WorldcrunchSüddeutsche Zeitung is one of Germany’s premiere daily quality newspapers. It was founded on 6 October 1945, and has been called “The New York Times of Munich”.
HANNOVER – It’s 2 p.m. on an early summer Wednesday at an Autobahn rest stop near Hannover, in north-central Germany. Robert, starting out on the last big stage of his journey, plans to hitch a ride to Cologne. He’s making an unusual exception to journeymen rules on this one — letting a non-journeyman like me […]
Grades reveal very little about human ability. That’s why the German Railway’s new application process downplays past academic performance.
MUNICH – It would certainly be nice if all customers were treated well when they shop in supermarkets. But can supermarket employees also expect to be treated with respect? Recently, in a London branch of the UK’s Sainsbury’s chain, a checkout lady refused to serve a customer because the employee felt ignored — the shopper […]
It’s her eyes that are so arresting. Big brown eyes looking at the camera. Nada Al-Ahdal holds that serious, penetrating, almost unwavering look the whole time – just under three minutes – she addresses viewers. Nada is 11 years old. If her parents had had their way, she would be married by now — married […]
MUNICH – As a measure of Microsoft’s hold over the technology-driven economy, one American tabloid once published a “Countdown to World Domination” calendar in the lead-up to the company’s launch of its new operating system. That was nearly 12 years ago. Today, we are living in a completely different era as the number of PC […]
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.
Domestic workers from the Philippines have faced sexual abuse by their employers in places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. Now they also accuse Manila’s own embassy employees.
The revelations of the NSA surveillance program came on the heels of the Boston Marathon attack. America weighs the links between an alleged terrorist and self-avowed whistleblower.
IMST – It’s seven o’clock in the morning, and what’s left of the night’s thunder clouds sit perched wispy white above the rocks. Despite the cool temperature, Andreas Riml sits wearing a T-shirt on the terrace of his hut, drinking coffee and looking out over the breadth of the alpine valley that opens out toward […]
BERLIN — They hardly had to beg Renate Künast. The chairwoman of Germany’s Alliance 90/Greens parliamentary group and former minister of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture was thrilled to open last week’s Ethical Fashion Show in Berlin. It’s right up her alley. “This is a countermovement to mass production,” she says. Slow Fashion instead of […]
HERZOGENAURACH – The thing with the brush shoes gets Helmut Fischer going to this day. The small man with the friendly smile and pirate goatee sits in the visitors’ room of Puma Deutschland in the small, central German city of Herzogenaurach. Around here, Fischer is known as “Mister Puma.” The 63-year-old has been working for […]
Ralf Winkes has tried his hand at a number of different careers: waiter, taxi driver, stock broker. But the 44-year-old German may have finally found his calling…
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 […]
CAIRO – Several million demonstrators add up to a considerable force that no elected leader can ignore. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have a lot more people demonstrating against them than ever took the streets against former president Hosni Mubarak. And still, given the off-with-their-heads rhetoric on both sides, the latest protests […]
Known as sisa, this Greek methamphetamine-based concoction is spreading across the streets of Athens — the latest sign of the side effects of the economic crisis plaguing Greece.
VIENNA – It’s 11:45 a.m. on March 5, 2004 when two men enter the Maki diamond and jewelry store in Tokyo, set to commit the biggest theft in Japanese history. One of the men has brown leather gloves and a bag with the Cartier logo, the other is in all dark clothes. They are shown […]
HANOVER – Students here at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire have been protesting against the rising numbers of sexual assaults on campus, as well as discrimination against homosexuals. The rallying cry of protesters is: “Dartmouth has a problem!” There have also been protests in recent weeks at other elite academic institutions, […]
What the facial evolution of children’s toys tells us about our conflict-driven society.
The National Security Agency’s spying on both its own citizens, and foreigners, has turned the idea of the “open web” on its head.
