Worldcrunch
SAINT-DENIS – Those going through the Legion d’Honneur Square, not far from the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis, in the northern Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of Paris, will perhaps wonder about the presence of a globe-shaped monument in the middle of a flower bed. As they come closer, they will see that names, surnames and numbers have […]
PARIS – Baptiste Langlais shows off his new watch proudly. “In my sector, we like beautiful mechanics,” jokes the car salesman from the Paris region. His latest whim? An 8,500-euro Jaeger-LeCoultre wristwatch. “A big investment, especially these days,” he admits. But he has found a way to reconcile reason and passion. Launched a few months […]
-Op-Ed- ALGIERS – The confusing communication strategy orchestrated by supporters of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika around his recent hospitalization in Paris — and the mystery surrounding the actual state of his health — have led the Algerian press and the opposition parties to denounce the lack of transparency and secrets that are so characteristic of […]
PARIS – It is past 9 a.m. when Laurence Cote arrives, and throws her things on her desk. The 20 or so students scattered around the room, far from falling silent at once for the arrival of their teacher…getting even louder instead. They run, shout, trample. “Does anyone have a blazer?” asks someone. “I do. […]
SAINT-PAUL-TROIS-CHATEAUX – Three steps in from the side of the path are enough for Cédric Denaux to identify a veritable pantry. Where we only see a field of flowers and weeds exploding in springtime chaos, this botanist-cum-cook spots the pointed flower of the buckhorn plantain, the bubble-shaped one belonging to the bladder campion, a tuft […]
GAMCHEON – It has been called the “Lego village,” the “Korean Machu Picchu,” the “Santorini on the South Sea…” Gamcheon, in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan is indeed all of these – a multicolored village that looks like it was made out of candy, with its little green, yellow and blue hillside cubicle […]
BORDEAUX – There are always a handful of professional wine-tasters who will question the legitimacy of the Bordeaux “primeurs” week. Still, the event not only endures, but actually gets bigger and better-attended every year. The skeptics note that the entire process is built around rating a wine that is only just beginning to age in […]
Mirroring the Catholic-Protestant battles of the past, intra-Islamic violence has global reverberations far beyond faith. Right now, it’s coming to a head in Syria.
That’s just one way to say, “getting in the sack…,” which is all they’re about. Are you impressed?
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA – For days, Teresa Maldonado has only had bad news for waiting passengers. “No room on the plane today! We’ve got to fly the lobsters out!” Showing the lady a valid ticket issued by the plane company does not help. The lobsters have priority; they have to get to Santiago alive. Nobody […]
SRINAGAR – An eagle boldly splits the air, to and fro, between disputed territories. On the ground, an electrified fence hurtles down the jagged flank of the mountain, bumps into the river, then resumes its straight race up heights. In the Uri district, in Silikot, the fence sharply cuts an odd borderline: dividing the Muslim […]
A French journalist upset by the shuttering of local book shops gets a temp job with Amazon, where only the “supermotivated” survive to work under conditions that violate labor codes.
-Essay- GENEVA – May is the month of Europe, celebrating the anniversary of the creation of the Council of Europe on May 5, and of the European Union on May 9. It is the opportunity to commemorate a man who played a determining role in Switzerland’s prosperity. This man was Robert Schumann, the French foreign […]
While the movie world descends on Cannes, there are those up north who note that there is no more glamorous French face than that of the capital herself.
MAGNATE – The jeep makes its way along a path of red earth, bordered on either side by forest trees. We have not passed a living soul for miles, apart from a few baboon troops scampering away as we approach, quickly climbing up trees for a better perch to watch us drive by. We are […]
-Op-Ed- PARIS – Guerilla scenes, an intolerable gratuitous violence, hundreds of angry youths looting shops… this is not Aleppo in Syria, but central Paris. On May 13, violence broke out in one of the French capital’s ritziest neighborhood as supporters gathered to celebrate the soccer team Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) winning the French League 1 championship […]
KUALA LUMPUR – The father, Anwar Ibrahim failed: the opposition coalition he’s been leading lost this month’s national elections. By all accounts, he will never be Prime Minister. The daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar, was instead reelected comfortably to her seat as Member of Parliament in the May 5 legislative ballot. Time is on her side, […]
BERLIN – A year ago, Suzanne and Andreas Willim were living in their romantic rural dream house in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Then the passionate sailors and their three sons decided on a radical break with their old life, and moved into an apartment complex. Now they have less living space than they […]
Unable to live up to the first wave of optimism, the uprising in the Arab world is nonetheless destined to change history.
