Worldcrunch
TEL AVIV — Vincent van Gogh’s famous oil painting “Starry Night Over the Rhone” displays a wonderful enchantment technique. Occupying two-thirds of the canvas, the night sky is dotted with moon and stars, creating an illusion of movement, as if they were trying to burst out of the canvas. It’s not just a masterpiece. It […]
Nepal has commissioned meteorologists and geologists to remap the wind systems, mountains and valleys on the “Roof of the World.” It could help us predict natural disasters.
Sectarian differences have long created problems for some marriages among Shia, Sunni and others. But with the death and hatred of war, romantic tragedies abound.
KINGMAN — The road to Seligman, Arizona, carries a famous name — the roadside sign reads Historic Route 66. This is the right moment to slide the CD into the Harley-Davidson Electra Glide’s music player. “Well, it winds from Chicago to L.A., more than 2,000 miles all the way. Get your kicks on Route 66,” […]
If you are 15 or 50, you will have a different way of seeking work, friendship, or even love online. But being “off-the-grid” is ever more a ticket to isolation.
SAINT PETERSBURG — It is two steps away from the Hermitage Museum, a few steps more from the Kazan Cathedral, at the corner of Nevsky Prospect, Saint Petersburg’s principal avenue. This is, in other words, a prestigious address. The spacious premises exude comfort and money and are seemingly designed for welcoming businessmen rather than students […]
Children as young as four are the main breadwinners for some families in the Syrian capital.
BOGOTA — When 31-year-old Grace Kely sic, a transsexual living in Bogotá, applied to become a nurse with the city government last year, the hiring process ground to a sudden halt. It happened when the municipal department she hoped to work for told her they couldn’t hire her without a certificate showing she had completed […]
BUENOS AIRES— A band of 11 suspected cocaine smugglers were caught posing as a festive bus tour group destined for a Buenos Aires carnival, Argentine police reported this week. The busload of fake “tourists from Ecuador” were stopped near the Bolivia-Argentine border town of Salvador Mazza. After the passengers, 10 men and one woman, said […]
Contemporary relationships are challenged not just by naughty temptations, but by competing personal interests and professional goals. How modern couples reflect whole new values.
There was shock after the latest report from U.S. Border Patrol found an explosion of young people being sent northward from Central America. Why it isn’t just about the parents.
The news in images, and images making news…
VANCOUVER — The bearded Garlic Guy at Granville Island Market looks as if he’s been standing here since the 1970s pitching his organic garlic. The name of his one-man enterprise is Oddball Organics. He grows 19 kinds of garlic and mixes the cloves into sauces (“Nuclear Nectar,” for example) that he sells on Granville Island, […]
LONDON — A conservative British politician? Stereotypes would call for him to be educated in an expensive private school, to wear tailor-made suits from Savile Row and to be able to recite Shakespeare sonnets without an accent. We would expect him to have been a lawyer, a banker or a chartered accountant — and to […]
The international movement of talent has helped level the playing field of top national soccer teams. Among other things, it has also produced the most wide-open World Cup in memory.
So-called lifeloggers track and record their personal data, often sharing it with the world. Why? To make connections that can improve health and sleep…and maybe avoid oblivion.
In a seaside town in the Netherlands, an 11-year-old boy creates a private war zone in his everyday environment. What should his parents do?
Cyberpirates engage in extortion on individuals as well as companies, through data kidnapping and threats to reveal sensitive information. Red Alert for the accounting department.
BEIJING — Three years after the epic battle in Transformers: Dark of Moon, it’s time for the Autobots and Decepticons to face off again for viewers around the world. There is particular attention in China, where the fourth installment, Transformers: Age of Extinction, has been chosen to be the closing feature at the Shanghai International […]
The new Ukrainian president’s attempt at peace has failed. What now?
Notable deaths of the past month.
