Worldcrunch
Japan’s notorious yakuza — “gangsters’ — have displayed (in addition to their trademark tattoos) a peculiar sense of civic duty in the face of past natural disasters, having donated money to victims of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the 2011 Fukushima tsunami. Now, Japanese news site News Postseven reports that yakuza bosses are publicly […]
A strategy for fighting the pandemic, national confinement morphs into a dangerous ideology if it uses the pretext of health protection to target migrants.
Fewer seats, fewer trains, more masks. A quick world tour from Milan to Paris, Beijing to Tehran finds the wheels (tentatively) ready to roll on subways and buses.
For most of human history, the best way to protect personal privacy was to simply stay at home. Lock yourself in your room, or the proverbial closet, and nobody can find out a thing. In little more than a decade, those walls and doors have vanished as digital technology invites us to take large chunks […]
CAIRO — Like many other laborers, delivery workers are not able to practice social distancing during the novel coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the service they provide helps protect customers — largely middle and upper-class citizens — by keeping those people out of busy shops where they might come in contact wth the illness. […]
Welcome to Friday, where dozens die in a stampede at a religious festival in Israel, Brazil’s COVID death toll surpasses 400,000 and an owl-like bird is crowned Instagram influencer. We also look at how a Taiwanese oenologist is working to turn his country into a tropical wine terroir. • Dozens killed at Israeli religious festival […]
Given its reliance on both oil and tourism, the Mexican economy is in major trouble. So far, though, President López Obrador has refused to have the state take on new debt.
The imposition of quarantine and self-isolation has hit migrant workers hardest of all. They have nothing to live on in Russia but have no way of returning home.
The ongoing lockdown in Italy has put Marco Rovello face-to-face with the balancing act that his wife pulls off every day between working a job and running a household. Yes, COVID-19 has forced teleworking couples into suddenly sharing the same “home-office,” daily rhythms and — ideally — a fair share of family chores and parenting […]
As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too have an array of fake remedies and cures that promise to protect people. Social media have been flooded with claims about foods, products and other assorted concoctions that can allegedly cure or prevent the virus. Up to the point that the World Health Organization had […]
As governments now brace themselves to begin a tightrope walk between saving lives and saving their hemorrhaging economies, one thing is certain: No decision will lead to a perfect outcome. National leaders must quickly pivot from a posture of disaster relief to satisfying often contradictory demands from their populations as the pandemic’s rally-around-the-flag effect starts […]
Cuba could repay part of its $2 billion of debts to Argentina by sending some of its renowned medics to treat coronavirus patients in the Buenos Aires province.
In a number of countries around the world, the pandemic pulled the plug on street protests. But demonstrators have been quick to find digital alternatives.
Welcome to Monday, where India reels from COVID surge, at least 82 die in Iraq hospital fire, and the Academy Awards go to … We also have Le Monde reporting from Azerbaijan about allegations that the government is using a new, more intrusive form of scare tactics. [rebelmouse-image 27046599 original_size=”600×200″ expand=1] [rebelmouse-image 27046614 original_size=”394×47″ expand=1] • India’s coronavirus situation worsens: Several nations have pledged to send urgent medical aid to India, where COVID-19 appears to be spiraling out of control. The country hit another record for the fifth day in a row, rising to 352,991. Political tensions are also growing […]
Our Slovenian writer’s bygone trip through a China still not plugged into the global economy reveals some clues for how the pandemic has brought us to this point.
With a large chunk of the world’s population forced still to stay at home, local communities and entire nations are recording steep drops in overall crime rates. Burglars are generally less likely to prey on a home that’s occupied, and most theft and assault hotspots such as sporting venues and pubs are shuttered. Still, it’s […]
Are we “at war” with COVID-19? That’s what we might believe from a quick tour of the planet’s most powerful leaders, from the presidents of the United States and France to the director general of the World Health Organization to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who declared that we are in the middle of “a […]
French super chef Philippe Etchebest was simply describing reality when he called coronavirus a “national nightmare” in a recent article published by La Croix. He was referring specifically to France’s shutdown restaurant owners and workers, but the metaphor can also describe the collective, surreal sense of uncertainty and fear currently permeating the world’s subconscious like […]
It’s tempting to imagine the pandemic as a turning point. The thing that undoes the EU, perhaps, or challenges the capitalist hegemony. But that may just be wishful thinking.
