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.
-OpEd- ANTALYA — Opportunism may be one of the accepted facts of life in foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. The Turkish government is busy right now trying to make the most of two pieces of the Syrian crisis that have come to the fore: The recent flood of refugees to […]
Libération, Nov. 19, 2015 “Abdelhamid Abaaoud, The Face Of Terror” writes French daily Libération on its Thursday front page, as French experts were trying to determine whether the suspected mastermind of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks was killed in a Wednesday police raid on a terrorist lair. At least two individuals were killed in the […]
There’s a famous nursery rhyme about the bridge of Avignon, in southern France, that goes: Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse, l’on y danse Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse tous en rond (On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing, we’re all dancing On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing in […]
Dismissed and wooed as so-called millennials, a young French generation supplied both the targets and perpetrators of the Paris attack. Simple answers are nowhere to be found, though maybe this label will stick.
FRENCH POLICE LAUNCH BLITZ, TWO DEAD Photo: Ying Qiang/Xinhua/ZUMA At least two suspected terrorists died and seven others were arrested in a large-scale French police operation early Wednesday in the rugged Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The location of the raid is not far from the Stade de France stadium where three jihadists blew themselves up […]
“Tony” the Cypriot shoe seller definitely had a knack for presenting shoes in a novel way.
During its years of international isolation, Iran saw “culture” solely as a way to promote its Shia Islamic heritage. Yet Iranian officials recently have begun to take an interest in questions of national identity, heritage and Iranian civilization that are unrelated to the Islamic clerical regime and its values. As the country prepares to move […]
HOLLANDE: U.S. AND RUSSIA MUST COOPERATE During a joint parliamentary session at the Palace of Versailles Monday, French President François Hollande called on the United States and Russia to combine forces against ISIS after Friday’s terror attacks in Paris that left at least 129 dead. The speech, in which Hollande reiterated that France is at […]
In the late 1950s, some villages in southern Portugal still didn’t have access to running water. I guess you could call this walking water?
PARIS TERROR ATTACKERS NAMED As Paris continues to mourn its dead, five of the seven dead ISIS terrorists responsible for Friday night’s attacks have been identified, Twitter”>Le Figaro reports. Four of them were French citizens: Omar Ismaïl Mostefaï, 29, who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert venue, where close to 90 people were killed; […]
Le Soir, Nov. 16, 2015 “Brussels, Jihadist Hub,” writes Belgian daily Le Soir on its Monday front page, as details about a Belgian connection to the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris are starting to emerge. The suspected mastermind of the attacks that left at least 129 killed and 352 wounded is a 27-year-old Belgian […]
This isn’t even the most famous or the most monumental of the 27 gates in northern Morocco“s city of Meknes.
CAIRO — A third of Cairo’s residents walk, cycle or use carts as their primary means of transportation, while in Egypt’s provincial cities, such as Shibin al-Kom in Monufiya, more than half the population is motor-free. The state, however, insists on fighting users of non-mechanized vehicles, especially donkey carts. Most governors have tried to ban […]
“JIHADI JOHN” BELIEVED DEAD AFTER U.S. AIR STRIKE, ISIS STRIKES BEIRUT ISIS terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, better known by the nickname “Jihadi John,” was the target of a U.S. airstrike in the Syrian city of Raqqa and U.S. officials believe with a “high degree of certainty” that he was killed, the BBC reports. “Jihadi John,” a […]
The increasing “unreliability” of voters in a digital age are consistently knocking polling experts off their mark.
KURDS LAUNCH IRAQ OFFENSIVE Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes last night, Kurdish Iraqi forces launched a major offensive today to retake the strategic northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS fighters, Al Jazeera reports. According to a statement from the Kurdish Regional Security Council, about 7,500 Peshmerga fighters aim to cut off ISIS supply lines […]
The lunar landscapes of the Tabernas Desert, near Almeria in southern Spain, were used as filming locations for some of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns in the 1960s. When my wife and I went there in the 1980s it was pretty much abandoned, but it has since become a major tourist attraction.
BEIJING — Over the past month President Xi Jinping made a state visit to the United States and to the United Kingdom. In the U.S. he was welcomed with a 21-gun salute on the south lawn of the White House followed by a state banquet. In Britain he was greeted by the Queen, and rode […]
Our dog, whom we had gotten soon after the end of World War II and named “Jeep,” was keeping a benevolent eye on our cat.