DUBAI – Beer? Of course not! Sayed Kamal looks at his guests with astonishment. Alcohol is only served in the big hotels. This is a youth hostel! It is in fact the only youth hostel in Dubai. “But I can offer you something similar,” says blue-shirted, tie-wearing Kamal as he emerges from behind the counter […]
ISTANBUL – “The media have sold out! The media have sold out!” several thousand protesters chanted in front of NTV offices. Their beef with the Turkish news channel was that it had stayed silent too long about what was going on in and around Gezi Park in Istanbul. The protesters feel the press has let […]
BRUSSELS- The European Union-Russia summit taking place in Yekaterinburg has a major sticking point forming over privacy for travelers arriving — or even just passing through — Russian territory. The Russian Ministry of Transportation has decreed that airlines flying in Russian airspace, or taking off or landing in Russia, have to provide authorities in Moscow […]
MUNICH – People notice you when you’re with a baby – and not only when it’s screaming its lungs out in the supermarket. Just being pregnant earns a woman kudos for having a special kind of radiance. Once the child is born of course parental beauty is not usually the thing others remark on – […]
The findings raise serious questions of international law. German officials have denied knowledge of the operations.
Though it may look pristine, a new study finds that the lake’s water contains significant amounts of “microplastic contamination,” that is causing real harm.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA – For days, Teresa Maldonado has only had bad news for waiting passengers. “No room on the plane today! We’ve got to fly the lobsters out!” Showing the lady a valid ticket issued by the plane company does not help. The lobsters have priority; they have to get to Santiago alive. Nobody […]
BEIJING – “So,” says Ai Weiwei: “Now they get to listen to this.” By “they” he means his jailers. “My voice may not be perfect, and may not even sound good. I admit I was a little inhibited at first. But it’s a voice and now it’s out there.” As of this week, Beijing avant-garde […]
Crossing two taboo topics: prostitution and the sexuality of the physically and mentally handicapped.
A stinking, snorting tale of NIMBY cruelty from the Bavarian heartland.
KIEV – The way his dad found out was not good. On the other hand it was his own fault. He’d left his laptop open, and when his father came to visit him at his student apartment he started clicking around on it and found pictures of him kissing his boyfriend Petja. First reaction – […]
SEOUL – The distance between the North Korean border town of Hyesan and South Korea’s capital Seoul is 440 kilometers (273 mi) as the crow flies. It took Park Kun-ha five years to complete the journey. His way turned out not only to be a lot longer but tortuous, taking him through the jungle of […]
BEIRUT – Somehow, the shots missed Jesus. He survived the rampage by armed men in St. George’s Cathedral during the Lebanese civil war. But since the mosaic of which he is a part is otherwise shell-pocked, his figure has become something of an attraction. The cathedral is not far from downtown Beirut’s posh hotels, and […]
MUNICH – In early July, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone may come to Germany to attend the F1 race hosted by the Nürburgring south of Cologne. Ecclestone, the British mogul who has turned motor sports into a billion dollar business, enjoys showing up for the racing events to chat with the drivers, meet sponsors, and […]
MOSCOW – Natasha writes “Frank, 11:20 a.m.” on a slip of white paper and hangs it on the pin board behind the counter next to “Nina and Katya, 10.55 a.m.,” “Sergei, 11 a.m.” and other names. Then she opens an antique cabinet filled with dozens of old alarm clocks and watches, all different, but with […]
In a society designed around individual liberty, has marriage become little more than a temporary link-up of working people choosing to spend some free time together? And the kids?
-OpEd- More than 500 people died on April 24 when a factory collapsed near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. In November, more than 100 workers perished in a fire at the Tazreen garment factory on the outskirts of the city. Not long afterwards, more than 50 people were hurt in a fire at a textile […]
PUNTA PIRULIL – You probably couldn’t live any further west than Don Orlando does. He lives in Punta Pirulil on the western edge of the green island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile. In his book In Patagonia, British writer Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) described Chiloé as an island of “black storms and black soil.” […]
School life can be pretty merciless. Kids have an astonishing repertoire of nasty things they inflict on other kids. But what factors play a role in which kids are the victims and which the perpetrators? Why do some wind up on the receiving end of the nastiness, and others become the ones meting it out? […]
REYKJAVIK – Mid-February this year, British tabloids published the news that Iceland’s leftwing-green Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson wanted to limit access to online porn on the island. Ways of doing that, according to the minister, could be to block certain IP addresses, or to make it impossible to pay certain sites with an […]
SHANGHAI – For years, the People’s Republic of China has been carrying the German car industry through tough times. In 2012, German manufacturers sold a whopping 15.5 million motor vehicles in China, and no end to that record is in sight. In March 2013 alone they sold 1.4 million cars, a rise of 20%. The […]