Worldcrunch
A region torn by centuries of conflict, caught in the relentless grip of global power struggles. The Middle East’s wars are no longer just battles for territory, but for control over narratives, lives, and destinies. And it’s all playing out on your phone.
We always want to go higher, faster, further. Understandable. But ambition creates pressure, making our everyday lives harder than they need to be. Die Zeit columnist Kilian Trotier makes the case for enjoying the average.
Since he fled in the cover of the night to Russia with his wife and three children, Bashar al-Assad’s entourage and extended family have expressed their anger and humiliation at his deception. He also betrayed his regional allies who went out of their way to protect his regime for years.
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, there are many questions about the future of Syria. Yet the regional and international powers who planned his collapse did not consider the Syrian people or their future in their calculations. Syrians may be out of Assad’s frying pan, but they’ve been thrown into a fire of armed fundamentalist groups.
Putting authors and artists in categories may help pinpoint their work in socio-cultural and stylistic terms, but is inevitably restrictive of literature’s essential universality. In South America, there is one, tiresome if profitable label literature seemingly cannot shake off, namely Magic Realism.
Joe Rogan is considered America’s king of podcasters and the voice of hyper-masculinity in the United States. His support for Donald Trump is considered by some to have been decisive in the presidential election. But what’s behind this world of hyper-masculine podcast bros? For Die Zeit, Berlin-based author Norman Ohler writes about his experience as a guest on Rogan’s show.
Many in the opposition to the Kremlin have renounced the “tricolor” flag. Yet the white-blue-red flag is a symbol of a free Russia, not of war. We need to stop beating ourselves up and embrace the soul of the nation as the ultimate path to take down Putin’s dictatorship.
How autonomous and semi-autonomous technology will operate in the future is up in the air, and the U.S. government will have to decide what limitations to place on its development and use. Those decisions may come sooner rather than later…
Multilateral diplomacy may seem to be exhausted today as wars and violence proliferate unchecked, but nobody should think its time is past and expect to see peace in the world.
The Macron government says France needs to work more — and it has a point. The French people disagree — and they’re not wrong. Here’s why, and how to bridge the gap.
Opponents and former supporters are issuing urgent warnings about Donald Trump, saying he is a fascist. But is he really a new Mussolini or Hitler? What should we be looking for in the months to come? Christian Staas of Germany’s Die Zeit asks historians on both sides of the Atlantic.
India operates in the gap between what society considers morally acceptable and what is legally permitted. While instances of blatant corruption can still shock, the idea of corruption in India is not condemned in its totality.
What will humans be like generations from now in a world transformed by artificial intelligence? Plenty of thinkers have applied themselves to questions like this, considering how AI will alter lives – often for better, sometimes for worse.
As Indian billionaire Gautam Adani faces U.S. indictment, the implications for his longtime support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration are significant — all the while raising concerns about India’s sovereignty and the costs of protecting influential business allies.
Members of the Tehran regime are cautiously broaching the question of who will be Iran’s next Supreme Leader, but is this of real public concern or a ploy to distract an exasperated population from the country’s dismal socio-economic conditions?
Once hailed as a groundbreaking act of compassion, Band Aid’s legacy is as complex as its catchy tune. While it redefined fundraising, it also fueled debates on “poverty porn,” cultural stereotypes and the ethics of celebrity-driven charity. Four decades on, its impact still resonates — and divides.
Feminists want male allies in the fight to advance women’s rights. Yet many men who claim to be allies have shown that they do it for the wrong reasons.
The release of the film Bucha by Ukrainian director Stanislav Tiunov, based on true events during the Russian invasion in spring 2022, raises questions about the ethics and exploitation of war on film. While this is not the first time a director has been accused of trying to make a blockbuster out of a tragedy, the film demonstrates the importance of taking time to reflect on such events.
A video in the summer of 2023 showed Julia Alli playing the piano in her home southern Lebanon. In the fall of 2024, a new video emerges of Israeli soldiers in the ruble of that home and piano. For writer Badia Fahs, the contrast also links to the story of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning Holocaust drama The Pianist.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine 1,000 days ago. Since then, many Western nations, scholars and politicians have suggested negotiating for peace with Russia, rather than letting the war go on. But negotiations will not stop Putin’s imperial ambitions.
