Worldcrunch
The latest disturbing images along the modern immigrant journey arrive from the French-Italian border. Five migrants from the Ivory Coast, in flip-flops and soaked t-shirts, were rescued last week in 80 centimeters of snow, as they tried to pass from Italy into France. “We didn’t know it would be so cold,” one of the rescued […]
This week’s overhaul of the U.S. tax code is a betrayal of a century of progressive reforms, and a return to the morally corrupt dominance of the robber barons.
The so-called Islamic State has been driven from most of its territory in Syria, but the fate of the thousands of civilians captured by extremists remains largely unknown, writes Chatham House fellow Haid Haid, whose cousin was kidnapped by ISIS.
The negotiations and the complex, chaotic debates around Brexit are revealing of a major dilemma facing democracies: What do you do when a country is profoundly divided?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is breaking with recent U.S. convention by portraying China as a rival that wants to undermine American prosperity. But it may take more than an aggressive tone to change the complex relationship between two economies that are joined at the hip. In a new national-security strategy released Monday, the White House lumped China with Russia as powers seeking to “challenge American power, influence, and interests,” and attempting to erode the country’s security and prosperity. “We will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries, but in a manner that always protects our […]
Impeachment is coming, and other failed predictions.
In the northwestern state of Rajasthan, camels have long been worshipped as the main source of transport . But their numbers are rapidly dwindling.
An Afro-Caribbean religion dating back to the days of slavery, Santería has adapted to both Catholicism and Socialism and is a major contributor to Cuba’s particular cultural identity.
The evidence so far is that corporations won’t be much affected and consumers could even benefit.
GENEVA — A series of hurricanes of unprecedented intensity in the North Atlantic. Record-high temperatures all over the planet. Monstrous fires in California and Portugal. Entire regions hit by severe drought. Mountains collapsing… Has 2017 given us a foretaste of the disasters to come because of climate change? To answer this question and get a […]
The route from Turkey to Greece was once crowded with Syrian asylum seekers fleeing to Europe. But some are now moving in the opposite direction because of a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment
There are factories galore in the capital of China’s Henan province, where the labor pool is abundant. But for seasonal jobs, producers also use teenage interns.
With billions in investments and a land distribution scheme not unlike the Homestead Act, in the U.S., Moscow is looking to revive a long-neglected region.
Islamism is gaining ground on the island historically dominated by Christianity and traditional religions by offering free Koranic education in exchange for conversion.
An already razor-thin margin in the Senate becomes even more tenuous for the Republicans. The mid-term 2018 elections are not so far away.
-Analysis- Donald Trump won’t be in Paris on Tuesday. Following his decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t invite him to the two-day One Planet Summit opening in the French capital. Gathering 50 world leaders and dozens of international business leaders, the conference coincides with […]
NEW DELHI — The impact of the 19th Communist Party of China congress and affirmation of President Xi Jinping as China’s ‘most powerful” leader in decades matters for India — especially on the ‘Tibet Issue,” which also intersects with longstanding conflicts over the Chinese-Indian border. Tibetan leader Dalai Lama’s well-known desire to return home has taken on new urgency, following this November 23 statement: “The past is past, Tibetans want to stay with China,” he said. These words carry a serious political overtone, coming as it does immediately after the 19th party congress and amid the current Doklam border standoff […]
RIYADH — In the span of a few months, Hind al-Zahid’s life has changed for the better. “My dream turned into reality,” the 38-year-old Saudi says. She’s become the first woman to enter the board of directors of one of the kingdom’s airports, in the eastern city of Damman. And soon, like millions of other […]
Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is the surest sign that President Trump wants to dismantle the entire international relations system that the U.S. helped build after World War II.
Brutal evictions of poor migrants in Beijing’s outskirts are part of a long history of cynical control of the populace.
Is the American in good faith? Why now? What’s next? Questions pile up in the wake of a decision that reverses 70 years of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East.
-Analysis- PARIS — The whole world has been talking about it for over a week, and yet, — admit it — you still don’t quite get what all the Bitcoin fuss is about. You know it’s a virtual currency. But what is the point of having a currency you can barely use to pay for […]
KARACHI — A Turkish family is rushing out to a weekend protest in this populous Pakistani city; outside the Karachi Press Club, Turkish residents release doves as a sign of peace; 25 Turkish teachers plea for safety in Pakistan. These Turkish families have lived here for over two decades, teaching at a network of international schools led by Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Islamic cleric from Turkey, who currently lives in the United States. In the last 16 months, 28 Gülen schools and colleges across Pakistan have been shut down under pressure from the government in Ankara. Staff members now face […]
Sure, there is a gray continuum from seduction to annoyance to harassment to assault. But if limiting assault requires limiting sex that is the necessary price for change.
