Worldcrunch
HUNGARY TRIES TO STEM REFUGEE TIDE Hungary may be considering deploying its army to help police stem the daily arrival of thousands of refugees at its southern border with Serbia. A new razor wire is being built along the border, and the Hungarian military was also staging border protection exercises yesterday, the BBC reports. Human […]
CAIRO — In the past two months, at least five people have died in Egyptian police custody after being arrested on politically related charges. Four of the detainees belonged to the conservative Jama’a al-Islamiya group, while another was accused of belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Three of those Jama’a al-Islamiya members died over just […]
Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-serving monarch in British history. And since her crowning in 1952, she’s gotten out of Buckingham Palace quite a bit, including visits (often multiple times) to 128 different countries. That makes her the most widely traveled head of state in history. Have a look at a few of Elizabeth’s […]
Why are they here? Who can stay? How should we treat them? The fate of Middle East and African refugees dominates German debate. They were once our own grandparents.
Osservatore Romano, Sept. 9, 2015 In yet another step to loosen long-held practices inside the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has eased the process for how divorced Catholics can remarry and stay inside the Church. Two papal edicts, known as motu proprios, were published Tuesday that open the way to make the process of marriage “annulment” […]
The U.S. is actively trying to block new Russian military aid to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Moscow sees its best alternative is to team up with Tehran.
Far from rigid Koranic institutes, this new private school in central France is as much about smart boards as religious values. It is also trilingual: French, Arabic and English.
A French philosopher dissects the mix of reactions across society, and within our own individual psyches, when human misery arrives at our door.
Photo: @SusanMartelo via Twitter CARTAGENA — Stray dogs and cats will now be treated a little better in the historic Colombian port of Cartagena, which has begun providing them with food and water dispensers. The UNESCO World Heritage site will thus join a humane trend spreading across dozens of Colombian districts. With lobbying from animal […]
SAO PAULO — João Batista, a 45-year-old builder, has been unemployed since December. Jailson de Lima, 46, is luckier: He still manages to find construction work from time to time but doesn’t earn enough to pay rent, which has been on a relentless rise. Cristiane dos Santos, 27, lived in a hostel for some time […]
Wareef Kaseem Hamdeo, a chef from Aleppo who found refuge from the Syrian civil war in Gaza, became a local celebrity after opening a Syrian restaurant there.
Kurier, Sept. 7, 2015 “They reached safety — what now?,” Vienna-based daily Kurier asks on its front page Monday, as at least 15,000 refugees crossed the border from Hungary over the weekend into Austria. After days of confrontation between refugees — mostly fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq — and authorities in Budapest stopping them […]
Germany’s welcoming of refugees is sending out a strong signal to the rest of Europe and the world. But there’s hard work ahead in a country that knows the weight of history.
Ordinary citizens, the media and politicians make so much noise about ideology and petty politics, but quietly carry on in the face of massive mining pollution.
An agreement reached last month between India and Bangladesh has given citizenship to 50,000 previously stateless people who lived in disputed territory.
The MIT-educated activist and scientist travels the world to condemn the effects of multinationals on the environment. Her recent project in Bern was the 3D modeling of oceans.
Urged by her friends out of retirement, the 71-year-old retired judge surprised all by winning the mayor’s race on the wave of Spain’s rising protest movement. What will she do with her newfound power?
-Essay- PARIS — There are times when it is necessary to compare things that are not comparable. There’s a chance at least that it will wake up some anesthetized minds. Between 1933 and 1940, several million refugees who had escaped from Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries and elsewhere, fleeing Nazism, were met with closed borders. […]
Italian energy giant ENI has reported an unprecedented discovery of gas reserves off the coast of Egypt. It’s no quick fix for the troubled Egyptian economy.
NSA-style monitoring of our ever-more digital lives is beyond even George Orwell’s disturbing vision. It’s also less effective in tracking the true enemies of the state.
This week, we shine the spotlight on Portugal: DOES RECOVERY SPELL REELECTION? After years in the doldrums, the Portuguese economy is showing signs of picking up, with the country’s GDP growing — albeit slowly — and unemployment figures reaching five-year lows, Diário Económico reports. According to official data from Portugal’s National Statistical Institute INE, private […]
As radical Muslims from the West head to Syria to fight for Islamist forces, other foreigners are joining the Kurdish forces against them. But how useful are these volunteers?
