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.
MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA TO RESCUE MIGRANTS Malaysia and Indonesia have pledged to provide temporary shelter to the estimated 7,000 migrants believed to be stranded at sea, a move that AP characterizes as “a potential breakthrough in the humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia.” Most of the migrants are members of the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in […]
With the choir of traditional folk singing I was part of, we went to many national — and international — gatherings of groups of singers and dancers who were trying to preserve their local cultural heritage. I took this picture of these two Cannettes with my very first camera, an Exacta Varex.
25,500 FLEE ISIS-OCCUPIED RAMADI At least 25,000 people have fled Ramadi, Iraq, after ISIS fighters captured it from government forces after fierce clashes Sunday that killed at least 500 people, the UN reports. EXTRA! “I won’t be Charlie Hebdo anymore, but I will still be Charlie,” the cover headline in today’s Libération reads, quoting Charlie […]
On the Saintes archipelago in the Lesser Antilles live the green iguana (which appears on the coat of arms of the Terre-de-Haut municipality) and the local Iguana delicatissima. Everything was going just fine until the two started to mingle, giving birth to a hybrid iguana threatening both species.
Bitcoin has had its ups and downs, in both value and public trust. But some recent deals in Latin America offer signs that the online currency may be here to stay.
Evidence is so overwhelming that even Russians can no longer deny the truth that their country is fighting in Ukraine. But Putin offers something better than the truth.
With its somber beauty, the Scottish village of John o” Groats, is the end of the road when traveling to the extreme northeast of Great Britain. It is the start or finish of the UK’s longest “coast-to-coast,” with Land’s End in southwestern England exactly 876 miles (1,410 kilometers) away.
BEIJING — Since being sworn in as India’s prime minister last year, Narendra Modi’s ambitious reform agenda has made him one of Asia’s most-talked about leaders. The economic program that Modi has put forward is changing the world’s impression of India, confirmed by his just-completed three-day visit to China. At last month’s Hanover Fair, Modi […]
This monkey, which looks like it was scrawled on a cave wall, is actually a 300-foot-long geoglyph of unknown origin, seen from a plane in Peru’s Nazca Desert.
MIGRANT CRISIS WORSENS IN SE ASIA “Out at sea with nowhere to go,” reads today’s front-page headline in Malaysian daily The Star, alongside a photo of Rohingya migrants, a persecuted minority, waiting on a boat adrift off the coast of Thailand. According to the UN, about 6,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar (also known as Burma) and […]
“Out at sea with nowhere to go,” reads the Friday front-page headline in Malaysian daily The Star, alongside a photo of Rohingya migrants waiting on a boat adrift off the coast of Thailand. According to the UN, about 6,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Bangladesh are stranded at sea, a budding humanitarian […]
Jerusalem and Berlin have strong ties in no small part because German officials virtually never criticize Israel. But that may be the seed of creeping estrangement.
The Most Serene Republic of San Marino, as its official name goes, is not exactly the most serene Eurovision contestant there is. Having failed to qualify in its first four attempts, the landlocked microstate reached the Eurovision final for the first time in 2014, where it finished 24th — out of 26 contestants. This year’s […]
The Times, May 14, 2015 After a 10-year legal battle, the contents of 27 secret letters written by Prince Charles to British ministers were published Tuesday, revealing the extent of the prince’s attempts to influence the government. On the front page of its Thursday edition, The Times ran a picture of the Prince of Wales […]
I took maybe one my favorite series of photos in the villages of western India’s Rajasthan. The colors and contrasts of everyday life in this poor but lively area made for some strong human portraits.
Certain buildings in Mariánské Lázne still retain some of their Bohemian grandeur, from when the spa town then known as Marienbad was a favorite destination among the European elite early in the 20th century. But by the time we got there at century’s end, a few years after the birth the Czech Republic, that golden […]
RESCUE OPS RESUME AFTER SECOND NEPAL QUAKE EPISODE Rescue teams have resumed their quest to find survivors in devastated Nepal, after yesterday’s 7.3-magnitude earthquake. It came less than three weeks after an even more violent one that destroyed part of the impoverished country and killed more than 8,000 people, AFP reports. Reports say at least […]
ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE HITS NEPAL A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Nepal, near Mount Everest, today, two weeks after the devastating quake killed at least 8,000 in the Himalayan nation. EXTRA! French President François Hollande became the first top Western leader to visit Cuba since the island nation moved to reestablish relations with the United States late […]
Back in 1965, you could still leave your car in the holiest of all parking lots, next to Bernini’s fountain on St. Peter’s Square.
