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.
The road to El Oued is paved with good intentions! We’ve seen our share of strange road signs over the years, but being told to beware of sand while you’re driving in the middle of the Algerian desert definitely takes the cake.
Helsingor’s Kronborg Castle, in the background, is perhaps more famous as “Elsinore,” where most of Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place. Maybe this is where our braided 8-year-old daughter Cécile got her love for all things English?
This may not be the Tour de France, but the atmosphere was definitely comparable. One of my best friends (on the right) and I were watching this unfortunate cyclist struggle with a flat tire, right on the street where I lived then, which is just one block away from where I live now.
At the height of Greece’s economic crisis, Syntagma Square was the site of mass protests, but it is also where the presidential Evzones perform their peculiar changing of the guard. Watching their exaggerated movement as they marched around in kilt-like fustanella and red shoes with black pompoms was indeed a treat.
A military pact between Manila and Washington sealed on Obama’s trip to Asia is giving Beijing the jitters.
These conical hats, or capirotes, and white robes were worn by Spanish penitents during Easter celebrations long before the white supremacist Ku Kux Klan began donning them. But they’re still spooky.
In 1965, Istanbul’s Galata Bridge, which spans the Golden Horn, was still a floating bridge. And the cars and street signs made the whole scene look like we were on U.S. Route 66. Istanbul was just an impromptu part of our trip to Romania and Bulgaria with our 6-year-old daughter Cécile. In the lobby of […]
The city of Sukhothai in central Thailand, which used to be the capital of the ancient Siam Empire, is now in ruins. I went digging for this slide a couple weeks ago after I saw an image of this same buddha’s head being “swallowed” by a banyan tree on a French television reportage about Thai […]
KERMANSHAH — It looks like a bank heist that took a very bad turn. Police of the Kermanshah province in western Iran suspect that a unidentified man’s body found in a bank ventilation shaft belonged to a would-be thief who suffocated there overnight. Employees of a branch of the Bank Saderat (the Exports Bank) called […]
“Restaurant,” “haute couture,” “cuisine,” “raison d”être…” There are many examples of the linguistic prestige of the French language worldwide. But in Denmark, the perfectly acceptable Danish word for urinal, “pissoir,” is also tacky French slang for the john.
The Taj Mahal mausoleum is, to me, the most harmonious building man has ever designed, which is why I have a large version of this photo framed in my home. The shape of the domes, the colors of the marble ornaments, and the views through the refined archways make it second to none.
It’s no wonder Pretoria is known as The Jacaranda City. The streets lined with thousands of jacaranda trees are definitely a sight worth seeing. The beautiful purple blooms tend to coincide with year-end exams at the University of Pretoria, and legend has it that if a flower drops on a student’s head, it’s a sign […]
Technology will destroy more jobs and leave fewer for the under-qualified. Are countries prepared to deal with the social exclusion being forged by this work revolution?
Photographs that have caught our eye and captured events.
In Sloviansk, masked men storm homes of Roma families and agitators blame the Jews.
Up until we went on a cruise on the Volga, the very name of the river brought images of iciness, Czars, snow, and tales of folklore. But on this hot summer day along “Russia’s main street,” as they call it, babushkas had given way to bikinis.
Some “two million fish” were found dead and floating in a water reserve outside Tehran, possibly poisoned by untreated sewage that had been seeping in for months, the semi-official ISNA agency reported Wednesday. Mohsen Showkati, head of the environmental office of the district of Reyy where the Fashafuyeh dam was located, blamed waste waters from […]
Much of the rhetoric around human resources strategy involves the idea that working in a team is the key to succees. But in some cases, researchers say, it can even breed laziness.
Strong foreground, nice depth of field, striking colors, llamas … What more could you ask for in a picture?
Did you notice that the Geneva deal on Ukraine made no mention of Crimea? Actually it may have been an unspoken license for Russia to continue to pursue control of the rest of the country.
On this beautiful spring day, little did we or these two gondoliers suspect that only five months later, on Nov. 4, 1966, the most disastrous acqua alta — “high water” — would hit the city, with canals rising by almost two meters (6.5 feet).
