Iranian voters rejected the regime’s hard line on the nuclear issue that led to a deep economic crisis. Now whether Hossan Rohani softens Iran’s stance also depends on the West.
Source: LE MONDE
This leading French daily newspaper Le Monde (“The World”) was founded in December 1944 in the aftermath of World War II. Today, it is distributed in 120 countries. In late 2010, a trio formed by Pierre Berge, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse took a controlling 64.5% stake in the newspaper.
SAHARONIM – Last summer, Israel passed an amendment to the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law, which allows refugees to be held for a minimum of three years without detention without a trial or charges being brought against them. According to the law, refugees from “enemy states” can be held in indefinite detention, even if they […]
As Iran voted in an apparently more moderate successor, Hassan Rouhani, the country and world could look back and ask what is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s true legacy.
Founded in Latvia, Ask.fm is exploding around the world. Its users communicate with questions and answers. Here’s one: How cruel can young people be with each other?
The European Union has plenty to fear from the revelations of Edward Snowden, but may be caught between the costs and benefits of America’s vast network of data collection.
TEHERAN – In the middle of the election campaign, Washington has found a way to remind Iranians that the next president they will elect will have to pull the country out of an unprecedented economic crisis. The crisis, of course, is largely the result of the tough sanctions imposed by Western countries in response to […]
PARIS – Baptiste Langlais shows off his new watch proudly. “In my sector, we like beautiful mechanics,” jokes the car salesman from the Paris region. His latest whim? An 8,500-euro Jaeger-LeCoultre wristwatch. “A big investment, especially these days,” he admits. But he has found a way to reconcile reason and passion. Launched a few months […]
-Op-Ed- ALGIERS – The confusing communication strategy orchestrated by supporters of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika around his recent hospitalization in Paris — and the mystery surrounding the actual state of his health — have led the Algerian press and the opposition parties to denounce the lack of transparency and secrets that are so characteristic of […]
PARIS – It is past 9 a.m. when Laurence Cote arrives, and throws her things on her desk. The 20 or so students scattered around the room, far from falling silent at once for the arrival of their teacher…getting even louder instead. They run, shout, trample. “Does anyone have a blazer?” asks someone. “I do. […]
Several women inmates from China’s infamous Masanjia reeducation-through-labor camp have decided to come forward to recount the torture they sustained.
Categories
How Did Erdogan Wind Up So Alone?
Though not its original intention, the demonstrations in Turkey are widening the cracks between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knocked off Roger Federer to advance to the semi-finals of the French Open. Can history repeat itself?
GAMCHEON – It has been called the “Lego village,” the “Korean Machu Picchu,” the “Santorini on the South Sea…” Gamcheon, in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan is indeed all of these – a multicolored village that looks like it was made out of candy, with its little green, yellow and blue hillside cubicle […]
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Sweden Pays The Price Of Segregation
Even if the urban riots in Sweden last week took many by surprise, the signs were all around.
MUMBAI – Shilpa Dhar is wearing fake eyelashes, jingling bracelets, and cherry-red nail polish. She tilts her head as she speaks, which makes her jet-black hair twirl around her neck. She smiles because her friends have told her she has a nice smile – so she smiles all the time now. “I have a Kareena […]
Mirroring the Catholic-Protestant battles of the past, intra-Islamic violence has global reverberations far beyond faith. Right now, it’s coming to a head in Syria.
Local environmental concerns could undermine big Chinese economic ambitions. That tension, well-known in the West, is playing out near the site a petrochemical plant in Yunnan province.
WILLISTON - Corey Driver, 21, had never seen snow in his life. Back home in Jacksonville, Florida, nobody wears boots in April. When he got off the Greyhound bus at Williston, North Dakota, the epicenter of the new shale oil frenzy, the cold night had already taken hold. And he only had $30 in his […]
GIVAT ASSAF – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry passed right by this town’s entrance — just a few dozen meters away — while on his way to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last Thursday. We can only hope that his driver slowed down, and that one of his accompanying local diplomats showed him […]
ALGIERS – Since the first subway line opened in the end of 2011, it is much appreciated. “It is a lot easier to get to court,” explains Lydia, a young lawyer. She adds that the ticket fare (around 50 cents) is reasonable for the middle class, and the service beats collective taxis or having to […]
It was a symbol of the “sunshine policy” meant to ease tensions between the two Koreas. But now, the jointly-run Kaesong facility in North Korea has been shuttered. Maybe for good.
