Worldcrunch
-Analysis- For the longest time, Donald Trump has disparaged U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, mocked his rival’s strategy in Syria, and unequivocally stated that America’s enemy in the country was terror group ISIS, not President Bashar al-Assad. Then on Friday, with little warning, Trump, as U.S. president, launched airstrikes against Syria, the first […]
SAO PAULO — “My name is Daniel Garcia and I’m 18. I love reading Folha de S. Paulo! Today, I read an article about women unsung heroes, and I believe that my own mother fits that category perfectly. Marlene Garcia is 59, she’s black and she used to be a cleaning lady. Every day, without […]
CAIRO — Amazon announced this week that it had acquired Souq.com, the major e-commerce website in the Middle East, in a deal that has long been speculated over and whose final value came in at $650 million. While Amazon described both companies as “sharing the same DNA,” the question remains as to how the company’s […]
Experiments among Syrian refugees in Lebanon are testing the best way to help those in need.
-Analysis- Donald Trump is already discovering the old dictum that presidents are elected on domestic policy but eventually take refuge in foreign policy. With his own Republican party bickering and blocking his healthcare proposal in Congress, Trump turns this week to welcoming foreign leaders with whom he can attempt his powers of persuasion on a […]
GUANGZHOU — After flocking to the megalopolis by the tens of thousands, Africans seem to be going sour on Guangzhou, or “Chocolate City,” as it’s been nicknamed by the Chinese. Home to the largest African community in Asia, Guangzhou, an important global trade platform located opposite Hong Kong, attracted scores of migrants starting in the […]
BAGHDAD — A continuous flow of cars, scooters, and three-wheeled vehicles pour onto the avenues of Sadr City, Baghdad’s massive Shia district, where roundabouts honor the memories of martyrs killed at the front-lines. Ahmed Houcham el-Alabiad, 29, rides his bike on the wrong side of the road until he reaches home, a shack located in […]
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish’s three daughters were killed by an Israeli air strike in 2009. For the past seven years, the Palestinian doctor just wants an apology from Israeli officials.
Maybe the West’s low birth rate arrived when sex was defeated by boredom? One writer’s offbeat reflection on how sexuality overload has backfired.
-OpEd- PARIS — A lot is being said and written about the “Molière clause,” first introduced by Vincent You, an elected representative in the western French city of Angoulême, and which mandates the use of French language on construction sites. This is, first and foremost, a case of guaranteeing safety at dangerous sites. A large […]
It’s a pattern that, sadly, is becoming too familiar in Europe. The initial shock of the latest terrorist attack soon gives way to anger, sadness, prayers, and a gnawing sense of powerlessness. And then, eventually, we move on — until the next time. Yesterday’s attack in London had the particularity of actually occurring on the […]
AMATRICE — Seven months after a powerful earthquake in central Italy reduced Amatrice to rubble and killed almost 300 people, mayor Sergio Pirozzi has declared the town a free trade area, Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore reports. Amatrice’s town council approved a motion to establish an Amatrice County Free Trade Zone (ZFCA), under […]
LAUSANNE — A Swiss-based charity, Race For Water Foundation, wants to turn the PlanetSolar catamaran into a floating display of emerging hydrogen technologies. “That’s unprecedented on a boat,” says Alexandre Closset, CEO of Swiss Hydrogen. “For the first time, a full hydrogen chain will be installed on a boat.” The electric vessel, the first to […]
-OpEd- SÃO PAULO — Any Catholic who has attended mass since Ash Wednesday will have noticed that the Church in Brazil is very concerned about the country’s environment. For the second year in a row, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil is using its annual pre-Easter fraternity campaign to sound alarm bells over the […]
ISTANBUL — The smartphone’s video camera zigzags through the crowd. Amid a joyful brouhaha punctuated by applause, the young videomaker captures the first smiles and the excited faces, still stunned by the good news. “Asli Erdogan, Necmiye Alpay and Zana Kaya are free!,” the journalist comments as she films the scene. The date was Dec. […]
-Analysis- The German press coverage of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday is occasion for all kinds of scrutiny of public comments, handshakes, smiles and anything else that body language might tell us. But the encounter that may count more happens behind closed doors. And Merkel faces […]
There is a religious litmus test for teachers in schools in this eastern stretch of Democratic Republic of Congo.
The headlines this morning provide two bits of far-flung hope for those still shaken by Brexit and Donald Trump: the new version of Trump’s travel ban applied to six majority-Muslim countries was blocked by a judge in Hawaii; meanwhile, halfway across the world, Geert Wilders’ far-right party suffered surprisingly disappointing results in Dutch parliamentary elections. […]
After a work-related accident that progressively made him blind, Vladir da Silva discovered an unlikely skill and passion taking pictures that relies on other senses. He tells his story.