Raging bull. Aspiring dictator. Insult comic. Donald Trump has and will always be an impossible subject for the media to cover. With democracy (and the free press) now on the line, what if we embraced the show?
Profanity is a kind of national sport in Turkey. But it can also be risky business, sometimes leading to lawsuits or even death. One political scientist researching Turkey’s unique way of conjuring curse words explains what the country’s inventive slurs reveal about its fears and prejudices.
In more than a year since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalated, news of bombing has become a habit in Lebanon. In an essay for the Beirut-based independent media Daraj, Lebanese journalist Pascale Sawma discusses how war has become “normal” — and what that means for her and her work.
Donald Trump’s reelection marks a new social coalition that found no voice in traditional political forces, writes Italian historian Giovanni Orsina in daily La Stampa. The utopian-liberal order of the 21st century failed to deliver on its promises and it succumbed to a boisterous, combative new right.
Donald Trump set out to win over young, disengaged heterosexual men as a core constituency. And he succeeded. As he embarks on a second mandate, German journalist Alice Hasters asks what it means for the #MeToo movement.
Americans have re-elected Donald Trump, choosing a convicted demagogue who champions power over principle. This historic turn raises a sobering question: Is the West’s beacon of democracy slipping toward the authoritarianism it opposed in its founding principles? A timely viewpoint from Germany’s Die Zeit.
Americans have reelected Donald Trump despite his clear promises to consolidate power and disregard basic human rights. Snapshot of an election of a declared tyrant by a “suicidal” nation. Echoes of history’s very worst tyrant.
Donald Trump’s success is also a revelation of the weaknesses of the American left, which is plagued by self-righteousness and the belief that painting your opponent as a threat to democracy is a political agenda. But blackmail is not a strategy.
Following the collapse of Germany’s governing traffic light coalition on Wednesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and former Finance Minister Christian Lindner are pointing fingers at each other — hardly a wise move as Donald Trump’s reelection sends a chill through democracies worldwide.
Trump’s victory is not some unforeseen accident. Europe should have been preparing for this. It didn’t. The actions we take now are vital for the future of democracy and the free world, writes Giovanni di Lorenzo, Die Zeit‘s editor-in-chief.
With the U.S. elections on the brink, and polls extra tight in swing states, the Kremlin is lapping it up. Rather than outwardly pulling for a Trump victory, however, Wacław Radziwinowicz argues that Moscow is above all, hoping for the high level of chaos that would come with a hung election.
The outcome of the U.S. presidential election hinges on just a few percentage points—and lately, pollsters have often missed the mark. Here’s how they’ve tweaked their models, and why it’s probably not enough.
Whether it is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, aggressive bullying or hypocritical well wishes, the actual decisions of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East always follow the same cynical script.
If the 2020 U.S. presidential election taught us one thing, it’s that it shouldn’t be about who’s the quickest to announce electoral results: it should be about being accuracy.
In Egypt, public support for a Palestinian homeland is deeply felt but constrained by the government that has had 40 years of diplomatic relations with Israel. Will the bloody war just across the border in Gaza change something?
If there’s one thing Kamala Harris and Donald Trump can agree on its the demonization of China. After the fall of the Soviet Union, China has become the United States’ ideological adversary — a rival shaping America’s own identity, uniting both left and right. Why does American politics always seem to need an external enemy?
Cuba’s current energy crisis is a dramatic illustration, symbolic and otherwise, of the overall downfall of a country that could have followed the successful models of its Asian cousins. Faced with a socioeconomic dead-end, record numbers of Cubans are fleeing the country.
We, the children of “front edge” villages, have seen thousands of homes disappear into rubble. Our loss is not limited to memories and dreams, but also to the stories of our villages.
Following the contested parliamentary election in Georgia on Saturday, the West must not be quick to pass judgment and must seek to understand Georgians’ fears — which the Kremlin’s propaganda is playing into.
In the Middle East and North Africa, divisions are as stark as they can be. War-torn nations stand side-by-side with wealthy oil-rich countries where the elites feel disconnected from the rest of the region. But, as Yemeni freelance journalist and a human rights defender Afrah Nasser, warns, these inequalities breed monsters, and wealth will not prevent oil-rich countries from experiencing chaos and destruction.