WorldcrunchBertrand Hauger is a graduate of La Sorbonne Nouvelle school of bilingual journalism, and joined Worldcrunch after working briefly as a reporter in a local newspaper in his native eastern France. He now serves as Worldcrunch’s deputy editor-in-chief and director of content.
On the northern tip of the island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, this man was determined to try his hand at surfing. I took a picture of him just before he fell into the water — the first of many tumbles.
SPOTLIGHT: ERDOGAN’S PURGE SPARKS RALLIES ABROAD The unprecedented zeal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s purge, after an attempted military coup on July 15, has attracted condemnation from international partners and damaged ties with allies in Europe and further afield. Erdogan has accused exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen of masterminding the coup, and his global efforts […]
There was a documentary on French TV a couple of days ago about the khlong canals that crisscross Bangkok. Not much seems to have changed since I went there 23 years ago, except for one thing: Running water has made its way to the nearby houses, so people no longer drink directly from the turbid […]
Can we accept cultural “sensitivities” as an excuse for undemocratic behavior? Can we accept a Muslim father not shaking the hand of his child’s teacher because she is a woman? Yes, it’s all connected to recent terror attacks in
For some students, summer is a time to rest; for others, a time to work. But for a growing number of China’s female youth, the summer break is a chance to go under the knife. According to a report last week in China News, plastic surgery for Chinese women has begun to spread from the […]
SPOTLIGHT: RIO IN TROUBLE, ONE WEEK FROM OLYMPICS Just seven days from the opening of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is still reeling from a succession of emergencies that tarnish the country’s image as it prepares to play host to the world’s top athletes. A long-running political and economic crisis continues […]
SPOTLIGHT: MASS KILLINGS AND MENTAL INSTABILITY A knife-wielding man killed 19 people in their sleep and injured at least 25 others overnight at a care center for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara. The man has been identified as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the center, and has turned […]
Just like nearby Venice, Commachio is built in a marshy lagoon across dozens of little islands, joined by bridges like the Ponte dei Trepponti here.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Authorities in Rio de Janeiro have inaugurated the first part of a light city railway designed to ferry about hundreds of thousands of visitors and sports players arriving in the Brazilian city for the Olympic games due to start in August. The new VLT network, a multinational project involving firms like […]
Aleppo’s al-Madina souk, the world’s largest covered historic market, was a highlight on our visit to what was then a bustling, cosmopolitan and altogether very pleasant city. It has been sad to watch from afar as so much of it has been devastated during the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
SPOTLIGHT: STATE OF EMERGENCY, THE OBVIOUS ANSWER? If the whole world is always in a state of emergency, does that mean there’s no emergency? We’re not quite there yet, but an official “state of emergency” decree, with additional regulations and the granting of special police powers, is increasingly how governments react in times of crisis. […]
The many rivers in Indonesia provide an endless stream of picturesque moments, like this man in Jakarta wearing a traditional caping conical hat.
SPOTLIGHT: WORLD, MEET MR. TRUMP (AGAIN) Every four years, people around the world get a glance at those odd political spectacles, typically hosted in some mid-sized American city they’ll never visit. The U.S. national party conventions tend to get slightly bemused coverage abroad: candidates’ family values on full display, gray-haired delegates dancing to Dixie bands […]
On a warm Spring day at the southern tip of the French island of Corsica, it was time to go home and take a siesta.
Boasting astounding collections of artists, both Spanish (Velázquez, Goya) and international, (Rubens, Rembrandt …) the Museo del Prado in Madrid is one of the most visited museums in the world. When I went there more than 50 years ago, there was no queue in sight.
I don’t often go for artistic shots, but this lighthouse staircase in the big fishing port of Hvide Sande, in western Denmark, caught my eye.