GENEVA — In a way, the worst thing that could have happened for physicists at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics research center, was discovering the holy grail of physics — the so-called God particle, also known as Higgs boson. Because after finding it in July 2012 — and confirming it six months later, after […]
Having rapidly become one of the world’s premier (and fastest) builders of high-speed rail, China is now looking to export its know-how around the world.
TEHRAN — When Iran’s population doubled to some 60 million between the 1970s and 1980s, it was seen as a problem for a resource-poor country in the throes of a war with Iraq and social revolution at home. Leaders moved to curb this baby boom in the late 1980s by promoting contraception and sterilization. But […]
The controversial Norwegian author reflects on the state of the novel, the ghost of Hitler and plans for the future.
TIGRE — Is there a place they haven’t thought of yet to hide drugs? How about a meat pie? Argentine police have uncovered a so-called “narcopizzeria” in the district of Tigre in the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, which supplied customers with cocaine hidden in “pizzas, pies and chicken.” A report in Clarín showed pictures […]
Egypt’s ostensible secular president, al-Sisi, seems to be guilty of the same sin for which he condemns the Muslim Brotherhood: using religion in politics. What will it mean for the people?
BUREBIEY — Six months ago, the brown water of the Baro River was flowing peacefully between South Sudan and Ethiopia, and the town of Burebiey was just another dot on the map in western Ethiopia. But now, we are standing at a key crossing point for refugees of a spreading civil war. Throughout the day, […]
How did a city known for its ethnic and religious mix roll over for a band of Islamist radicals? In the wake of the ISIS conquest of Mosul, the spectre of it spreading to the capital looms.
CHENGDU — It’s common practice in every country to confiscate property that criminals attained illegally. In China, criminal law stipulates three concrete measures: confiscation of the instruments of crime and contraband, recovery of illegal gains from criminals, and confiscation of the personal property of criminals who commit certain offenses. It’s worth recognizing that the law […]
The online world’s big data and nanosecond velocity means we are losing control of the machines we’ve built ourselves. How can we avoid becoming victims of our own intelligence?
MUNICH — At a simple café near the main street, a group of mountain bikers comes in, and they’re thirsty. “What kinds of beer do you have?” one of them asks the server. He starts reciting: Amber Ale. India Pale Ale. Summer Ale. White Ale. Porter. Stout. Then he adds Lager — a little sheepishly, […]
Sure to be the leading candidate in August’s first-ever direct election of Turkey’s president, the current prime minister is touring Europe to woo Turks living abroad. Not all are convinced.
-Commentary- BEIJING — Seeing a strategic opportunity to dilute the global monopoly of the three major credit rating agencies, China and Russia recently announced plans to establish a joint credit rating agency. The idea is that it would evaluate Sino-Russian cooperation projects, then eventually enter the international market. But there is a deep divide between […]
As Islamists gain ground in Iraq and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeals for help, the U.S. says it will only help if he first resigns. But it’s not the only reason why his regime may fall.
A Latin American call for the global soccer chief to step aside amidst ongoing corruption investigations. Yet even a Blatter-less FIFA would still have a long road to rectitude.
There is growing evidence that different species of animals can actually become what we humans think of as ‘friends.’ This is science, not Walt Disney…
BOGOTA — Blame it on Rio. Colombia officials arrested one of the country’s most sought-after leftist rebels after noticing an enormous satellite dish he had installed on his jungle hideout so he could watch the World Cup, Spanish news agency EFE and Colombian media reported. No civil war was going to deprive the 15-year veteran […]
BEIJING — Three years after his imprisonment, still deprived of his passport and shut off in a bubble of official Chinese silence, Ai Weiwei, 57, neverthless appears ubiquitous everywhere else on the planet. The Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall in Berlin devoted a huge retrospective entitled “Evidences” from April to July. His last documentary, Ai Weiwei’s Appeal […]
In many countries, musicians were Latin America’s leading social critics and political activists of the late 20th century. Not anymore.