PARIS — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has refused a dinner invitation at the French presidential palace with his counterpart François Hollande, because wine was on the menu, French broadcaster RTL reports. A formal dinner was planned at the Elysée to mark the end of Rouhani’s November 16-17 visit to Paris, as part of the first […]
MYANMAR ACCUSED OF DELAYING RESULTS The National League for Democracy (NLD), the Burmese opposition party headed for a sweeping victory after Sunday’s general elections, has accused the government of Myanmar of deliberately delaying release of the results, The Irrawaddy reports. The NLD is expected to win at least 75% of contested seats, according to party […]
This stork decided to keep company with these Romanian haymakers near Covasna, a scene reminiscent of my childhood in the French countryside.
OPPOSITION LOOKS TO WIN BIG IN MYANMAR Photo: Jack Kurtz/ZUMA The National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi is on the verge of a sweeping victory in Myanmar, where party officials say they expect to win at least 70% of parliamentary seats, The Myanmar Times reports. Yesterday’s historic election […]
“Uncertain to the end,” Croatian-language daily Poslovni dvevnik writes on its Monday front page, a day after Croatia’s conservative opposition claimed a narrow victory in the country’s first election since it joined the European Union in 2013. The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) has declared victory after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, but the leading opposition party failed […]
Oysters are my péché mignon — literally my “cute sin,” or guilty pleasure. I’ll have a shovelful or two, thank you very much.
The U.S. was once vulnerable to the geopolitics of energy reserves. Now American shale gas exploration offers foreign policy muscle in the face of the Saudis, Russians and Iranians.
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EGYPT RESTRICTS UK RESCUE FLIGHTS Egyptian authorities are restricting flights sent to rescue British tourists, who were stranded at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport after Saturday’s crash of a Russian plane, the BBC reports. Some 20 flights were planned to take British tourists back home today, but it appears that only about eight will depart. According […]
Hopefully this bakery in central Turkey didn’t get its flour delivered the way it did its coal.
Unlike Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa manages to keep his political crackdowns below the international radar.
ISIS MAY HAVE CAUSED SINAI CRASH AFTER ALL There is significant evidence that an ISIS affiliate in Egypt was behind a suspected bomb attack on a Russian passenger plane that killed 224 people over the Sinai Peninsula Saturday, UK, U.S. and European officials told The Guardian. But Egypt and Russia still urge caution on making […]
Libération, Nov. 5, 2015 “Everyday, two Aylans,” French daily Libération writes on Thursday’s front page, which also features a photograph of the body of a yet-to-be-identified 10-year-old Afghan boy washed up on a beach of the Greek island of Lesbos, off the coast of Turkey. The picture and headline both echo the similar drowning death […]
Climate change, pollution, terrorism. Teenagers are increasingly scared of what’s ahead, and why wouldn’t they be? While a certain amount of fear is normal, psychologists advise teens to get help when anxiety takes over.
I’ve never skied in my life, but luckily you don’t have to be a winter sports enthusiast to appreciate the glaciers and dense pine forests of the Canadian Rockies. A cozy part of the scenery was Lake Louise Inn, nestled among the snowy peaks of Banff National Park in the western province of Alberta.
In another possible sign of thaw after decades of chilly relations between the United States and Iran, the U.S. is set to return 1,500 fossil pieces to Iran that it has kept since the 1979 revolution, the reformist paper Shargh reported this week, citing comments by Iran’s chief environmental official Masoumeh Ebtekar. Ebtekar confirmed the […]
WHY WILL CHINA, TAIWAN LEADERS FINALLY MEET? Doses of both silence and skepticism have followed the surprise announcement Tuesday that the leaders of Taiwan and China would meet for the first time in 66 years. Presidents Xi Jinping of China, and Ma Ying-jeou of China will meet on Saturday for what’s being dubbed as a […]
In southern Indonesia’s Torajan villages, traditional weaving and wood carving compete for tourists’ attention.
Though homophobia is not itself a mental illness, a new study finds that people who are prejudiced against gays and lesbians often do have mental disorders. But it’s unclear what we’re supposed to do with this insight.
U.S. PLANS MORE SOUTH CHINA SEA PATROLS The U.S. will continue conducting patrols near artificial Chinese islands in the disputed South China Sea, Reuters quoted a U.S. defense official as saying yesterday. The official said patrols would happen about twice a quarter, describing that as “the right amount to make it regular but not a […]
This is no ordinary stone. For the Ancient Greeks, the omphalos represented the navel of the world, determined by Zeus when he sent his two eagles across the world to meet at its center. The eagles may have gotten lost along the way, as there are several such stones around the Mediterranean Sea, Delphi merely […]