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 Moroccan sun was strong on the market place in Larache, a small harbor on the Atlantic coast between Tangier and Rabat. Unfazed by the heat, this vendor was selling herbs, spices and … a giant turtle shell, whose scales he also used to make trinkets and jewels.
A chic nightclub in the glittering, moneyed Gulf city of Dubai, has found itself in very hot water for allowing a monkey onto its premises. The concern? Animal abuse. Photos showed the monkey attached to a leash and wearing a t-shirt. One image showed the monkey being force-fed vodka. Dubai nightclub’s pet monkey causes major […]
Though chances still remain low, Israel wants to be prepared as threats grow of a major global boycott of its goods, like what happened in South Africa in the 1980s.
With his rapprochement policy and chummy tweets in English, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani has carved out a rather pleasant public image since being elected president last year. But don’t tell that to his conservative critics in the Iranian parliament. Rouhani lashed out this week at critics of the Geneva accords as being “semiliterate,” the Farsi-language Prague-based […]
I took this picture during the first of our 11 trips to Greece. We had driven our Simca Aronde down through Italy, then onto the ferry that had just been inaugurated between the southern Italian port city of Brindisi and Igoumenitsa in Greece’s northwestern Epirus region. Then up to the mountains we drove: on narrow, […]
The Yemeni television channel Azal has posted a bizarre video online of a young girl crying small, dark stones. With her condition labeled a medical mystery, 12-year-old Saadiya Saleh has been a source of unease for her village, where some wonder if she is possessed by the devil or ill with an unknown contagious disease.
When we went to Sri Lanka in 1992, conflict was raging between the country’s central government and the separatist Tamil Tigers, based in the north of the island. All our hotels were guarded by army soldiers, and there were tanks deployed in the parks of the capital Colombo. This monk looked to be prepared for […]
Ten years had passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union when we took a river cruise on the Volga … but in some places, there was no way of telling. This church, which had been abandoned under the Communist regime, remained unrepaired. The landscape of open pasture and haystacks brought back childhood memories of […]
Read the news by the numbers: tourism stats, baby-naming bonuses, Toyota sales and more.
Three musicians, a divisive Middle East leader and a soccer legend were among those to whom we bid farewell this past month.
A couple of hours after I took this picture, I shared a beer with an American G.I. stationed in Naples, not far from this narrow street in the old city center where laundry was drying in the summer heat. How do I remember that beer so clearly? The date was July 21, 1969 — and […]
The Rua Conde de Bobadella in the center of Ouro Preto, in Brazil’s southeastern Minas Gerais state, hasn’t changed much since we went there 20 years ago — as this photo, taken at almost the exact same angle, shows on Wikipedia … Can’t say the same about the cars!
– Commentary – WARSAW — The Washington Post story was both scary and a bit comical: Polish intelligence received $15 million from the CIA to operate secret prisons — or “black sites” — and the money was supposedly delivered in two cardboard boxes. Hmmm. According to my calculations, the dimensions of the two boxes would […]
The building in the background is Copenhagen’s 17th century Borsen, the oldest stock exchange in Denmark. With its intriguing spire made of four dragon tails twined together, I wondered if Danish bankers appreciated the architect’s twisted sense of humor…
This is the greatest danger we faced when we drove from Ouargla to El Oued in southern Algeria: bumping into a wild camel…! By 1970, the anti-French sentiment left over from the Algerian War a decade earlier had largely faded away. But we were lucky to enjoy the calm then; as three years later, the […]
Luigi De Magistris, a left-leaning former prosecutor, was the latest would-be savior for the troubled Italian city. But look around, things in Naples are worse than ever.
In India’s sumptuous Mehrangarh Fort, in the western Rajasthan region, we watched two guards’ traditional turban-tying demonstration. Different styles and colors of head-gear used to be associated with specific Indian villages and communities — a custom that we could see was already beginning to fade two decades ago in many of the places we visited.
Clashes with the government in Ukraine and Thailand, summits in Switzerland, Daft Punk on red carpet are among the images making news…
Seven years after the assassination of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, silence remains on the crime of incitement to murder – just like last century’s Armenian Genocide.
Getting married is hard work. This Albanian couple was taking a break from their wedding photo shoot in the ancient Roman theater of Butrint. Located in the very southern tip of modern-day Albania, this archeological site was known as Bouthroton in Ancient Greece and later as the Roman city of Buthrotum. This is one of […]
French hotelier Alain Auneveux moved to Buenos Aires eight years ago and is utterly enchanted by the Argentine capital, which some have called the Paris of Latin America.
