Germany was already clashing over the country’s recent migrant crisis. Now, the nationalist PEGIDA group is playing with fire by using the Islamist terror attack to justify its extremist positions.
Author: Worldcrunch
WASHINGTON — The 2016 presidential campaign has been peculiarly disconnected from the real world of problems, crises and governing. It took the catastrophe in Paris to narrow the gap — and even a monstrous terrorist attack may not shake the trajectory of a contest that operates within a logic of its own. The inevitable distance between politicking and the business of running a government is especially wide this year because of the strange configuration of the Republican field. Donald Trump and Ben Carson in particular have detached themselves from anything resembling normal politics, and sometimes from reality itself. Moreover, the […]
Paris Terror, How The Attack Was Seen Around… par Worldcrunch
Once focused solely on gaining Middle East territory for its caliphate, the terror group is now targeting “crusader nations,” those fighting it in Syria and Iraq.
-Editorial- PARIS — France is at war. At war against a terrorism that is totalitarian, blind and horribly murderous. We’ve known it since the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris in January. And yet, despite the French population’s exceptional show of unity four days after those attacks, despite the shows of […]
-Analysis- PARIS — In terms of terrorist attacks on French territory, this was unprecedented: multiple suicide bombers blowing themselves up late Friday, after launching coordinated massacres in five locations in central Paris and near the Stade de France football stadium on the outskirts of the capital in Saint Denis. The Paris targets included Bataclan, a […]
Follow the latest news on the Paris attacks on French website France 24 PARIS — France declared a state of emergency and sealed its borders Friday evening after a series of apparently coordinated terrorist attacks struck at sites across Paris, leaving scenes of horror and carnage outside a soccer stadium, at a café and inside […]
Combining kung fu with soccer? This was a fantasy depicted in Stephen Chow’s 2001 martial arts comedy film Shaolin Soccer. But now, in Henan province, home of the Shaolin Temple famous for its superhuman martial-arts monks, we are set to see a real-life attempt to kick some life into Chinese soccer by applying the methods […]
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Tiny Kingdom
Andorra, one of the smallest nations in the world nestled between France and Spain, is a monarchy headed by two Co-Princes: the Spanish-Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell and … and the president of France. Back when we visited, the latter was of course Charles de Gaulle.
Much of what we think we know about sadness is still based on what the father of pychoanalysis wrote 100 years ago, but psychologists and brain researchers are starting to discover more about the feeling’s true mechanisms.
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When Algorithms Create Our Culture
Music, books and other intellectual artifacts are increasingly being produced automatically by machines. A new book explores the ways in which artists exploit this new reality.
TOKYO — At September’s annual RunGirl Night, one 35-year-old exercise enthusiast prepared for the evening group run by applying lipstick, foundation and eye shadow. “I would feel extremely self-conscious if I was around so many other people without makeup on,” she said. “After crossing the finish line, I want to look good in group photos, […]
Like cases reported in India, Afghanistan and some Middle Eastern countries, gender-based violence that leads to mutilation and disfiguration is also a brutal reality in Brazil.
Two years after hosting a costly FIFA World Cup, Brazil will once again be on the world sporting stage next summer at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But now, with the Brazilian economy facing a deepening crisis, the government has an idea for some help from a pillar of the “sharing economy”: […]
TEHRAN — Both at home and abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has become the public face of his country’s willingness to sign a deal with the West to limit its nuclear program. The Vienna accord, inked in July, has also made Zarif the main target of Iran’s religious hardliners, whom he confirmed Wednesday […]
Startups are shaking up the dry cleaning industry by offering more convenient options for customers. The industry, which has shrunk by half in the last few decades, is also coping with gradual limits placed on using a common cleaning substance.
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Congolese Women, Freedom Through Literacy
BRAZZAVILLE — It was only when she realized she’d handed her husband a letter written by his mistress that Alphonsine decided to act. Facing such heartbreak and humiliation, this 54-year-old housewife and mother of seven, decided to join a basic literacy class in the Congolese capital of Brazzaville. Like Alphonsine, many illiterate women have started […]
The good news, according to this German study? Actual psychopaths rarely make it to the top …
LISBON — Portugal is relearning one of the basic tenets of democracy: Majority rules. The country’s four left-leaning parties are expected to bring down the minority center-right government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho with a vote of no-confidence on Tuesday, newspaper Diário de Notícias reports. The center-right coalition that has been governing since 2011 […]
Alternate-side parking, illogical signage, unspoken rules, clueless New Jersey visitors. Everything in New York has its own rules and language. Even parking your car.