When we went to Thailand, we chose not to go for the usual touristy spots along the coast, exploring instead the beauty of the country’s inland regions and their adorned buddhas. Upon rediscovering that slide, I couldn’t help but think: What did this devoted sweeper do with the gold leaves he picked up from the […]
PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS REFUSE GENEVA DEAL Pro-Russian protesters in Eastern Ukraine have rejected the deal reached yesterday in Geneva, refusing to leave the official buildings they have been occupying over the past week in more than 10 cities, the BBC reports. Alexander Gnezdilov, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said that they would only […]
We were usually rather lucky weather-wise on our travels. But it rained so much on our 1961 trip to Denmark (as shown in the above picture of cloudy Copenhagen) that our Peugeot 203“s automatic windshield wipers broke — forcing us to use the hand-crank wipers that cars back then still featured as a backup.
Though you can already catch of glimpse of the city in the background of the picture, in 1990 Cairo was still separated from the great pyramids of Giza. Nowadays the city almost completely surrounds them.
The news in numbers from gold teeth to a record-breaking Stradivarius to Beckett’s “lost” story.
Fifty kilometers (30 miles) west of Barcelona stands the beautiful Santa Maria de Montserrat Benedictine abbey. Like many holy places, it features ex-votos, or offerings — but I had never seen such a profusion of wax body parts, most of them given as a gesture of gratitude for having been cured from a disease afflicting […]
Britons and Americans used to depict Germans as obsessed with Nazi uniforms, now our supposed obsession is nudism. A friendly patriotic ode to letting it all hang out.
The Iranian capital of Tehran sits on a notorious seismic zone, and for years now, its residents are intermittently reminded of the potentially calamitous consequences of a large earthquake. Nobody knows for sure how resistant its building are or whether or not developpers have respected the country’s building norms during the construction frenzy of the […]
This picture is not as old as it seems. Back when I was a philosophy student at Besançon University in eastern France, we put a great deal of effort into our Carnival costumes. In 1951, the theme for the festival was “the 1900s.” That’s me on the left, in my father’s wedding suit, on my […]
History says a hegemonic power and a rising power may be inevitably bound for war. What both Washington and Beijing can do to avoid that.
Wherever my wife and I went, we always tried to bring something back for the rest of the family. We bought one of these little wooden acrobats for my grandson Bertrand in Brazil, although musical instruments were his favorite. He still has a large collection that includes a pan flute from Peru, maracas from Colombia, […]
Black-and-white photos suit the ruggedness of life in Northern Greece’s Pindus mountains. Back in 1961, it certainly didn’t occur to me that one day I would be as old as these men — and yet I have now been retired for 23 years. But it hasn’t meant bench-sitting for me!
I will be going back to Turkey next month, some 46 years after I took this photo. One of my two granddaughters, Véronique, now lives near Izmir with her Turkish-born husband Mutlu and my great-granddaughter Ada.
What does Iran see when it looks at Europe? Not necessarily a Union at all. It was reported this week by the Iranian press that the Netherlands ambassador in Tehran told Iranian authorities not to worry about the European Parliament’s recent vote condemning Iran’s handling of human rights. The official IRNA news agency cited ambassador […]
You never forget the colors of India. The intense gaze of this pilgrim in the foreground takes me back instantly to ghats of the Ganges.
BEIJING — A friend of mine recently made an appointment for his heart problem at the cardiac unit of a very well-reputed hospital. When he finally managed to see the chief physician, the doctor’s first question wasn’t “What’s the matter with you?” or “How long have you been feeling unwell?” but instead, “What guanxi have […]
BARRANQUILLA — A four-year-old boy died this week in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla after he was run over by a taxi, which was being driven by a 12-year-old. The victim had been in intensive care for several days before being pronounced dead on April 5, Colombia’s El Espectador reports, citing local newspapers. The […]
Looking at slides of the 15th anniversary parade at Walt Disney World in Florida, it occurs to me that change is often for the best. Flashy tracksuits, visors and the hair. And yes, that’s a keytar.
Not everything famous French architects build is tasteful. Jean Nouvel, the Pritzker Prize winner behind the Arab World Institute in Paris and Barcelona’s Torre Agbar, is also responsible for this “colorful” Las Boas complex on the Spanish island of Ibiza.