Worldcrunch
A week of record highs flipped to panic with new China tariff talk, exposing fragile nerves as experts warn that a fast growing $2.2 trillion private credit market with light oversight, risky PIK structures, and bank and insurer exposure could turn the next shock into a chain reaction.
From political folly to looming crises, investors are betting on collapse — and turning to gold as their safe haven.
Cuba has long been a country where very few people work, the fields do not produce, and it is one of the most aged countries in Latin America. A revolution that is no more.
Lavish dinners and alcohol-fueled networking among China’s civil servants face strict new limits, as Beijing imposes austerity measures to curb rising public debt — leaving the catering sector reeling.
In today’s families, too many women are exhausted, raising children alone in silence. Too many men feel lost, unsure of how to step in. Ignacio Pereyra spoke with Laura Baena and Maite Egoscozabal of Malasmadres — a movement born to dismantle the myth of the perfect mother — about how to rebuild the bridge between the sexes in a world that has changed faster than our old roles allow.
Spain’s coastline is shrinking, caught in a relentless battle between rising seas, legal disputes and private interests. Thousands of homes now stand precariously close to the waves, some awaiting demolition, others clinging to legal loopholes. As nature advances, the struggle for land — and survival — intensifies.
Poland is the EU country that is most afraid of adopting the euro. But why are Poles so afraid, and what economic prospects could help them change their mind?
The West once promised freedom, justice and reason. But after centuries of global dominance, war crimes and broken ideals, its future hangs in the balance. As nationalism rises and China stakes its claim, is the West entering its final act — or just another turning point?
Facing protests over the arrest of Istanbul’s opposition mayor, the Turkish government has found its culprits: Greece and Israel, two obstacles to its ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean.
Malaga has announced plans to ban the registration of new holiday accommodation in up to 43 neighborhoods of the city, joining a long list of Spanish municipalities fighting mass tourism and its impact on real estate and rent prices.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Palestinians in Gaza have lived in emotional, psychological and physical stress — a situation that has pushed many couples to the brink. The Cairo-based news website Al-Manassa speaks with Palestinians who have divorced due to the war.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and above all ‘mastermind’ of October 7, is dead. Washington and Paris are calling on Israel to seize this opportunity to put an end to the war, but Netanyahu may choose to cash in another dividend.
The Israeli Prime Minister is demanding that UN peacekeepers leave the combat zones in southern Lebanon, in yet another crisis in the difficult relations between Israel and the United Nations. But this could be the point of no return.
Life is a constant transition — and so is parenthood. How do we find balance and meaning in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, asks journalist Ignacio Pereyra in the latest iteration of his “Recalculating” newsletter on parenthood.
Unprecedented attacks via pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members comes amid a growing consensus in Israel in favor of launching a war across the border into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the U.S. may have given its assent and the Lebanese government appears unable to intervene, with Hezbollah holding all the cards on this side of the border.
A new group theater in Lisbon — made up by a majority of Brazilian migrants — has set out to explore the idea of migration through plays. They started with putting in scene a story about the concept of nationhood — because every migration story looks different, but it also has some universal basis, the artists tell independent media Mensagem.
Following the death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition is in a serious crisis, and must look at the fundamental mistakes it’s made the past two years, including calls for destroying the nation and desecrating the flag. It’s not clear what impact the prisoner swap could have, but activist Timofey Martynenko says it’s time to have a pro-Russia, anti-dictator opposition.
Venezuela’s Bolivarian regime has been trampling on democracy, by degree, for 25 years while deftly managing international opinion to avoid too much backlash. Now, with Maduro defying fair elections, there may be no turning back.
What we are witnessing is the struggle of a people against their oppressors. This electoral process, although flawed, could become a milestone for Venezuelans to regain their freedom — and it is one that should concern everyone who believes in democracy.
Israel’s special forces rescued four hostages on Saturday, an apparent major success of the war in Gaza. Yet, paradoxically, the operation has created a political crisis for Benjamin Netanyahu, leading to protests and the resignation of several war cabinet ministers.
The Israeli blockade of food, water, fuel, and essential medicines and supplies is inflicting immense suffering on Palestinians. Women in the Gaza strip are forced to sell their jewelry to feed their children amid lack of humanitarian aid and soaring prices, reports independent Arab media Daraj.
The next major geopolitical conflict is brewing in the Sahel region, in the north-central stretch of Africa south of the Sahara. Islamists and armed militias are plunging the entire region into chaos, and it is even possible a new jihadist emirate may emerge. Experts are already predicting there will be thousands of new refugees. Their destination: Europe.
Greta Thunberg tapped into an growing area of scholarship when she wrote recently that to save the planet, we first need to dismantle ‘colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression.’
The crisis of gang violence in Ecuador is being driven by international drug trafficking, a major illicit economy that exists because of the ban on drugs. It and other Latin American countries are paying a high price for this unjust ban, and must unite to call for its end.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, some 44 million voters will be choosing between 19 candidates to elect the new president. It’s a massive electoral task in a state that is largely dysfunctional. Where is the world to lend a hand?
The recent repression of an old man dancing at a fish market shows how on edge Iran’s regime is domestically, writes Pierre Haski. While Iran may be stepping up its game regionally, its fragile attitude domestically can be a sign of what an irrational actor the mullah regime can be.
The destabilization of the Middle East could send prices soaring once more and trigger a new shock for the world economy, which has so far been resilient despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The continuous increase of public debt and a tone-deaf president in France, the rise of authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world, the blindness to global warming: realities that we do not want to see and that will end up destroying us if we do not act.
With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life.
For Cairo, Qatar had been part of an “axis of evil,” with anger directed at Al Jazeera, the main Qatari outlet, and others critical of Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood ouster. But the vitriol is now gone, with the first ever visit by Egyptian President al-Sisi to Doha.
When Sri Lanka banned agrochemicals last year, the law’s impact on the island’s ability to feed itself was immediately evident. As political upheaval continues in the capital, here’s a related back story in the countryside with global implications.
Ciro was waiting for me at the hospital entrance. He had been told the psychiatrist was coming. “Dottoré, please let me come up with you, I need to see him and tell him I love him.” Two days earlier, he had found his father lying in a pool of blood. He did not understand why […]
Kyiv wants the West to hit at the heart of the Russian economy, especially its energy exports, as the best weapon Ukraine and its allies may have. But with the EU preparing its 7th package of sanctions, it must strike a delicate balance as the global economy is on the brink of a major crisis.
The message from state-controlled media in Russia is clear: we are a peace-loving country constantly provoked by the West. The coverage is very different to the war hysteria before the annexation of Crimea and hides how the Kremlin benefits financially from tensions in Ukraine.
The desperation to leave Islamic Iran has spread from writers, dissidents and minority groups to hundreds of thousands of Iranians willing to live and work “anywhere that isn’t Iran.”
The COVID-19 outbreak has reshaped the world’s emerging superpower both at home and abroad, making China emerge as a more efficient power and helping Chinese overcome their inferiority complex vis-a-vis the West.
The contemporary crises of our world – climatic, democratic, technological, economic, epidemic – can no longer be understood or contained within the logic of nation states.
At 6 p.m. local time Wednesday in Rome, while much of the world was transfixed on Washington, D.C., Italian reporters were huddled in a vast room of the nation’s Parliament to witness another political crisis unfolding. Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced that his minor party would pull out of the government, plunging Italian […]
With a humanitarian crisis looming along the Sudan border, Ethiopian refugees pine for news of those they were forced to leave behind.
Concurrent emergencies have given rise to ‘exceptional’ measures that then have a tendency of being institutionalized.