-Analysis- After running into some trouble at the end of last week, the virtual currency bitcoin has hit a new high and is now approaching the $12,000-mark, just days after passing $10,000 for the first time. Countless experts are warning that this bubble, like the dotcom bubble before it, will inevitably burst. But until it […]
The Islamic State (ISIS) is facing defeat on the battlefield. Can it be eliminated from hearts and minds of young Syrians?
-Essay- PARIS — Growing crops without the herbicide glyphosate is probably a good thing. Or maybe not. I admit that I have no idea. I’m no doctor, no farmer, nor do I possess any technical competence that would enable me to have an informed opinion on the matter. On the other hand, I do have […]
Cleared by the Central Board of Film Censors on appeal, top Pakistani director Shoaib Mansoor’s ‘Verna’ is a flawed film, but a wake-up call for a nation obsessed by patriarchal honor.
-Analysis- Bitcoin’s blistering price rise has broken a new milestone, passing the $10,000 threshold for the first time. It’s a considerable achievement given that the most famous of cryptocurrencies was worth under $1,000 at the beginning of this year, and first reached $2,000 just a few months ago. But it’s also a frightening feat. The […]
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump this week disseminated on social media three inflammatory and unverified anti-Muslim videos, took glee in the firing of a news anchor for sexual harassment despite facing more than a dozen of his own accusers and used a ceremony honoring Navajo war heroes to malign a senator with a derogatory slur, “Pocahontas.” Again and again, Trump veered far past the guardrails of presidential behavior. But despite the now-routine condemnations, the president is acting emboldened, as if he were impervious to the uproar he causes. If there are consequences for his actions, Trump does not seem to […]
BANGKOK — Luzviminda Siapo is telling me about the day her 19-year-old son was killed — that was just seven months ago. He was dragged from his home by 14 masked men and shot in the head twice. Witnesses say he was ordered to run for his life before being shot. “He just couldn’t run, he had club feet,” Luzviminda told me. I met Luzviminda along with The Philippines Human Rights Commissioner, Leah Tanodra-Armamento. The pair were visiting Thailand last month, sharing stories of Filipinos killed in the country’s so-called ‘war on drugs.” It’s been 16 months since Rodrigo Duterte […]
Rohingya. Outside of Myanmar, it’s a simple word, though not necessarily easy to pronounce. Largely unknown until recently, its utterance now unmistakably evokes persecution, humanitarian tragedy, and what the UN said was “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” at the hands of government authorities and local militias. But inside the Buddhist-majority country, it’s a politically-charged […]
BIR AL-ABED — “For 20 minutes, they kept firing at us. We couldn’t hear anything else because of the sounds of the gunfire. Everybody was running. Some were trying to escape and others were looking for their children — no one was spared, young or old. When the militants were done firing, one of them […]
An exhibition at the Picasso Museum in Paris explores a key moment in the artist’s relationship with his models and his world over the course of a single pivotal year.
NEW YORK — Should central banks embrace cryptocurrencies, or even pioneer their own? In a nutshell, no. Crypto assets are an unusual innovation, still in flux and often poorly understood. Trying to centralize them in a bureaucracy is exactly the wrong way to go. Yet China’s central bank claims it is working toward a blockchain-based digital currency. Singapore has already experimented in this direction. The phrase “Fedcoin” is sometimes bandied about, though I’ve seen no concrete sign of the U.S. Federal Reserve jumping on this bandwagon. In its recent quarterly review, the Bank of International Settlements asked central banks to […]
DAMASCUS — It is across an immense desert, between oil fields and Mesopotamian archeological sites overlooking the Euphrates, where Syria’s future may be decided. The question, as Damascus makes more and more ground against ISIS and jihadists fighters, is the following: After seven years of a devastating war will the nation remain united? Or will […]
Slowly but surely, the Congress party is regaining its footing, and the scion to India’s political dynasty, the man who everyone gave up on, has newfound confidence.
-Analysis- Are we witnessing “the twilight of Angela Merkel”? The question, asked Tuesday in Le Figaro“s lead editorial, is on everybody’s mind, both inside and outside Germany. To be sure, in her 12 years as German Chancellor, Merkel has never been as vulnerable as she now appears to be. The collapse of post-election talks to […]
-Analysis- BEIRUT — Since its independence in 1943, Lebanon has been exposed to the vicissitudes of the Middle East’s complicated geopolitics, from the creation of Israel, which led to a massive influx of Palestinian refugees on Lebanese soil, to the recent war in Syria, not to mention Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. Since 2005 and […]
Despite the growing list of powerful people toppled in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the biggest names in Washington are still dodging real scrutiny.