With the ownership change of the 24-hour news channel Globovision, the last remaining television source for reporting that challenges the government is gone.
Author: Valentina Briceno-Strocchia
A school located in a remote stretch of the Amazon teaches indigenous children, many of whom come to learn Spanish, under extraordinarily rustic conditions.
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It Takes Two Dudes To Tango
Or dudettes. For the first time, the annual Tango World Cup features several same-sex couples – three teams of men and one pair of women.
Dachau politicians have been looking for a way to deal with the Nazi heritage of their German city. That eventually led them to the Polish town of Auschwitz. Notes from a difficult journey.
As the number of people renouncing American citizenship has shot up across the world, binationals in Switzerland have led the way in turning in their blue passport. But it’s not just about the banks.
One writer discovers that a New York once suicidal for cyclists has given way to a city of bike lanes and cheap public access to this environmentally friendly mode of transportation.
With talks on in Havana to end the decades-old civil war in Colombia, a push is on to force negotiators to meet face-to-face with victims of the violence.
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Warts And All: In Defense Of Frogs
Considered the ugliest of them all, frogs are far more helpful to the environment than cuddly kittens or charming princes. It’s time to start showing some serious amphibian amour!
The country’s best and brightest teachers celebrate what they’re able to achieve under less-than-ideal conditions. Here, the government is the enemy.
BBC, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH (UK), AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch JERUSALEM – Israel has released 26 Palestinian prisoners hours before the opening of renewed peace talks Wednesday. Eleven of the prisoners released in the West Bank were welcomed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, while the other 15 were met by cheering crowds in Gaza. A total 104 long-term […]
A vast number of planet music’s cash cows – including a little act named Madonna – originated on the synthesizer keyboards of Swedish songwriters, but can the country hold its high note?
Modest working families forced to live next to oil and gas wells fear for their families’ safety after a nearby explosion.
DENGFENG – Three years ago, the local government of Dengfeng City in central Henan Province ceded their controlling stake in the “Shaoling Monastery Scenic Area” to China National Travel Service (CTS). The price was very low in order to attract greater investment, and the CTS vowed to carry out several major construction projects around the […]
The arrest of a notorious Mexican mobster belonging to the Zetas cartel is a significant accomplishment for President Pena Nieto, but it won’t tame the bloodshed.
India’s working poor include more than 5,000 men and women at one facility who wash and iron clothes by hand 14 hours a day, seven days a week, earning barely enough to survive.
When the well-meaning environmental concerns of city folk clash with the lives of the poor and indigenous who inhabit South America’s rain forests and mining territory.
Brazil is filled with young people wrapped in the flags of their different countries — but mostly South American. Pope Francis meets his flock at the World Youth Day event.
BERLIN – It wouldn’t have to be a real monarchy. But a little royal glamor, just a taste of that feeling that we too had a special family with grand historic traditions: that would be nice. And how great it would be if we had something like a due date that stirred commotion nationwide, and […]
EL UNIVERSAL (Mexico), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch MICHOACAN – Twenty gang members and two federal police officers were killed in late- night clashes between the police and the Knights Templar drug cartel in this southeastern Mexican state, El Universal reports Friday. Police say 15 of its officers were injured when members of the drug cartel ambushed […]
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How The Swiss Army Knife Survived 9/11
It can get you out of a jam and open wine, but the iconic multi-use companion narrowly escaped collapse after the War on Terror made it suddenly hard to carry everywhere.