CALAIS — Three rows of men gather side-by-side, their heads bent down. A coffin lies on the sand, in front of them. They silently pray and place the coffin down a deep pit. Moussa Houmed was 17; he was Eritrean. He dreamed of setting foot on English soil, but ended up drowned in the retention […]
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MIGRANT PROTEST IN BUDAPEST As many as 2,000 migrants are stranded outside Budapest’s Eastern railway station and are protesting against the Hungarian police after the government banned any access to the station to those who are neither Hungarian nor tourists, Die Welt reports. Describing the “squalid” conditions in which these migrants are waiting on the […]
Has Canada entered a recession, or is it “already over,” as Quebec City’s French-language daily Le Soleil asks on the front page of its Wednesday edition? The Canadian economy shrank for a second straight quarter, dragged down by falling energy prices and economic troubles in China, as shown by the latest GDP numbers published Tuesday; […]
Two British reporters for VICE news, and their translator, have been charged as supporters of Kurdish group PKK, though they were first accused of being pro-ISIS.
Hungary suspended all traffic from its main rail terminal in Budapest on Tuesday, and began clearing train stations of hundreds of migrants trying to board trains bound for Austria and Germany. The decision came after thousands of asylum seekers — mostly Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war — started reaching Munich, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, […]
MIGRANT TRAINS BLOCKED IN BUDAPEST Photo: Sven Hoppe/DPA/ZUMA Thousands of asylum seekers — mostly Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war — have reached Munich, in Germany, and Vienna, in Austria, after leaving the Hungarian capital of Budapest by train Monday in what German daily Die Welt cited as the biggest movement of people in Europe […]
For the sadhus (“good men”) of India and Nepal, recognizable by their ash-smeared bodies and saffron-colored clothes, asceticism through hunger and poverty is a way to reach moksha, which in France we call libération.
ATHENS — We were staying in the downtown area close to Athens’ Kotzia Square, walking distance from the local fish market, the hardware market and local spice vendors. So a fishy mist weighs down the air, mingled with the opulent, nostalgic aroma of mastic (a resin used in the manufacturing of ouzo and mastika, a […]
Tunisia is building a wall along the border with Libya to defend itself against terrorist infiltrations, but it is stirring up hostility from locals on both sides.
NEW YORK — I am one of those privileged people who live in New York and have the chance to escape from the city on occasion. No matter how many loops a person bikes around Central Park, riding across the George Washington Bridge, and biking along the Hudson River, it’s not until you get out […]
“It would have been more fitting for us to speak either Arabic or Turkish in this gathering today, especially given the common cultural heritage we share. There should have been someone present today to translate to Turkish. It is a shame really that we have to communicate in English.” — Orhan Pamuk at the 2007 […]
The U.S.-based Seasteading Institute is pursuing the notion of “startup governments” and the opportunity for like-minded people to live in shared offshore communities. Could man-made island colonies be our future?
Sea lion and Buenos Aires Zoo trainer — Photo: Laura Gravino/Zoológico de Buenos Aires BUENOS AIRES — Zoo and aquarium shows may make kids smile, but some animal rights activists say it basically amount to slave labor. The debate returns after two sea lions recently died in the Buenos Aires Zoo within three days of […]
As part of 2011’s uprising against Assad regime, Alaa Arsheed fought for his country’s freedom before he was forced to flee to Beirut. Now safely in Italy, he plays to forget.
MIGRANT BOAT SINKS OFF LIBYA More than 200 people are feared to have drowned off the Libyan coast after two boats sank early Thursday, the BBC reports. The Libyan coast guard said it had rescued some 200 from the two separate boats carrying some 450 people in total . The victims are said to include […]
Of all the milestones along the road to human civilization, none is more profound than the advent of reading and writing. But in the name of interactivity, the 21st century is marked by the shallow language of social media that risks burning all our acqui
After last week’s foiled Thalys train attack, citizens must get used to playing their part in the fight against the jihadist threat, a former French intelligence agent warns.