We visited several hill tribes in northern Thailand, but the customs and costumes of the Hmong villagers in Doi Pui were definitely among the most memorable.
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Tribal Youth
Author: Bertrand Hauger
Bertrand 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.
Just days after Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dündar accepted the 2015 Press Freedom Prize in France, he was arrested along with a colleague. He wrote this letter from the Istanbul jail where he faces life in prison for publishing articles about
A disproportionately high number of China’s so-called “super-rich” came from real estate. It’s the first clue about what’s wrong with Chinese wealth accumulation.
TURKEY DETAINS THREE RUSSIANS AFTER ISTANBUL BLAST In the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkish authorities have detained three Russian nationals suspected of being linked to ISIS, Hürriyet reports. The arrests in the provinces of Antalya and Izmir follow a suspected suicide attack on Tuesday morning that killed 10 people, all German, […]
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Jakarta’s Stevedores
In Sunda Kelapa, the old port of Jakarta, Indonesian dock workers were busy unloading pinisis, these traditional two-masted ships.
AT LEAST 10 DIE IN ISTANBUL BLAST Photo: Zeynep Cermen/Xinhua via ZUMA An explosion in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet tourist district killed at least 10 people and wounded 15 others today, CNN Türk reports. Local authorities have said they believe an ISIS suicide bomber caused the blast, Turkish daily Hürriyet reports. UN CALLS FOR EVACUATING 400 […]
No need for Twitter if you are a media baron. Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch placed an announcement in the Births, Marriages and Deaths page of The Times, the storied London-based newspaper he owns, to share the news of his engagement to American actress and former supermodel Jerry Hall. Murdoch, 84, is the executive chairman […]
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Too Hot For The Gators
No wonder this alligator looked so thirsty: The lush swamps of Avery Island are next to Louisiana“s Tabasco hot sauce factory.
In 10 languages, the world bids farewell to the British rock legend, who died at the age of 69.
UN TO RELIEVE STARVING SYRIAN CITY The United Nations is expected to send an aid convoy to the Syrian town of Madaya, where at least 23 people have recently starved to death. About 42,000 people in Madaya have had little to no access to food for the past two weeks, after government forces sealed off […]
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The Improbable Pet Seller
In the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, this Moroccan boy was selling lizards by the roadside. I wasn’t the only one who thought this improbable scene would make for a good photograph.
LÜBECK — The scourge of plastic litter in the oceans is measured in billions of floating tons of pollution, estimated to affect some 40% of the world’s waterways. But a solution to this massive environmental problem may be coming from a small shipyard in Northern Germany, where an ingeniously designed catamaran is being built to […]
POLICE FIND PRINTS OF PARIS ATTACKS FUGITIVE Belgian police have found a fingerprint of Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive jihadist who participated in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, in a Brussels apartment, where the suicide belts worn by some of the terrorists were made, Le Soir reports. The discoveries were made almost a month ago, but […]
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High Income
Gstaad is home to one of the largest ski areas in the Alps. The breathtaking mountainous views — not to mention Switzerland“s advantageous fiscal regime — draw in the rich and famous from around the world.
LIBYA POLICE SCHOOL BOMBED At least 65 people were killed this morning after a truck bomb exploded at a police training center in Zliten, Libya, the BBC reports. Reuters reports that hundreds of recruits were gathered at the center when the explosion occurred. Martin Kobler, the UN’s special representative to Libya, characterized the blast as […]
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Busking In The Shade
It was so hot on the shores of the Baltic sea that August that we had to look for shade everywhere we could, just like this street piper in Riga, Latvia.
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One Year After Attack, ‘Always Charlie’
L’Humanité, Jan. 7, 2016 “Always Charlie!” reads the Thursday front page of far-left French daily L’Humanité, as France marks the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Paris offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead. Eight staff members were killed by two gunmen who’d pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda’s branch […]
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On This Day – January 7
NORTH KOREA CLAIMS FIRST H-BOMB TEST Photo: Yonhap News/ImageCollect/Newscom/ZUMA North Korea claimed Wednesday it had successfully conducted its first hydrogen-bomb test, with the regime’s official television network hailing the move as “a world-startling event to be specially recorded in the national history.” VERBATIM “We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of […]
Die Tageszeitung, Jan. 6 “The Outcry” is the front-page headline for German daily Die Tageszeitung on Wednesday, alongside a blurry picture of a group of men next to the Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, as a spate of alleged sexual assaults and robberies is fueling renewed debate over immigration in Germany. Hundreds of people, […]
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Buddhist Incense
The only thing missing from this picture of a Buddhist temple on the island city-state of Singapore is the intense scent of incense these worshippers were burning.
