Worldcrunch
The result came as no surprise: Vladimir Putin won yesterday’s Russian presidential election and will serve a fourth term. More importantly for the Kremlin leader, he obtained the comfortable result he was seeking, with 76.6% of the vote, up from 63.3% in the last election six years ago. Yes, nearly two decades after emerging from […]
Refusing to fund reconstruction efforts until attacks stop could be a solution to combat violence against civilians in war torn Syrian cities such as Ghouta and Alleppo.
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — The nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next secretary of state signals President Donald Trump’s determination to quit the landmark Iran nuclear deal, which could cause it to unravel, according to national security and arms-control experts. If Pompeo is confirmed, Trump will have at his side an adviser who is equally […]
MOSCOW — Rumor has it that Vladimir Putin is something of a techie. Though the man in charge at the Kremlin has been vague about his economic priorities after the March 18 presidential election, Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister, says that Putin “is obsessively interested in new technologies and the digital economy.” During […]
In the place of narcissistic and subjective dignity wrongly invoked by procreation militants, we need a return to the transcendent and objective dignity of human nature.
PARIS — “Previously on President Trump …” We have gotten used to following the news from the White House as we would a prime-time television drama. This week’s plot includes the long-awaited boot for Big Rex. Did he know it was coming? Who said what to whom, and when? What does it mean for Vlad? […]
In their own silent but deadly way, cattle are contributing to climate change. Adapting their diets may be one way to ease the problem. Changing our eating habits is another.
-Essay- CAIRO — I dropped her off at the first of many stops that make up the long journey back to her home, and I went back to mine. We both like “homemaking;” we hoard the smallest of things, collect candles, eat what we grow – both of us are lovers of life, even fighters […]
-Analysis- BEIRUT — More than 12 million Syrians have been displaced since 2011 — that is more than half of Syria’s pre-war population. And most want nothing more than to return home. Yet the situation in the country remains too unsafe at the moment. Whole cities have been destroyed, and many areas are cluttered with land mines and unexploded explosives, posing further challenges to the safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation of refugees to Syria. Yet despite these risks, a small number of refugees do return to Syria each month. While this may seem like a positive development, research by the […]
By becoming president for life, Xi Jinping is bringing China back to its imperial history, taking advantage of the exceptional development of his country but also of America’s mistakes. But Chinese coming fortunes are still very much up in the air.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/tyJheSGhHUY expand=1] OneShot — Service at megachurch, 2013 (©Robin Hammond/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
HYDERABAD — Sex workers in towns and villages in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are often married off at a young age, or trafficked to larger cities. Statistics released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) place Andhra Pradesh second, behind West Bengal, for the prevalence of human trafficking. Many of those being trafficked are young girls, and the UN office says that in January alone, 939 minor girls were reported missing from the southeastern state. But one positive development is that a growing number of the women who have been victims of […]
BENGHAZI — They call it the “Café of the Displaced,” and it’s always full. “It’s because my customers followed me here,” says Ahmed, a smile on his face as he pours a clever blend of coffee, cream, cocoa powder and sugar. Everybody’s known Ahmed for years. And they know his story, which is also the […]
WASHINGTON — For the moment, at least, it appears to be a clear-cut victory — the biggest foreign policy win of his young administration. President Donald Trump has brought his arch-nemesis, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a.k.a. “Little Rocket Man,” to the table to negotiate away his nuclear arsenal. Optimists declared a major breakthrough. Even pessimists acknowledged that Trump’s hard line against Pyongyang, after decades of less forceful U.S. effort, played a significant role in moving one of the world’s most vexing and threatening problems in a potentially positive direction. But in the afterglow of the surprise announcement — […]
-Analysis- Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in critical condition, three days after they were found unconscious on a bench in the English city of Salisbury. The pair were presumably poisoned by what is so far referred to as an “unknown substance.” Britain’s counter-terrorism police have now taken over the […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/Me_6ixAVhOQ expand=1] OneShot — Mother’s comfort, 2004 (©Andrea Bruce/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
CAIRO — There are “forces of evil” that control Egypt’s media outlets, according to a statement issued last week by Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadek. To protect “national security” and prevent “spreading fear throughout society,” Sadek instructed public prosecutors and regulators to monitor media outlets and arrest anyone who disseminates or broadcasts false news. However, it […]
-Analysis- PARIS — With his new sweeping round of protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum, it looks like Donald Trump has decided to extend to the economic field the “madman strategy” he had already applied to the Korean Peninsula. That was the take last week from former CIA Director David Petraeus. Developed by the Nixon-Kissinger […]
BEIRUT – Russia’s proposal for a partial truce in the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus is not a “humanitarian pause,” but a “humanitarian posture,” says Dr. Annie Sparrow, a critical-care pediatrician and public health professional. In Syria Deeply’s latest Deeply Talks, Sparrow and Mohamed Katoub, advocacy manager for the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), spoke with our editors about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the besieged Damascus suburbs. (Listen to the full audio here) Last week, Moscow called for daily, five-hour cessations of hostilities to allow for aid deliveries and medical evacuations. However, it usually takes a convoy between eight […]
The very notion of “political instability” is baked into democratic life. If you want something predictable and unchanging you can have a 17th-century French monarchy or 21st-century Chinese autocracy. Still, a look around European parliamentary democracies these days shows a particularly bumpy road ahead, as ideologies and party machinations are being side-swiped by an accelerating […]
The Russian president was a KGB agent in the city in the former East Germany when the Iron Curtain started to give way. The ghosts of the past are everywhere.