Worldcrunch Last month, Andrea Benitez, daughter of a senior Mexican official made headlines, for what can only be described as a temper tantrum. Benitez, whose father is the Federal Prosecutor for Consumer Affairs, telephoned public inspectors to shut down the Maximo Bistrot, a restaurant that had not given her the table she had requested. Such […]
SEOUL – North Korea recently attacked newly elected South Korean President Park Geun-hye, making a jibe at the “venomous swish of her skirt.” The swish of South Korea’s long traditional silk skirts has long been used as a macho joke – if not an insult – targeted toward strong women. Aggressive women, women who do […]
How the always changing ‘work-in-progress’ that is the United States of America looks to a European, where the past still holds everything in place.
Yahoo! wanted to buy the video platform Dailymotion, owned by France Telecom. But with the French government opposed come reminders of what needs fixing in France’s startup world.
NEW DELHI – It is not hard to imagine how the French government (or their counterparts in Athens or Washington) would dream of such a thing: escaping the monthly stress of publishing unemployment figures. In India, the national jobless rate simply doesn’t get calculated, and the topic is virtually absent from media and political debate. […]
GAZA – At first sight, it is just a wasteland. Sand – blown in from a nearby beach – covers the scattered bushes. Here and there, ruins, where sometimes children play, barefoot. Welcome to what used to be the spectacular Anthedon Harbor, one of the crossroads of antique civilizations, which for 2000 years was used […]
TAPACHULA – “I’ve come here to earn money, and then I’ll go back home…” Josefina Perez talks as she cuts coffee trees with a machete on the 617-acre Irlanda farm perched on the Tacana volcano in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Like this 40-year-old seasonal worker, more than 100,000 Guatemalans cross the border each year […]
RANGOON – Down Pyay Road, in the middle of a huge traffic-jam, children walk between old Japanese cars in the stifling heat and humidity. Like in other cities of emerging Asian countries, the children walk through the busy streets to sell soda cans and jasmine flower bouquets that are supposed to help cool down the […]
20 MINUTES, MARIE CLAIRE, LA DEPECHE (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – This doesn’t sound very French. A group has declared Friday “Asexuality Day” in France. Organized by the AVA (Association for Asexual Visibility), the goal of the celebration is to inform the public about this little-known category of sexual identity of those people who do not […]
CULLY – He is majestic. The concert has just ended, and the audience is on fire. Opening his long thin arms, he takes a bow; in his checked shirt, he has the body of a Maasai warrior. The Cully Jazz Festival audience is shell-shocked by the performance they have just witnessed – totally under the […]
SHANGHAI – For years, the People’s Republic of China has been carrying the German car industry through tough times. In 2012, German manufacturers sold a whopping 15.5 million motor vehicles in China, and no end to that record is in sight. In March 2013 alone they sold 1.4 million cars, a rise of 20%. The […]
PARIS – Should the 500 euros bill be taken out of circulation? A study by Merrill Lynch raised the question, and it is not a small question, as those bills comprise one-third of the total monetary value of bills currently in circulation, that is to say some 300 billion euros. Still, the bills are very […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch HAMBURG – Train them young! Die Welt reports that a German consumer protection group has charged Pampers with systematically deceiving consumers by reducing the number of diapers in a pack, without changing the way they are presented in the packaging. “It’s a way of raising prices on the sly,” says Armin […]
Lilian Soto is a longshot to win Sunday’s election, but she may have already changed the last South American country to have female voting rights.
LE PARISIEN, LES ECHOS (France), LE JOURNAL DU CAMEROUN (Cameroon) Worldcrunch YAOUNDE – Seven members of a French family kidnapped in February while holidaying in northern Cameroon were freed on Friday. The Cameroonian government and the French government both issued statements on Friday saying the father, mother, uncle and four children aged between five and […]
There are signs of historical insecurity in Russia’s move away from Europe and the U.S. But at the end of the day, China looms as the real threat for Moscow’s future.
AFP (France), BBC (UK), DAWN (Pakistan) Worldcrunch ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani court has ordered the arrest of ex-military leader Pervez Musharraf on Thursday, in connection with his March 2007 attempt to put judges under house arrest. After the Islamabad High Court rejected his bail application, Musharraf immediately left the premises, escorted by his bodyguards. It […]
Margaret Thatcher’s legacy was forever tarnished by the ten IRA hunger strikers who died on her watch. Will Guantanamo’s protesters be Obama’s black mark?
A French correspondent gauges reaction to the Boston Marathon attack, noting how much has changed since 9/11 in the way America faces its fears and vulnerabilities.
Rhetorical outrage and new codes of ethics have followed revelations that France’s Budget Minister had a secret Swiss bank account. But there may be other, more subtle lessons to learn.
AFP, LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – The Chief Rabbi of France was forced to step aside, after a scandal over alleged plagiarism and lying about his education background, reports Le Monde. Gilles Bernheim, 60, announced the decision on Thursday, following an emergency session of the Central Consistory, the main Jewish administering institution in France. […]