“The electoral campaign is like selling detergent,” reads this graffiti just one month after the first general election held in Spain since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
TOKYO — The mackerel comes from Iceland, the salmon from Norway or Chile, and the king crab is from Russia. Less than half of the 2,000 tons of fish and seafood that passes through Tsukiji Market is caught in Japanese nets. The world’s largest fish market is a bustling trading center, with its early-morning auctions […]
Putting the ‘organized’ in organized crime, necessary for Argentina’s efficient distribution of illegal drugs. And of course there are plenty of corrupt politicians and police along the way.
Foreign interests are eyeing Uruguay’s recent legalization of cannabis use in its territory. Will big pharmaceutical firms be allowed to move in on this huge business opportunity?
FUJAIRAH — Once they’ve finished, the fishermen of Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates, drag their boats up onto the beach, sit in the shade to mend their nets, and begin to chat: about Allah, about the world, about soccer and bullfights. But talk also turns to how the pace of life has sped up […]
Wednesday, January 14, 2014 NEW CHARLIE HEBDO ISSUE SOLD OUTOne week after the terrorist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, thousands of people lined up at newsstands to get a copy of the much-awaited “survivors’ issue” of the satirical magazine. As many as one million copies were distributed today and every single one […]
A big fine for JP Morgan, a sad birthday for Michael Schumacher, ebook sales for Hitler’s hate and more of the latest news…quantified.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015 ANOTHER SUSPECT FOUND IN PARIS TERRORA Frenchman of Haitian origin who is believed to have been in contact “several times” with one of the brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo killings will be extradited from Bulgaria, AFP reports. Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, was arrested Jan. 1 as he tried to cross into […]
Monday, January 12, 2015 RECORD PARIS RALLY FOR TERROR VICTIMSNewspapers around the world are hailing France’s show of unity in the face of terrorism after yesterday’s marches across the country gathered a record 4 million people, including at least 1.5 million in Paris alone. See our selection of today’s best front pages here. Here are […]
For this Chinese writer, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife is a symbol of all that’s wrong with the power women of the new century.
JERUSALEM — Aharon Shulov was a man of faith who knew his Scriptures by heart. Especially the passage in which Isaiah promises a new heaven: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy […]
Friday, January 9, 2015 PARIS TERROR SUSPECTS TAKE HOSTAGESPolice have located Said and Chérif Kouachi, the two French brothers suspected of killing 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday. A major police operation is underway after the pair took at least one hostage at a printing company in Dammartin-en Goële, a […]
CAIRO – Another year down the drain for Egypt’s economy. Three years since the January 2011 revolution, and little has been done to salvage what’s left of the crumbling economy, weighed down by the burdens of political turmoil and mismanagement. Now, a growing fear of terrorism has been added to the many economic ailments. I […]
Thursday, January 8, 2014 FRENCH MANHUNT CONTINUES AMID MORE VIOLENCEThe search continues in France for the two gunmen who killed 12 people in the course of attacking the offices of satirical paper Charlie Hebdo with Kalashnikovs yesterday, a terrorist attack that Le Monde describes on today’s front page as “France’s 9/11.” Here are 31 front […]
Wednesday, January 7, 2014 DEADLY ATTACK AT FRENCH SATIRICAL NEWSPAPER HQAt least 10 journalists and two policemen were killed after two heavily armed men opened fire at the Paris offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo Wednesday morning. Four other people were seriously wounded in the shooting; the gunmen managed to flee and a […]
Tuesday, January 6, 2014 GERMANY DIVIDED AS PEGIDA PROTESTS GROWA record 18,000 people gathered in the eastern German city of Dresden last night for a weekly “anti-Islamization of the West” march, while similar protests are spreading across the country in cities like Berlin, Cologne and Stuttgart. The protesters were met with smaller, opposing rallies denouncing […]
Monday, January 5, 2015 AIRASIA BLACK BOXES MAY NEVER BE FOUNDThe AirAsia flight QZ8501 recovery mission has resumed today with improved weather conditions. The Indonesian navy found what could be the jet’s tail section, but officials have warned that the aircraft’s black boxes may never be recovered. Meanwhile, leaked documents published in The Jakarta Post […]
The dire state of the economy and vanishing press freedoms are two key signs that Venezuela is a nation on the edge of disaster.
CAIRO — In the sunlit reception area of Jana Dan International School in Cairo’s Maadi neighborhood, golden-framed certificates line a prominent wall. Next to international accreditation and state inspection documents is a notice to staff: “Please refrain from discussing politics at school.” Through the halls and into a large courtyard flanked by the swimming pool […]