SPOTLIGHT: WHO RUNS THE WORLD? WOMEN Theresa May is set to take over as Britain’s new Prime Minister to succeed the outgoing David Cameron, bumped from office by the victory of the Brexit referendum. May will become the second woman to lead the UK, following the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, who controlled British politics during […]
SPOTLIGHT: FRENCH CONSOLATION France needed this win badly. It has been a grim 18 months, with major terrorist attacks, a crippled economy and record floods, and the country yearned for the kind of unifying victory that sports can provide. And so an edgy kind of optimism reigned ahead of kickoff at the European Soccer Championship […]
Rice is a staple food on the Indonesian island of Java. The country is one of the world’s biggest producers, and cultivating it means a lot of work for both men and women. But during the drying stage, there’s not much to do but wait.
Students were parading through the streets of Perugia in central Italy, wearing full Renaissance robes in the July sun.
Hanging bunches of dates, a parked motorcycle, leisurely locals: This was part of what I saw in Palmyra, beyond its famous ruins, during a visit to Syria long before the civil war sadly changed the beautiful scenery.
For Chile’s former president, Ricardo Lagos, peace between Bogota and leftist FARC guerrillas could signal a new path well beyond the borders of Colombia — though a post-Brexit Europe may be hard to reach.
It was time to clean up after the 15th anniversary parade at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
SPOTLIGHT: WHAT DOES ISTANBUL ATTACK SAY ABOUT ISIS? After Tuesday night’s gruesome attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, where the toll now stands at 42 people dead and 239 wounded, Turkish police launched a vast operation that led to the arrest of 13 suspects, AFP reports. Perhaps surprisingly, no organization has so far claimed responsibility for […]
There probably aren’t that many places in the world where you can see a 2,400-year-old man in such an incredible state of preservation. The Tollund Man was naturally mummified in a peat bog, and his body is now carefully placed in the sleeping position in which he was found. You can see all this ancient […]
Granted, it was the “60s — but of which century?
SPOTLIGHT: CAMERON & CORBYN, STANDARD & POOR’S What a difference a week makes. Britain’s two leading political figures, Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appeared to be cementing their power in their respective parties last week. But Thursday’s verdict to leave the European Union spurred Cameron’s decision to resign. And now […]
To get from the foot of the butte Montmartre to the Sacré-Cœur basilica in Paris, you can either go up the 300 stairs or, since 1900, buy a ticket for the funicular.
One of the best things about traveling in organized tours is that you get priority tickets for everything, meaning that we never had to wait in line to get into the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, or in this case, the Mayan city of Tulum.
I’m not the only one to find the Alyscamps, near Arles in the south of France, picturesque. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin immortalized the alley of sarcophagi in this great Roman necropolis.
If the UK leaves the European Union, the members of the free market camp in the EU would be severely outnumbered.
SPOTLIGHT: SARAJEVO RUBBLE TO TRUMP TOWER The pace of modern communication tells us that what’s here today is gone … tonight. The potential worldwide virality of any piece of digitally circulated information comes with the caveat that everything is also potentially, and eternally, invisible. The tree falling in some proverbial unseen forest of the Internet. […]
The regimes of Iran and Venezuela may have been great chums and eager members of the anti-imperialist camp over the past decade. But the current in Caracas, where food shortages and clashes are rising, is prompting some finger-wagging in Tehran. “We Want Food — Venezuela’s Economy A Step Away From Total Collapse” read the front […]
When you travel as much as I did, laundry drying in the heat is one of the sights you get to see around the world and through the ages.
This was a souvlaki of epic proportions, near the ancient site of Mycenae in southern Greece.
SPOTLIGHT: EUROPE’S FATE, FROM ROME TO LONDON Italy’s 5-Star Movement won the mayoral races in Rome and Turin, where Virginia Raggi and Chiara Appendino will become the two major cities’ first female mayors. For Italian pundits, their victories, particularly Raggi’s landslide triumph in the Eternal City, is a major blow to center-left Prime Minister Matteo […]
SPOTLIGHT: BRAZIL, THE LONG ARM OF PETROBRAS PROBE Five weeks. That’s all it took for Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer to become directly implicated in the far-reaching Petrobras corruption scandal. Of course, there had been warning signs. First the resignation of two of his ministers amid allegations they were trying to subvert the ongoing probe. […]