BUENOS AIRES – A wooden dance floor, that familiar tempo of the music, a gesture of invitation. And the dance begins, counter-clockwise… It does not matter whether it is the El Fulgor de Villa Crespo club or the Sunderland de Villa Urquiza or a dance hall in Moscow or Beijing. The tango has the same […]
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The Chinese Pursuit Of The American Dream
–Essay– Whether a place can continue to attract immigrants relies fundamentally on institutional competition. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson concluded in their book Why Nations Fail that countries with “inclusive institutions” will attract a diverse citizenry and adequate resources, and that this is advantageous for sustained economic progress. Instead, they argued, countries with more isolated, […]
BERLIN – Anyone who owns a Trabant — or “Trabi” as the East German cars are called these days, often with a mixture of affection and amused derision — really wants to own one. But probably not as a financial investment, because even a beautifully maintained Trabant P601 fetches no more than 3,000 euros. Instead, […]
-Essay- BEIJING – Lately a friend of mine was particularly busy looking for a bottle of red wine of a certain year from a certain Spanish vineyard. It took him quite a lot of time and trouble and a lot of calling in favors to find the wine and get it brought back from abroad. […]
BUENOS AIRES – Washington’s blatent public pressure to keep Edward Snowden from obtaining political asylum has fed a new wave of anti-Americanism worldwide. It also represents a test for the United States’ bilateral relations with several countries, including Russia and those in its own “backyard.” What explains the willingness of Barack Obama’s government to pay […]
–OpEd– There are many similarities between the protests around Gezi Park in Turkey and those of the Free Pass Movement in Brazil. In both cases, initial demonstrations were small with specific objectives: to save the park and to obtain free public transport, respectively. And discontent in both countries reached a critical mass amid widespread perception […]
We are well past the tipping point, where governments are violating privacy and limiting the people’s rights in the name of some faceless enemy.
BUENOS AIRES – It’s the first guide of its kind. It explains which medical issues demand immediate attention and which ones can wait. Someone feels well and then, all of a sudden, they feel very ill. It could be an incessant cough, acute headache, fever, bad stomach ache, a cold with constant sneezing, increased blood […]
Protests with similar roots continue in Brazil and Chile, two nations that might seem from the outside to be primed to enjoy their respective economic and democratic expansions.
China’s amended “PRC Elderly Protection Law” has come into effect this month. The new law stipulates that family members cannot neglect the elderly, and are required to care for their spiritual needs. Family members who live separately from their aging parents must visit them regularly. Employers, likewise, must guarantee their workers the right to have […]
President Santos’ decision to try to negotiate an end to a decades-long civil war is the only path for a nation that has suffered too much already.
The United States is increasingly a Latino nation, which means the time is ripe to make sweeping immigration reform a reality. A view from Bogota, Colombia.
BUENOS AIRES – Last month, at the magnificent Palacio de Aguas Corrientes (“Palace of Flowing Waters“) in Buenos Aires, representatives from 12 Latin American countries came together to discuss something so basic, and so vital. How can we work together in our region to make best use of that priceless resource: water? I had the […]
BEIJING – These are good days for China. Not so much for the United States — or Sino-American relations. After Edward Snowden left Hong Kong unhindered last week, the angered Americans at first threatened this would have “negative consequences” on relations between the two superpowers. Snowden’s departure had delivered a blow to “mutual confidence,” the […]
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That Imperfect Aspiration We Call Democracy
From Rio to Cairo, from Snowden to Erdogan, the excess and limits of the popular will.
BUENOS AIRES – B.M. is a year and a half old. The cups and paper napkins on the coffee table interest her far more than the rubber ducky her parents offer. The coffee table commotion ends with a baby bottle, a pacifier, and a small nap in the arms of mamá. The three of them […]
CARACAS – The ongoing shortage of basic products – including food, personal hygiene products and medicine – is having a huge effect on Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro and his government have made several announcements to fight the shortage and have accused the opposition of fanning the flames. Meanwhile, people continue to struggle to find the […]
A newly unearthed trove of documents linked to the reign of Augusto Pinochet reveals the regime’s obsession with controlling its youngest members. Some parents even reported on students.
BUENOS AIRES – After a period when South American regimes seemed untouchable, the forces of opposition have revived in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Up until a few months ago, South American presidents seemed invincible. They were reelected automatically. If someone faced a term limit, a successor would be designated who would later achieve a crushing, […]