Also known as al-Khalil — the friend — the historic, contested city is steeped in enmity and overshadowed by Israel’s commanding military presence.
Author: Worldcrunch
Qualified health care workers are urgently needed in the Islamic Republic. But because of the COVID-19 crisis, they’re also exhausted — and eyeing opportunities abroad.
It’s Joe! After the world watched for four days as the United States counted its votes, Joe Biden has clinched victory over Donald Trump in one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history. Trump’s four tumultuous years in the White House are now bound to end, even if the outgoing president has vowed […]
The leaders of the Islamic Republic say the economy will soon improve. But the numbers — the result of sanctions but also decades of economic mismanagament — paint a far more dismal picture.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claims he has no interest in engaging with Washington. But the U.S. president, fighting right now to win reelection, tells a different story.
The pandemic has prompted many city workers to seek refuge back in the countryside roots. For the government, it’s an extra challenge, but also an opportunity for long-term rural development.
Across the globe, travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders and shifting health care priorities have combined to make abortion an even more difficult procedure to obtain.
In Lebanon and Iraq, two countries that Iran’s clerical regime has long tried to control, some Shias are fed up with Tehran’s machinations and affiliated militia groups.
What is happening in India is casting a long shadow on the forthcoming U.S. elections.
For rural communities in particular, serious water shortages were a big problem even before the COVID-19 outbreak made handwashing all the more imperative.
The current U.S. president has made life decidedly difficult for the Islamic Republic. But would a Biden victory really do much to benefit Iran’s ailing regime?
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]
With the pandemic, survivalists around the world have new reasons to prepare for the day it all comes crashing down.
Under pressure both at both home and abroad, the Islamic Republic’s clerical regime is using capital punishment to sow fear and force compliance.
-Analysis- NEW DELHI — It was mid-September 2014, India was abuzz with the visit of Chinese president, Xi Jinping and his wife, folk singer Peng Liyuan. Televisions channels played an extended video loop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting on a swing with Xi on the banks of the Sabarmati River, while excited anchors foretold an era of Sino-Indian peace, forged between the two strongmen who had come to power within two years of each other. Six years later, the Modi-Xi relationship lies in tatters, as do ties between New Delhi and Beijing. With Chinese soldiers having marched across the […]
Movie houses, music venues and art galleries are showing signs of life after a long lockdown. They’re also having to be creative with how they reopen, as certain health restrictions still apply.
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Hashtag Activism And Human Rights In Iran
Iranian authorities have proven themselves amenable to online pressure. But to effect lasting change in the Islamic Republic, people also need to engage in real-world action.
Hindutva is a menace of Indian society, and to confront it head on, liberals need to stop celebrating the supposedly tolerant Hinduism of yesteryear, historian Partha Pratim Shil argues.
As Israel and the Arab world roll toward a major rapprochement, Iran continues to resist pressure to start talking to its own nemesis, the United States.
-Analysis- CHENNAI — “What is this?,” my curious seven year old asked, picking up a pack of sanitary napkins, as I found just the right position to take a picture to accompany an article on a menstrual hygiene movement in Chennai. I paused for a minute, and replied, “These are like thin diapers that girls wear for around one week every month.” I was caught off guard, and mentally kicked myself for the diaper reference. He looked suitably impressed with the design on the package and inspected the pads as well. We don’t have cable TV so he hasn’t been […]
Several reform-minded Iranian economists say President Rouhani’s government has been unable to curb inflation, shore up the currency or even absorb liquidity through constructive taxation.
Families, neighborhoods and even the remains of loved ones are bulldozed over in order to build new highways and other works without the input of the people.
When Pakistani fisherman Abdul Karim Bhatti, who had been a prisoner in India for seven months, was flown home to Karachi, Pakistan, at the end of July, his family didn’t rejoice. They were receiving his dead body. The only information they received was that he died on July 1 at the B.K. Hospital, Bhuj. Or so stated the death certificate, a bilingual document in English and Gujrati, issued on July 9 by the government of the state of Gujrat. No postmortem was carried out. The Indian maritime security forces had arrested Bhatti, along with other fishermen, on January 8 and […]
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Europe On Iran: Why The Appeasement?
The European Union should explain why it is doggedly conciliatory with a regime in Iran that represents everything opposed to Europe’s liberal democratic values,
The Narendra Modi government has largely ignored the Tibetan leader, who lives in exile in India, but the country’s military leaders now say support for the iconic monk could be the perfect way to push back on China.
Joblessness is soaring in the western Asian nation, particularly among women, who are far more likely than men to be cut loose by employers.
Social distancing, disinfecting common areas and accessing health care: All three key tactics for curbing the spread of coronavirus are particularly complicated inside jails and prisons. While it might seem like an already self-isolating bubble, life inside prisons has changed dramatically since COVID-19 arrived. In an effort to keep healthy, many have lost their rights […]
Whenever Iran’s revolutionary regime feels the heat, it stirs more trouble in the Middle East. It has even brought the exasperated Arabs closer to Israel.
Unless we question the socio-economic structures associated with the production of waste and waste management, we’ll never dig out of the waste crisis.
PARIS — Last week’s explosion at a port warehouse in Beirut, which killed at least 200 and caused a minimum of $5 billion in damage, should serve as a sobering wake-up call for countries that have equally (or more) dangerous chemical reserves. Beyond the human toll and material consequences, the catastrophic event has also triggered […]
Artist Balvir Singh and his murals of revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Lenin have helped rekindle socialist ideas in his home state of Punjab.
While some countries stopped doing business with the Islamic Republic, others keep engaging in commerce but refuse to pay what they owe. What gives?
It’s official: Zoom parties are here to stay. And to anyone who ever attended an actual party, no need here to spell out why there’s no comparison. Yet there I was last week in a text exchange with a friend turning down my invitation to our bi-weekly drinks at my … er … place, suggesting […]
From salary cuts to protective equipment shortages, frontline workers are having to protest and plead just to get their basic dues.
Few outside his native Italy had heard of Matteo Salvini before he emerged in 2018 as the new global star of far-right populism. Catapulted by the election success of his League party, the scruffy and sardonic northerner had grown into Italy’s most talked-about and incendiary politician, solidifying power in his role as interior minister in […]
Welcome to Tuesday, where the Taliban have launched an attack on a strategic city in southern Afghanistan, Iran’s new leader vows to fight U.S. sanctions and a world record is shattered in Tokyo. In Switzerland, there’s also an odd story of a man fond of his fondue fork for criminal purposes. • Taliban attack key […]
Welcome to Friday, where China sees its largest COVID-19 outbreak since Wuhan, the International Space Station is (briefly) thrown out of control, and a meme-related 80s hit passes the 1-billion-views mark. Meanwhile, pan-African weekly news magazine Jeune Afrique looks at the hurdles in the way of vaccination across the continent. • Hong Kong conviction, crowd […]
Even if researchers’ quest for the coronavirus vaccine concludes quickly — and that’s a big if — the solution would still need to me manufactured, packaged, paid for and distributed.
Welcome to Tuesday, where the first person charged under Hong Kong’s national security law is found guilty, the final victim of the Miami building collapse is identified, and Tesla reports skyrocketing profits. Meanwhile, The Conversation offers a deep dive into the Australia vs. UNESCO spat over the decision to list the Great Barrier Reef as […]
How is the pandemic panning out in the world’s second most populous country? Science editor for The Wire, Vasudevan Mukunth, offers some statistical insight.