Skiing isn’t the only winter sporting activity that can give you snow, speed and the beauty of nature. Follow an amateur in France as he tries to harness the wild icy power of dog sledding.
Author: Patrick Randall
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: The American singer Beck is set to release his 12th studio album, Morning Phase, on Feb. 25, after more than five years since his last record, Modern Guilt. The Californian musician, specialized in blending folk and hip […]
Quality matters even if you want to eat-on-the-go, and pay less. Paris is putting its touch on fast food by improving offerings like kebabs, as well as handing out haute cuisine for the masses.
HAMBURG — Georgios Titokis is actually too old for the remote-controlled car he’s holding in his hand. But the toy interests him. Cautiously, the Greek-born Titokis removes the beach buggy from its box and checks to see if any parts are missing. Then he checks the batteries and looks for any sign of wear and […]
Syria’s longtime foreign minister has shown no sign of opening during the Geneva peace talks, which resumed this week. But Walid Muallem may be the world’s last best hope.
GENEVA — A team of German and Swiss zoologists have discovered an imposing new large-fanged frog species in West Africa. The batrachian’s anatomy and genetics are very different from its cousins of the same region, according to the report published in the periodical Frontiers in Zoology. The frog, named Odontobatrachidae, has the notable characteristic of […]
As the Castro reign lives its final phase, the future of Cuba is uncertain. This is not necessarily good news for Mexico.
BEIJING — Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, calmly states that he has set a goal of $99 billion (600 billion RMB) in revenue by 2020 for his real estate development company. Just as calmly, he then adds that he’ll retire that year to write his memoirs. In mid-December, in front of dozens of […]
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‘Saving Seats’ in Saudi’s Grand Mosque
An unofficial market of “seat saving” is reportedly making waves in Saudi Arabia: female faithful are paying good money to women who can save them spots for prayer at the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca. The “seat savers” technique is to use clothing, purses, and even their own children to save seats […]
French President Francois Hollande is as popular in official circles in Washington as he is unpopular with the citizens of the country that elected him. Story of a unique alliance.
During the country’s civil war in the 1980s, countless children were abducted and sold off into adoption. Some in Europe are now joining the hunt to know their origins.
In Suo-Oshima, nearly half the residents are over the age of 65. Increasingly, the city’s destiny looks to be a sign of what’s to come across a Japan that is aging far too fast.
A national referendum to limit new immigrants shows Swiss society split along political, geographic and linguistic lines. It also leaves the nation isolated from its EU neighbors.
BOR — Apart from the birds of prey gliding in the hot air, everything is as motionless as the corpse with the mummified face. It is a man, judging by his clothes, and he had curled up in a hole no bigger than a basin, hoping to be invisible in the grass. He had clearly […]
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: On Feb. 21 and 22, rare recordings by British bands The Stone Roses and Oasis are set to be auctionned in Stockport, U.K. The auctions will include some of the two Manchester bands’ first-ever recorded demo tapes […]
RIYADH – Amna Bawazeer, a student at an all-women’s university campus in Saudi Arabia, had lived and studied for years with a heart condition. But activists say that her death from a heart attack on campus Thursday was the fault of Saudi Arabia’s strict gender segregation laws. After Bawazeer collapsed suddenly while attending school, female […]
HANGZHOU — It’s well known that nobody in Wahaha, China’s biggest beverage empire, dares challenge the word of Zong Qinghou. But the cult of personality surrounding the group’s founder, dubbed the “beverage king,” goes much further: There are reports of how employees at a Wahaha dealers’ meeting shout Viva Wahaha! Viva Zong Qinghou!, and the […]
DELHI — The weather is cold and damp in Delhi, but the city’s chief minister has spent the night sleeping on the streets. Arvind Kejriwal’s head is wrapped in a grey scarf when he steps up to the microphone in the square behind the parliament building. He is surrounded by ministers and leading members of […]
With rumblings that young people are disenchanted with the social network, a reporter visits the Harvard University campus where Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook 10 years ago.
A new French law targeting clients of prostitutes has focused attention on the changing call-girl business. Here’s another world, of ‘escort boys,’ with both male and female customers.
Since the end of the Cold War, from the Middle East to Africa, almost every military intervention carried out by the world’s top powers leads to regime change. But rarely to stability.
The 45-year-old founder of Baidu, dubbed the “Google of China,” says technology offers great opportunity for success – but also means failure can arrive at any moment.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: This week, The Who singer Roger Daltrey told NME he would reunite with his bandmate and guitarist Pete Townshend later this year to make their 12th album, as the British band is set to celebrate their 50th […]
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The Jewish Ghetto And Its Phantom Opera
Nazis used a Czech military fortress to hold Jewish prisoners during World War II. Yet somehow art and music flourished, including one notable opera that had gone tragically unperformed.
BEIJING — It was 30 years ago at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics that a 20-year-old Chinese gymnast named Li Ning captured three gold medals, two silvers and one bronze with an array of never-before-seen flips and twists that he had invented himself. Li, now 50, became China’s most decorated athlete and won the […]
Barack Obama made American inequality the central challenge of his State of the Union address. Europe and the rest of the West should be listening too.
The unlikely story of a Bosnian refugee who stumbled into winning best actor honors at the Berlin Film Festival, yet still can’t feed his family.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: Earlier this month, Legacy Recordings released “Elvis, The Movie Soundtracks,” a box set of not 2, 3 or 5 albums, but 20 complete CDs compiling the King’s best movie songs. Between 1956 and 1969, Elvis played in […]
A heinous mob killing in Italy, an abusive nurse in France and a bad idea at the Arc de Triomphe made our latest global police blotter…
BANGUI — The motorbike stops abruptly. “If the French don’t want to help us, al-Qaeda will,” the teenager shouts before driving away. All around him, this road of the Begoua neighborhood in north Bangui — the Central African Republic’s capital — is covered in bundles full of the belongings of hundreds of people waiting to […]
Longer life expectancy is changing the demographics of our politicians. Wiser and less worried about reelection, the elderly are bound to make better leaders in our fast-moving society.
The comparisons to the present are striking: a 1830s Swiss banker who helped launch the newly formed nation of Greece on the back of credit it could never pay back.
Ceyda Sungur became the symbol of the Gezi Park protests that shook Turkey because of photograph of a police officer spraying her with gas. That officer now has an unlikely defender.
A Washington D.C. jury has convicted a 49-year-old German man of killing his 91-year-old wife in their home in the capital’s posh Georgetown neighborhood.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: This year’s Sundance Film Festival (Utah), which runs through January 26, will feature the new documentary “20,000 Days on Earth,” by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. The film focuses on the ever fascinating Australian musician Nick Cave, […]
Sebastien Valiela, who caught the French leader sneaking to see his mistress, is among the world’s best paparazzi. He’d already exposed the deepest secret of another French President.
Bashar al-Assad still in power in Syria, al-Qaeda still strong in Iraq. The West’s double failure, incapable of building a common strategy, is a sign of a now ‘post-American’ region.
Immigrants from Eastern Europe are an all-too-convenient target for the Tory prime minister as voters still struggle despite reports of economic recovery.
How could he think he’d be able to hide a love affair behind a scooter helmet? The French President has lost control amidst the celebrity-charged politics that he helped create.
BEIJING — Last week Maison Boulud Beijing, a French restaurant owned by the three-Michelin-star chef Daniel Boulud, shut down. Just before closing its doors for good, the restaurant suddenly became busy. Eating the foie gras, a Belgian expatriate couldn’t help but sigh: “It’s one less place to dine out and experience French haute cuisine.” Maison […]