The city in the U.S. midwest has found a different way to make it in the modern economy.
The famous playwright who fled Nazi Germany only to be hauled, years later, before the House Committee on Un-American Activities has plenty to contribute still in our post-truth world.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/8oLuqXA57xc expand=1] OneShot — Young surfer girl, 2013 (©Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
-OpEd- MONTREAL — The news spread around the world: Canada had just changed the English version of its national anthem, replacing the line “in all thy sons command” with “in all of us command.” Why? To make it gender neutral of course. Officially, and in order to reduce the significance of this change, they pretend […]
In India, a centuries-old custom comes up against basic demands for human rights.
-Essay- WASHINGTON — As I was driving back to Washington last Christmas, I needed the navigation smartphone application Waze to get me out of Brooklyn, onto the Verrazano bridge, then across Staten Island into New Jersey, and finally to the I-95 highway that leads to DC. By the time I got on the New Jersey […]
WASHINGTON — You have perhaps heard the joke about the liberal who is so open-minded that he can’t even take his own side in an argument. What’s less funny is that on gun control, liberals (and their many allies who are moderate, conservative and non-ideological) have been told for years that if they do take their own side in the argument, they will only hurt their cause. Supporters of even modest restrictions on firearms are regularly instructed that their ardent advocacy turns off Americans in rural areas and small towns. Those in favor of reforming our firearms laws are scolded […]
CAIRO — I was four years old when, while visiting a relative at his home, he urged me to eat some food. He told me playfully, as children are often told: “Eat, you donkey.” But, according to my mother, I refused. It bothered me that he was asking me to eat in this way. I […]
There are times when silence speaks louder than words, and right now — with the new escalation of violence in Syria, where airstrikes in a rebel enclave have killed at least 335 people since the beginning of the week — is one of them. That’s why the United Nations Children’s Fund reacted to the reports […]
LAUSANNE — There are books and newspaper articles, technologies promising relief, even theater productions devoted to the topic. Indeed, it seems like everyone is talking about insomnia these days. In Switzerland, insomnia already affects about a third of the population, according to a study carried out between 2009 and 2012 by the Center for Investigation […]
After a difficult 15 years, relations between New Delhi and Tehran are in need of improvement. The recent visit in India by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was key first step.
-Analysis- Good news for the people of Cape Town: “Day Zero,” when South Africa’s second most-populated city is expected to run out of water has been pushed back. But it’s only a very temporary reprieve. The city is now expected to go waterless — and confront all the chaos that it implies — on July […]
-Analysis- PARIS — It’s a plan of titanic proportions, with a budget of close to $1 trillion and transport projects, for both land and sea, on almost every continent. No single fund can finance it, and the development bank created for it brings together more than 60 countries. The “New Silk Road,” and the figures […]
-Essay- NEW YORK — I am of the view that incompetence, random error and sheer complexity explain most of the mistakes and strange events in our world, and that we shouldn’t readily jump to conspiracy theories. I’m pretty sure Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon, and still inclined to think (although not certain) that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, there is no Bigfoot and aliens have not recently visited humans on Earth. This exercise is not merely to pile up arguments for what you believe, but also to consider how and where you might be wrong. I recently raised […]
You just walked past a homeless man on the street, but you may try to help him if you see his story on social media.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/MMZ-KML_DwA expand=1] OneShot — War amputees soccer players, 2002 (©Pep Bonet/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video.
-Analysis- PARIS — He is “a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build, but slightly round-shouldered. His massive head momentarily shook a shock of reddish hair, which resembled a lion’s mane.” This isn’t a description of Elon Musk, but of Michel Ardan, one of the characters in Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From […]
German-Turkish relations are a high-stakes affair. Not only does Germany count some three million residents with roots in Turkey, the two countries are strategic to both the global economy and international diplomacy. In recent years, however, the relationship has been fraught with tension, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently declared her desire to “reinforce” bilateral […]
As another airstrike rained down in Syria, Fadi Al Dairi knew that those inside Kfr Nobol Hospital, operated by the British NGO ‘Hand in Hand,’ would soon be targeted.