When, who, how? Both the science and logistics are complex in deciding how to get hundreds of millions of children around the world back to school. Here’s a quick tour.
The health crisis is real. But so too are the economic costs of an extended lockdown, which will soon become unmanageable on all sides.
Are some countries better at following rules than others? The U.S. is making global headlines as gun-wielding citizens from Michigan to D.C. take to the streets to show their disdain for mandatory confinement. Those Americans abiding by the lockdown rules will quickly tell you that this defiance is flamed by Donald Trump’s leadership-by-chaos presidency, as […]
Now more than ever is the time to find just the right light for our homes and apartments.
As some countries start to loosen preventative measures put in place against the spread of coronavirus, the need for a vaccine is becoming glaringly obvious for any hope of returning to some semblance of the lives we had before. It’s an abrupt return to the first half of the 20th century, when cures for infectious […]
No one knows how the coronavirus arrived in the historic convent nestled in the Drôme valley where elderly friars lived in close quarters. Today, jut six are left.
Welcome to Tuesday, where Chad’s president is reportedly killed on the front lines, Minnesota braces for a verdict in the George Floyd murder trial and Switzerland celebrates its mountain-climbing cat. Indian news website The Wire also takes us to Delhi, where real estate dealers are pushing Muslim families to sell their houses and move out, […]
The auto and electronics sector in Brazil is a prime example of how manufacturers around the world came to depend on Chinese-made supplies, and are now struggling because of it.
Shortage of masks and respirators, lack of hospital space, muddled government action: inadequate responses to the COVID-19 outbreak are evident even in the world’s most stable countries. So what happens when the virus arrives in places already under the weight of war? Yemen: Given the ongoing stalemate, many had hoped Saudi Arabia would take the […]
The COVID-19 outbreak is a scourge like no other, but not because of the dangers that this particular pathogen presents.
The insidious path of COVID-19 across the planet reminds us how small the world has become. Worldcrunch is delivering a daily update on this crisis from the best, most trusted international news sources — regardless of language or geography. To receive the daily Coronavirus global brief in your inbox, sign up here. SPOTLIGHT: CHINA’S BOGUS […]
Sweden’s lax regulation during the coronavirus crisis continues to perplex the outside world. From Italy, one of the hardest hit countries and the first in Europe to impose strick lockdown measures, this is how the contrast with Sweden looks: “We’re inside our homes and they’re not. Our schools are closed and theirs stayed open. We […]
The pandemic has instantaneously forced countless people around the globe to forgo person-to-person contact in favor of digital alternatives. That’s (mostly) good news.
The insidious path of COVID-19 across the planet is a reminder of how small the world has become. For the coming weeks, Worldcrunch will be delivering daily updates on this crisis from the best, most trusted international news sources — regardless of language or geography. To receive the daily Coronavirus Global Brief in your inbox, […]
The colossal impacts of that tiny virus are visible from space. Wired magazine reported about a Colorado-based space technology company Maxartaking low-Earth orbit satellite photographs of COVID-19 hotspots, capturing images of empty cities, make-shift hospitals being constructed and airport rental car lots suddenly filled with cars as people stopped traveling. But the flipside question to […]
For the coming weeks, Worldcrunch will be delivering daily updates on the coronavirus pandemic from the best, most trusted international news sources — regardless of language or geography. To receive the daily Coronavirus Global Brief in your inbox, sign up here. SPOTLIGHT: A MODERN PLAGUE TESTS MODERN RELIGIONS “As we gather here today …” Taken […]
Quarantines, closed borders, grounded airlines, crowded beaches … It may be a summer to forget, that we’ll always remember.
There are many reasons robots can help — for starters, they can’t catch it.
When a virus sucks all the oxygen out of the public space — and then another arrives.
While we see a general boost in solidarity, a small minority is looking to profit from the COVID-19 tragedy, feeding on a weakened and distracted society.
The 1968 pandemic was the first spread by mass air travel on its way to a toll of 1 million dead. Yet somehow it has been largely ignored by history, even if its lessons raise many questions for the COVID-19 world.