From Fiji to the Marshall Islands, it’s time to react to the effects left by emissions from large industrialized nations.
Whether alcohol or absinthe, LSD or heroin, some of humanity’s creative geniuses produced their greatest work as mind-altering substances did theirs. A Paris exhibit connects the dots.
In the southern Turkish town of Reyhanli, near the Syrian border, anger is rising against Prime Minister Erdogan’s support of Syrian rebels.
KUALA LUMPUR – The father, Anwar Ibrahim failed: the opposition coalition he’s been leading lost this month’s national elections. By all accounts, he will never be Prime Minister. The daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar, was instead reelected comfortably to her seat as Member of Parliament in the May 5 legislative ballot. Time is on her side, […]
To talk or not to talk with the Taliban may be the most pressing matter of all, writes Le Monde’s correspondent from Islamabad.
-Essay- PARIS – Charity starts at home, as the saying goes. So the very least that can be expected of communication consultants is that they are successful at communicating. And they have been successful – well beyond expectations. They have not only managed to take a front-and-center seat in electoral campaigns, they are now also […]
The some 10 million Catholics in China remain divided between those loyal to the Pope and those in step with the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy.
MONTBELIARD – The meeting point is located just outside the city limits of Montbéliard, in eastern France, on the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. A few steps away is the front gate of the Peugeot car factory. Twenty people or so are waiting for the bus that will take them to the workshops of […]
Categories
Blond Ukrainians For The Good Samaritans
How one of the world’s most isolated and ancient religious communities made mating exceptions to be sure it doesn’t disappear from the face of the earth.
Unable to live up to the first wave of optimism, the uprising in the Arab world is nonetheless destined to change history.
SEOUL – North Korea recently attacked newly elected South Korean President Park Geun-hye, making a jibe at the “venomous swish of her skirt.” The swish of South Korea’s long traditional silk skirts has long been used as a macho joke – if not an insult – targeted toward strong women. Aggressive women, women who do […]
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NATO, The Existential Question
With major geopolitical changes and severe economic restraints, some wonder if the military alliance is destined for the dustbin of history.
In the first interview with the foreign press since his victory, the new Venezuelan President tells Le Monde that he will carry on Hugo Chavez’s policies, both at home and abroad.
Once it was USA for Africa, now Ethiopia’s expats are returning to be part of a striving new middle class.
CASABLANCA – For a Moroccan tomato to be sold on the Algerian market, it first has to pass through Marseille. This sounds like a joke, but it describes a well-known reality: While in all other continents, countries group themselves in a common market or free trade zone (ASEAN in South-East Asia, Mercosur in Latin America, […]
TAPACHULA – “I’ve come here to earn money, and then I’ll go back home…” Josefina Perez talks as she cuts coffee trees with a machete on the 617-acre Irlanda farm perched on the Tacana volcano in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Like this 40-year-old seasonal worker, more than 100,000 Guatemalans cross the border each year […]
TEL AVIV – February 2013. Tel Aviv gets ready to celebrate Purim, a biblical celebration that along the centuries has become a sort of carnival where Israelis drink — as the tradition goes — “until they cannot remember their name.” There are long lines in front of costumes shops. Riff Cohen, will get as drunk […]
As France becomes the 14th country to allow same-sex marriage, Le Monde looks at one of the bleaker corners for gay rights in 2013.
PARIS – In the last years of his life, French novelist Marcel Proust mostly fed himself with café au lait. Made by the two best roasters in Paris, Proust’s coffee came from freshly ground beans that were extracted drop by drop according to an unchangeable ritual. Sometimes the verdict would be without mercy: “Celeste, how […]