PARIS — Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund whose sexual exploits cost him a shot at the French presidency, has been working as a lobbyist in France for cigarette maker Philip Morris, Le Journal du Dimanche reports. The French weekly cites anonymous sources linked to the U.S. tobacco giant who […]
Bathroom breaks and oxygen tanks mix with kilos of cocaine and money laundering: The “papy connection” trial of aging ex-cons unfolded in a Marseille courtroom.
Where the Russian leader lacks any real strategy, his American counterpart is short on nerve. They’re playing two different games and following very different rules.
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Iran Warns ISIS: These Are Our Red Lines
TEHRAN — Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has warned the Sunni Islamist terror group ISIS not to approach Iranian territory or the Shia shrines in Iraq. Speaking at a gathering Friday in Tabas, in eastern Iran, Fazli said that ISIS should not get closer than 40 kilometers (25 miles) to Iran’s border nor attack […]
BEIJING — The setting is Singapore, where the two sides had a semi-official contact in 1992, giving the news a pleasant whiff of nostalgia. The summit on Saturday between Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan and Xi Jinping of China is historic indeed: It is the first meeting between leaders of both sides of the Taiwan Strait […]
Muslim guests at celebrations will no longer have to stand around with a Coke in their hands. For Munich’s Four Seasons Hotel, a local company has produced the first-ever non-alcoholic sparkling wine made in accordance with Islamic law.
In our dreams, it’s a world of joyful sharing. In reality, Internet commenters often offer little more than cheap shots and manipulation. Researcher Joseph Reagle explores the history and degeneration of online invective.
DELHI — On November 4, 2000, Irom Sharmila, an Indian civil rights activist, began what would become the longest recorded hunger strike ever, protesting against India’s military following the killing of 10 civilians in her northeastern state of Manipur. Fifteen years later, the now 43-year-old has never broken her fast, as The Indian Express reports […]
Among the puzzles researchers hope to solve is whether Tutankhamun’s tomb has hidden openings to the burial site of Queen Nefertiti, whose remains have never been found.
One of Tokyo’s cultural treasures celebrates 100 years of hosting renowned writers and other celebrity guests.
After 66 years of standoff between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, the top leaders from both sides of the Taiwan Strait will meet this coming Saturday in Singapore. Compared to relative silence on the mainland, Taiwanese newspapers Wednesday were dominated by the surprise announcement of the upcoming historic encounter between Taiwan’s President Ma […]
ALEPPO — Like many boys his age, Muhammad loves to draw. Already known for his artistic talents in his hometown of Aleppo, the largest and probably hardest-hit city in Syria, the 14-year-old boy now has something to show the world. When the armed conflict intensified in Aleppo in 2012, Muhammad, then a sixth-grader, was forced to quit school. After the Syrian government began to bomb his neighborhood in the city’s Salah al-Din district, Muhammad and his family moved into the cramped student dorms of Aleppo University. Seven months later they were able to return home, but unfortunately for children like […]
TEHRAN — While the moderate government headed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani enjoys the Supreme Leader’s qualified backing — which is crucial to its survival inside Iran — it contends daily with criticisms, often from its conservative opponents. The conservatives fear that his policy of bringing détente with the West and opening the economy will […]
When the landfill servicing Beirut closed, so did the garbage collection. Now the suburbs have been left quite literally holding the bag, and government solutions aren’t coming.
In Brazil, law enforcement officers boast on social network sites about committing violence against suspects, and show off the results for all to see.
Accused of one of Syria’s worst atrocities in 1982, and then exiled after a falling out with his brother’s regime, Rifaat al-Assad may again be eyeing power, and with Moscow’s help.
PARIS — In today’s globalized automotive market, the average driver has two dreams: to purchase an SUV, and to switch from a manual to an automatic transmission. Used by just about everyone in the United States, Japan and China, this transmission mode is gaining ground in Europe and is set to takeoff in India and […]
Next year’s Chad elections will represent a novelty for the central African country. No, not a new president. Chadian voters are being asked to register to vote biometrically. Although this method is relatively absent in more developed countries, it isn’t exactly an innovation in Africa, and Chad will become the 30th country to adopt registration […]
Born in Egypt and educated in journalism at university, Mohannad Ghallab became an extremist and joined al-Qaeda after 9/11. He went on to become an influential voice for the terror group before being killed by a U.S. drone strike.
Gustavo Petro, the former Marxist guerrilla who became Bogotá’s mayor for the poor, has left the Colombian capital a wreck. But he’s on the way in favor of a newly elected leader voters hope will put the city back on track.