’s Slum Dwellers Need A Break
Editorial: China is failing its “most disadvantaged,” argues economic historian Qin Hui, who likens Chinese slum demolition to the white South African government’s handling of shantytowns during apartheid.
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A French Lesson For Britain’s Royals
Editorial: Don’t be fooled by all the popular craze around this week’s royal wedding, says Le Monde. The British monarchy desperately needs to remake itself for the modern, multicultural world.
Developing countries, including such emerging powers as China, have joined the West in trying to find ways of dealing with a dangerous – and expensive — social ill.
French neuroscientists are probing the workings of the human brain through the way the world’s top athletes perform under pressure.
Initial signs point to Islamist terror groups as culprits in the attack that killed 17 in Marrakech. What does it mean for the reform promises from King Mohammed VI?
Germany is a world leader when it comes to green energy. But while its windmills and solar panels may be cleaning up the atmosphere, they’re also sullying the landscape.
The kitsch that accompanied John Paul in life and in death is in full force ahead of Sunday’s ceremony that puts him on the road to Sainthood. Are the faithful really just devoted fans?
This debonair Spaniard and Opus Dei member spent more than two decades alongside the Polish pontiff. As John Paul II moves one step closer to sainthood with Sunday’s beatification, Navarro-Valls says the departed Pope is still not fully understoo
As the hunt continues for data from a 2009 Air France plane crash in the Atlantic, a new French device could make such lengthy searches a thing of the past.
A sweeping new Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition in Zurich pays tribute to the father of photojournalism in a career-spanning retrospective.
When she published nude photos of herself online, model Ngoc Quyen ignited a debate on the changing values in Vietnam, where both Confucius and Karl Marx are losing influence.
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Israel’s Syria Conundrum
Israel is avoiding official comment over the recent events in Syria, where the regime is a longstanding enemy neighbor. But the enemy you don’t know can always be worse.
The different ways the West and Asia look at robots is defining their shape — and uses.
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Kethevane Gorjestani
“Journalism is about bringing the information people want, but also bringing them the information they don’t know they want until they get it.”
Anti-government protestors in the southern city of Aden, are not just calling for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign, they also want to separate from the north. Chronicle of a divided revolution.
French writer Bruno Fay argues that lies regularly told by the authorities and a general mistrust of official speech are to be blamed for the spread of conspiracy theories for everything from 9/11 to Nicolas Sarkozy’s biography.
France, which gets the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear power, is looking hard at safety at its 59 plants after the disaster at the Fukushima reactors in Japan. At the EDF energy giant, this world leader in atomic energy tries to show it is a
A R A B I C A ارابيكا POPULAR THREAT The Facebook page of the “Syrian Revolution 2011” currently features a menacing message promising surprises for the Syrian regime. The message reads: ”On this day, Tuesday, April 5, 2011, and after putting our faith in God, we shall surprise the oppressive and terrorist police state […]
Researchers want to analyze the DNA – and skull — of the Renaissance woman who most believe sat for Leonardo, to finally verify the true identity of the legendary subject.