Worldcrunch
Following the strike that hit Al Jazeera journalists Ismail Abu Omar and Ahmed Matar, posts spread on social media platforms calling Abu Omar a “terrorist” affiliated with Hamas. At the same time, a campaign by Israel’s Foreign Ministry and military promoted the same allegations.
Since the beginning of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, journalists on the ground have been on the front lines, and many of them have already lost their lives. Meanwhile, the media machine in the rest of the world has gone wild, with even the most prominent media outlets spreading fake news.
A look back on some of the most striking magazine covers published this past year across the globe, marking the milestones in a bloody conflict that is entering its second year.
From infancy to marriage, from coronation to globetrotting, through until her death, Queen Elizabeth graced the covers of countless magazines. Here’s an international collection, from 12 countries around the world, from her baby cover of TIME magazine in 1929 to being bid farewell from Brazil last week.
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, no sector in the economy has been hit harder than the travel industry. Following rolling global lockdowns through last spring, and resulting border closures and travel bans, both tourism and business travel was at a virtual standstill, with an estimated 98% drop in the number of international tourists […]
The long lockdown period has only added to the frustrations people feel about their country’s unresolved class disparities, crass politics and history of violence.
There has been plenty of debate and questions surrounding the use of masks since the coronavirus pandemic started. Should we wear them or not? What type of mask works the best? Should countries make them compulsory? But even as a general scientific consensus has emerged that masks are one of the most effective tools at […]
Building scientific beliefs is a long and arduous path that originates from a contradictory process. But facing a pandemic, it’s the best we’ve got.
Forced to stay home from one day to the next, millions of quarantined people were suddenly faced with a rare luxury in our fast-paced world: time. That, of course, came with a question: What to do with it? Where others may have chosen to Netflix, garden, read, meditate or complete a 51,300 pieces-jigsaw puzzle, the […]
If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that no one is safe until everyone is safe.
By now, our regular readers know that Worldcrunch works hard at being of and for and about no one particular place or people or subject matter. Our beat and our audience are written in our name, and we work with journalists and newspapers everywhere to tell the stories (no matter how big or small) that […]
Life was difficult enough for refugees even before the coronavirus outbreak. But with the lockdown depriving them of even meager earnings, the situation has beyond dire.
Skeptical. Overwhelmed. Disappointed. Exhausted. Helpless. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, healthcare workers have felt it all. But in recent weeks, doctors and nurses around the world have added one adjective to their list of feelings: angry. In Europe, the mood has indeed shifted from the images of people applauding their medical heroes every night, from […]
Today, the European Commission will unveil plans for an unprecedented EU economy recovery package in the face of the coronavirus crisis. The proposed EU rescue fund comes on the heels of last week’s surprise announcement that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to a 500-billion-euro recovery package set out to […]
As countries around the world scramble to conduct sufficient COVID-19 testing, there is now an urgent need for the design of rapid diagnostics of early symptoms to identify potential carriers to test, and eventually, isolate them. Researchers and the so-called “health tech” and “wearables’ sector are racing to release new devices, and adapt existing ones, […]
Across the globe, the coronavirus crisis has forced people to change not only the ways they work and interact with each other, but also how they travel. And in several countries, one of the unexpected consequences of all this has been a renewed interest in transportation of the pedal-powered, two-wheeled variety. In some places — […]
When we think of modern urban planning, it tends to be focused on improving efficiency in where we live and work, and how we move from place to place. But it should also be about keeping us healthy. The concept is neither a knee-jerk reaction to COVID-19 nor some nod to corporate social responsibility and […]
Taiwan’s success in containing the coronavirus is certainly cause for celebration, and to really emphasize the point, farmers in one agricultural region decided this week that it’s high time to break out the… watermelons? After a string of six straight days with no new confirmed coronavirus cases, a group of farmers in Changhua, in central […]
It is, of course, inevitable that governments’ stay-at-home orders and other emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus would generate differences of opinion. And yet, even a few weeks ago, it was hard to imagine that it would take as ugly a turn as what’s happening right now in the U.S. state of Michigan, where […]
The coronavirus pandemic has been both a boost and a challenge for delivery services like Chowbus, which specialize in Chinese fare.
Humans have been greeting each others with handshakes for thousands of years. Are we witnessing the end to pressing the flesh, and giving some skin? “I don’t think we should shake hands ever again,” declared Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the key members of the US coronavirus task force, in a Wall Street Journal podcast. […]
Whether or not they were looking for it, the COVID-19 crisis has given epidemiologists bonafide public power. “At this point, if Drosten says it is too early, that carries as much weight as Merkel saying it,” quipped German economist Marcel Fratzscher about his country’s top epidemiologist Christian Drosten and top politician Angela Merkel. There is […]
Latin American countries are, for the most part, appreciative of Beijing’s donations of much needed medical supplies. But the goodwill isn’t guaranteed to last forever.
As the new pandemic reality requires radical rethinking about how we live our lives, one hint of where we may be going could appear this summer in a neighborhood near you. The re-opening of bars and restaurants coinciding with warm weather is pushing city officials to reallocate the space that diners and motorists can occupy. […]
PARIS — The rate of transmission and death toll of the coronavirus finally seem to be slowing, and various national and local lockdown measures are beginning to loosen. In a best-case scenario, both commerce and public confidence pick back up and social distancing measures help the virus to fade away by the summer. But even […]
Last year 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals were recorded globally. In 2020, with borders closed and airplanes grounded, the tourism industry has been decimated and its recovery could take years. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development anticipates a 45% to 70% decline in the tourism economy — amounting to losses between $295-$430 billion for […]
Ageism at its most inhumane.
Tucked away in a isolated corner of Germany, the owners of a rural restaurant have somehow managed to make ends meet for 17 years. But that was before the coronavirus outbreak.
After weeks of denial and manipulation, China wanted to play the role of a caring superpower. But something about its soft-power push went awry.
The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated tensions between Beijing and Washington. It’s time that cooler heads prevail, and Germany has just the right person for the job.
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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.
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 […]