The news continues to be troubling for Tehran: Several more Arab states have followed Saudi Arabia to cut or curb ties with Iran in the wake of a showdown over Riyadh’s execution of a Shia leader. And yet, Iran’s reformist leaders and most of the country’s media are remaining notably calm. In the immediate aftermath […]
SAUDI ALLIES CUT TIES WITH IRAN Photo: Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua/ZUMA After Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait has also broken its diplomatic ties with Iran, recalling its ambassador from Tehran today, the BBC reports. The Mideast diplomatic crisis began after Saudi Arabia executed Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other […]
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Before The Lights
I took this photo from the window of the classroom in the early days of my career as a high school philosophy teacher in my hometown in eastern France. Back then, before traffic lights arrived in town, policemen with their white staffs were still in charge of keeping the traffic flowing.
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Zidane, Real Madrid’s “SoluZZion”
MARCA, Jan. 5, 2015 “The soluZZion,” reads the front page of Madrid-based sports daily MARCA Tuesday, a day after Real Madrid announced that former French soccer star Zinedine Zidane would replace the unpopular Rafael Benítez as team coach. Zidane, 43, is new to the coaching game. A 1998 World Cup winner with France and a […]
SAUDI ARABIA CUTS DIPLOMACY WITH IRAN In a development that global leaders warn is particularly troublesome for the future of the Mideast, Saudi Arabia has cut diplomatic ties with Iran after its embassy in Tehran was attacked yesterday by Iranian protesters upset by the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Iran is accusing […]
“One year later, the assassin is still on the run,” this week’s special edition of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo reads, as it depicts a fugitive, bloodstained God figure carrying a Kalashnikov. The special edition marks the Jan. 7 anniversary of the deadly terror attack on Charlie Hebdo“s newsroom in Paris. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen […]
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Pigeon Square
BašÄaršija square is one of the landmarks of Sarajevo’s old town, where everybody comes to sit around and talk and drink. But we tourists know it as “the Pigeon Square”.
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View From The Back
I bet this city worker wished his “office” faced the other way, so he could gaze upon the citadel of Victoria, on Gozo, Malta“s second-largest island.
From politicians to entertainers and ordinary citizens, we take a quick look at some of the words that made news in 2015. “Je suis Charlie” is both a slogan and logo created by French art director Joachim Roncin in the wake of the Jan. 7 shooting at the Paris offices of the French satirical weekly […]
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After School
Dunrobin Castle in the Highlands of Scotland is one of the oldest inhabited houses in the country. This stately French Renaissance castle was used as a boarding school but opened to the public in 1973, just five years before we visited it.
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On This Day – December 31
Hey Donald Trump, Hugo Chavez Would Be So Proud CHILE / America Economia, Aug. 25 Jihadism As Nihilism, An X-Ray Of Homegrown Terror In France FRANCE / Le Monde, Dec. 3 The Siberian Fasting Cleanse For Body And Mind RUSSIA / Le Temps, Aug. 17 El Chapo Escape, When Income Inequality Breeds Corruption MEXICO / […]
NOV. 13 ATTACKS COORDINATED IN REAL TIME The three terrorist commandos that carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, killing 130 people, were being coordinated in real time by at least one unknown man in Belgium, Le Monde reports. The three groups were in contact with the coordinator throughout the night using cell phones […]
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Volcano Diving
In the northwest corner of the Portuguese island of Madeira, the contrast between the serene, warm lava pools and the ocean waves crashing in when the wind rises is simply stunning.
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On This Day – December 30
BELGIUM ARRESTS TWO TERROR SUSPECTS Belgian police have arrested two suspected terrorists who were reportedly planning New Year’s Eve attacks on “symbolic targets” in Brussels, newspaper Le Soir reports. The arrests came Sunday and Monday after police raids in the provinces of Brabant and Liège. Police said they hadn’t found any weapons or explosives during […]
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Gastronomic Dilemma
The geese in southwestern France would produce what may be the country’s most controversial, yet scrumptious, delicacy: foie gras.
About 60,000 underage refugees have arrived in Germany this year without their parents. An alarming number are disappearing from custody. Experts warn they are vulnerable to both human traffickers and Islamists.
IRAQI FORCES RECLAIM CENTRAL RAMADI An Iraqi military official said this morning that government forces had “fully liberated” Ramadi, which fell to ISIS last May in an embarrassing defeat. Government forces have been trying to retake the city, the capital of the Anbar province, for weeks. But another official was quick to say that while […]