The Turkish president is using Europe to stoke nationalist sentiment back at home before a referendum to expand his own powers. Enough is enough.
The ACLU is spending millions on a new ‘People Power’ campaign. The civil rights group’s push is the largest piece of a sprawling ‘resistance’ moving faster than Democratic Party leaders can think.
MOSUL — Leila Khaled hadn’t felt well that morning. It was the end of August, when the Iraqi summer sun had hit the walls and windows hard, like the wind in the middle of a powerful storm. Mosul was still in the clutches of ISIS. The war was still far away; it was being raged […]
With its new president, the United States may now become a massive new fiscal haven for global companies. But France, with its own upcoming elections, could lead Europe in undermining Trump’s plans.
MOSCOW — Slumped on the one of the fluorescent poufs in his Moscow office, a gothic T-shirt-clad Alexander Lyamin says he’s “stunned.” Founder of Qrator Labs, a Russian startup specialized in cybersecurity, and a staunch supporter of a free and borderless internet, Lyamin is seeing his world collapse around him. Located opposite a huge flour […]
-Analysis- It’s just a coincidence, but the symbolism is too hard to ignore. Two days ago, as every year on March 8, the world was celebrating women for, among other things, their “economic” and “political achievements.” Earlier today, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled that President Park Geun-hye must be removed from office over a corruption […]
Feel the novelty fatigue growing inside? But it is not just the vintage feel of the reissued Nokia 3310 that makes it convincing, it is something deeper.
MUTWANGA — At the foot of mount Rwenzori, locals erupt in joy when they see their homes lit with electric light bulbs for the first time in their lives. Meanwhile, at the nearby Pic Hotel in Mutwanga, a small village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), tourists are finally returning. Over the past few […]
-Analysis- Will the world’s oldest conflict ever be resolved? There have been a few fleeting occasions over the past 25 years when both Israelis and Palestinians appeared eager to negotiate, and a solution seemed within reach. Alas these are now mere memories — so distant that their effects have largely worn off. Perhaps there has […]
Talent is distributed around the globe, opportunity is not. Visit to a finance-sponsored ‘datathon’ to find the next generation of quantative wizards.
BEIJING — In Xi Jinping’s China, it is again a risky proposition to openly criticize Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thought it had resolved the discussion in 1981 when it decreed that the reign of Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, had been 70% good and 30% bad. But since […]
A day in the life of an Uber driver in São Paulo.
Modeled on Swiss-based nuclear research center CERN after the 1994 Oslo accords, the idea of the Amman-based facility is to use science as a way to learn to work together in the Middle East.
-Analysis- As China opened its markets and rose to become the world’s second-largest economy, foreign media focus has shifted from tales of political repression and exotic outposts to largely a business story. Corporate chiefs and bankers unpack the meaning of hard, cold economic figures, and the latest data revealing Chinese “expansionary territory,” with the odd […]
As the bombs continue to drop on parts of Syria, doctors struggle to give basic medical care to women, which then has ramifications for children.
The Facebook founder’s recent self-important manifesto reads like comedy, until we see how it pushes us toward a different kind of authoritarianism.
-Analysis- It’s every Indian mother’s worst nightmare. Would the son she proudly sent abroad wind up in harm’s way in a foreign land? Parvatha Vardhini’s son reassured her that he was safe and secure in the U.S., even as hate crimes rose in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. After his body was flown back […]
PARIS — There’s no fixed running time for the Academy Awards ceremony. If you live on the East Coast, and are not a night owl, you may very well have not made it last night to Best Picture. It’s usually not that big of a deal, with some arguing that the Hollywood show has become […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — For many months on the campaign trail, Donald Trump sent a clear message about his fellow Republicans: Ideologically, I’m not one of them. This wasn’t just true on trade, but also on safety-net programs that protect, among others, low-income whites. President Trump, he said, won’t let people die in the streets and […]
MOSUL — Ziyad loaded his wife and three children in the big German sedan that used to serve as his taxi between Baghdad and Mosul. That was in June 2014. The jihadists had just captured Iraq’s second-largest city and Ziyad, built like a late-career wrestler, with a big smile and spoiled teeth, was fleeing towards […]
WASHINGTON — Back in October, Shannon Coulter was doing some late-night browsing on the Nordstrom website. Before long, the small-business owner had a nagging feeling about the department store’s line-up of Ivanka Trump apparel and shoes — a brand she couldn’t help but see in a different light amid the unfolding events of the presidential campaign. Just days earlier, news had broken of the explosive Access Hollywood footage in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women without their consent. “Something changed for me when the Trump tapes came out,” Coulter recalled in an interview. “Those words were just ringing in […]