-OpEd- BEIJING — When Macau authorities recently uncovered a prostitution ring, the most shocking aspect of the case was that its alleged mastermind was a 16-year-old boy. Needless to say, the teenager in Macau, one of two special Chinese administrative regions, represents an extreme example of the more diffused problem of the millions of minors […]
CONFLICT INTENSIFIES AHEAD OF YEMEN TRUCE The Saudi-led airstrike campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen intensified over the weekend, hours before the beginning of a negotiated five-day ceasefire that will allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians. The Houthis said this morning they had downed a Moroccan fighter jet taking part in the strikes campaign, website […]
There’s a place where children are as tall as houses, and where it takes about 10 steps to walk across an entire city, like Amsterdam … This place is Legoland, in Billund, Denmark.
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UK GIVES CAMERON FIVE MORE YEARS What all British pollsters foresaw as the tightest election in decades turned out to be a night of triumph for incumbent Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party and a stinging defeat for the Labour opposition. The BBC projections of 329 Conservative seats in the new House of […]
I have a pretty decent wine cellar back home. It’s underground, so there’s no light and the temperature is constant. It’s just a little bit too humid, meaning that I sometimes have a hard time deciphering the labels. So who knows, I may still have a bottle from that time I went to the town […]
THE UK VOTES Britons are voting today in what The Guardian describes as the United Kingdom’s most unpredictable general elections in decades, as Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party and opponent Ed Miliband’s Labour Party remained even in the latest opinion polls, which has been the case for months. Neither party is expected to win […]
La Tercera, May 7, 2015 Hoping to hit the reset button on her slumping presidency, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet has decided to dump not just one or two ministers, but her entire cabinet. Bachelet made the stunning announcement during a Wednesday evening television interview, saying she “requested the resignation of all the ministers” and will take […]
In 60 years of travels, I have very few mishaps to report. But this slide comes with a story. My wife and I were traveling through central Morocco with four other people in a Volkswagen van. On the road to Midelt, we were surprised by heavy rain, which caused rocks to fall and block our […]
ISIS CLAIMS ITS FIRST U.S. ATTACK ISIS claimed responsibility today for the weekend attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest at a conference center near Dallas, Texas. Gunmen Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were killed by a police officer after they opened fire and injured a security guard there, The Washington Post reports. This is […]
GUNMEN WHO ATTACK ANTI-MUSLIM EVENT KILLED Police shot and killed two gunmen after they opened fire outside a building in Garland, Texas, where a contest for cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was being held, The Dallas Morning News reports. The attackers’ identities haven’t been released. 101 Funchu Tamang, a 101-year-old man, was pulled from the […]
Dubbed the “Fight of the Century,” Saturday’s welterweight title boxing match between American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Filipino Manny Pacquiao failed to live up to the hype. In what some instead consider the most boring fight of the century, Mayweather won by unanimous decision after an uneventful 12 rounds lasting 40 minutes. Pacquiao is […]
There are several ways to look at the statue of Pan and a Nymph, near Dubrovnik’s Gate of Pile.
Major changes are afoot at Deutsche Bank, which weathered the 2008 economic storm but has been slow since then to adapt to changes in global financial markets.
NEPAL DEATHS EXCEED 6,000 The death toll in and around Nepal, where a devastating earthquake struck Saturday, now exceeds 6,200 people, Reuters reports. More than 14,000 people were also injured, and at least 600,000 homes were destroyed in the disaster. SNAPSHOT Photo: Sajjad/Xinhua/ZUMA A laborer works at an iron factory on International Workers’ Day in […]
The Mediterranean island of Malta has a past marked by Frenchmen. The capital of Valletta was named after Knight Hospitaller Jean Parisot de Valette, whose order then surrendered to Napoleon Bonaparte. But my visit there didn’t make it into history books.
Le Parisien, April 30, 2015 “The French military at the heart of a scandal” reads the front page of French daily Le Parisien, following the revelation of accusations that 16 French soldiers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic between December 2013 and June 2014. The allegations were kept secret until The Guardian published […]
NEPAL ADMITS POST-QUAKE MISTAKES Nepal officials are acknowledging that the response to Saturday’s devastating earthquake that took at least 5,000 lives has been too slow for survivors in remote villages, who are still waiting for aid to reach them, Sky News reports. INDONESIA EXECUTIONS SPARK ANGER Photo: Sijori Images/ZUMA Australia has recalled its ambassador to […]
Vanguard, April 29, 2015 Nigerian troops fighting against Islamist group Boko Haram announced the rescue of 293 girls and women held hostage by the jihadists, newspaper Vanguard reports on Wednesday. It’s unclear how many, if any, of those rescued were among the 200 girls abducted in a school in Chibok in April 2014 that captured […]
The number of ceramic figures decorating the roofs of Beijing’s Forbidden City is proportionate to the status of the building: Only the Hall of Supreme Harmony at the Imperial Palace Museum boasts 10 such mystical beasts. The person who lived in this building must still have been pretty important, as 8 is also a lucky […]
NEPAL DEATH TOLL COULD REACH 10,000 As the Nepalese continue digging through rubble in search for survivors four days after its deadliest earthquake in decades, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said today that the death toll could reach 10,000, Reuters reports. Confirmed figures this morning put the number at 4,349 people killed and more than 7,000 […]