Worldcrunch
WHAKATANE — “Here, hang this around your neck, we’re nearly there,” says Keris Adams, handing out yellow gas masks to some 50 ship passengers. I’m starting to feel uneasy. It’s only a few kilometers to White Island, the only New Zealand isle with an active volcano. Even from a distance the island has something mystical […]
Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States, but American officials have summarily dismissed its input about airstrikes in Iraq, even with Turkish lives on the line. Why Turkey needs to clarify itself in so many ways.
The “black market” accounts for a quarter of Mexico’s GDP and employs more than half its workforce. The numbers illustrate a failure of public policy and raise a red flag for the future.
As Islamic terrorists press forward in Syria, female fighters and commanders now make up a third of Kurdish forces. “Women can fight better than men,” one says.
Known as the “household registration” system, hukou has denied certain basic rights to millions who have migrated from rural to urban areas. This may be set to change radically.
An antitrust investigation by Beijing authorities into the U.S. software giant was many months in the making, and may signal the end to a two-decade relationship built on billion-dollar deals.
Modern Buenos Aires can overwhelm much of its vintage architecture, but like tough old weeds, certain significant buildings have been able to survive or find new life.
Radicalized Islamic men aren’t the only ones punishing non-compliant civilians in Syria. Now women zero in on other women for not following the group’s strict brand of Sharia law.
Traffic is decidely outbound in a country whose medical practices and facilities can’t keep up with a multiplying affluent class. Still, there may be positive effects for all in the long run.
Chikungunya, which causes high fever and severe joint pain, arrived from Africa last December, and has killed 33 and infected 300,000 in the Western Hemisphere. How to stop the spread.
There are signs of ‘Denglish,’ a German (Deutsch)-English brew becoming fashionable in American culture. Some of it is crossover from Yiddish, some of it is über hipster posing.
–OpEd– Chinese philanthropist Chen Guangbiao recently staged yet another high-profile charity event, this time in the United States, by inviting “poor and destitute Americans” to lunch in New York’s Central Park and to accept a cash gift of $300 each. He seems to have three goals: to find and express his personal convictions, to push […]
New Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi claims to oppose sexual violence from security forces and others, but there is bloodcurdling evidence that it is still used to silence critics.
As Egypt’s economy nosedives, the jobless are forced to hawk wares in the streets. It all makes the new president’s efforts to eliminate street vendors seems especially harsh.
-Analysis- SHANGHAI — The evolution of megacities is a common worry in various countries: Beijing and Shanghai in China, Seoul in South Korea and Mumbai in India all are concerned about how to manage skyrocketing urban populations. But while other countries typically regard population expansion as the result of economic development, and base their future […]
Some German companies that used concentration camp victims as forced labor during World War II took decades to own up to their wretched acquiescence to the Hitler regime.
The Arab Spring is now but a tiny trickle, as the new Egyptian government jails not just the Brotherhood but activists of any kind. Those still standing continue, despite the poor odds.
BERLIN — Peter Seher sits on his balcony in Berlin-Wilmersdorf enjoying the late afternoon sun. He looks at the large puddles of water beneath his feet. It was nice and warm today, so after work the stockbroker set up a little wading pool on the balcony for his young daughter Hanna. “She really got going […]
The stunning assault this week in Iraq by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is bad news for Iran, which has been a staunch ally of Iraqi Prime Minister (and fellow Shia Muslim) Nouri al-Maliki. But beyond condemning the Sunni foes from ISIS, some in Tehran are pointing the finger at Washington. […]
Many outsiders regard Latin America as monolithic about soccer. But as the World Cup begins in Brazil, a closer comparison of the region’s top two teams might surprise you.
It may have begun as a game, but soccer has become a substitute for so many facets of people’s lives, including politics and war, writes Colombian novelist Jose Luis Garces Gonzalez.
More people would have access to health care, and there would be less waiting for doctors if public hospitals were divided and more private hospitals were created in China.
New data shows high crime rates among children of the millions of rural migrants who moved to Chinese cities – both those brought along with their parents, and the ‘left-behind’ children.
DIYARBAKIR — When Aykan Erdemir, a parliamentary member from Turkey’s Republican People’s Party, tried to visit the website of a Christian church located in the country’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir, he was surprised to see that the parliament’s filtering system recognized it as pornography. The preacher of Diyarbakir Protestant church, Ahmet Guvener, said he thought […]
DONETSK — When Ilya Pogorelov leaves his apartment, everything seems normal, at least in the neighborhood where he lives. The 21-year-old student lives with his parents in Kirowski, on the outskirts of Donetsk. “You don’t see any fighting here,” he says by phone. In this residential area, parents are out walking with their kids, and […]
BRUSSELS — There is no shortage of good advice for Europe. The United States recommends becoming independent of Russian gas supplies — Vice President Joe Biden, on a recent visit to Romania, passed that tip on to Prime Minister Victor Ponta. “We have to make certain that Russia can no longer use its energy resources […]
The ugly sandal beloved everywhere by hippies and the comfort footwear set is so hot this season that even Marc Jacobs wants in on the action. Paint those toes, baby.
Newsmaking images that caught our eye.
A sit-down with a top Ukrainian defense official, who lays bare the realities on the ground in the embattled country and draws clearly the lines that will not be crossed
The Fujian Tulous, mysterious circular Chinese buildings, were named a World Heritage site in 2008. It has raised both investments and fears.
No German federal contracts will go to companies that turn over data to the NSA and other spy agencies in the U.S., and elsewhere. There may, however, be one crucial exemption.
MUNICH — At some point Hanna Seibert (not her real name) just started making excuses. When her girlfriends called and wanted to go out to eat and drink cocktails in the city, she would put them off, saying she had too much to do. The cliché excuses suggesting she was stressed out struck her career-minded […]
With the intention to stop the ‘corruption’ of the Chinese language, authorities in Beijing have been taking aim at everything from the NBA and MBAs, to iPhones and WiFi.
The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has reached 900,000. They are our new poor. How we treat them is the great test of a new democracy.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH — Abu Saleh (not his real name) used to earn his money giving camel tours to tourists. But now the Egyptian Bedouin farms his 340-square-meter opium field. It’s not legal, which is why he covers his face, although he notes that the police are looking the other way. When Saleh took his camels […]
Turkey’s current prime minister has big plans, both for himself and the very way his country is governed.
The recently botched execution in Oklahoma is the just the latest sign that this ‘quaint and cruel’ form of American justice is not worthy of a democracy.
A decade after Poland became part of the European Union, Gazeta Wyborcza sent a reporter on a train from Warsaw to Berlin to take stock of the transformation among Polish passengers. WARSAW — “There are only two vivid and well-maintained places in my native Wloclawek (a city in northern Poland with a population over 100,000): […]
BEIJING — In China, the core users of the professional social networking site LinkedIn are white-collar and managerial-level staff of large companies, particularly multinationals or joint ventures with foreign firms. Still, the network has a long way to go if it wants to recruit native Chinese. The users it can claim in China tend to […]
KOSTIANTYNIVKA — It was still early on Monday morning in the east Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka when the city administration and police station were visited by 20 weapons-bearing men wearing camouflage uniforms. Within a few minutes they had control of the seat of power in this city of 95,000 people, and it wasn’t long before […]