Worldcrunch
👋 Grüss Gott!* Welcome to Thursday, where Iran braces for a possible Israeli attack, a UK-bound plane carrying 242 people crashes in India and today’s quiz question comes from Denmark’s two biggest cities. Meanwhile, Piero Negri Scaglione in Italian daily La Stampa revisits seminal filmmaker Sergio Leone’s oeuvre, particularly in light of how he viewed […]
A mysterious aviation tragedy, a game-changing tech demonstration, and a historic movement for women’s rights.
President Donald Trump has expressed several times his desire to make Greenland a part of the U.S. by purchasing it from Denmark. What determines the price of a country?
Its scenery is breathtaking, but there are also more strategic reasons that incoming President Donald Trump is pushing to force Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States.
While busy delivering the best international journalism, the Worldcrunch team also stumbles on a fair deal of downright strange stuff happening around the world, reported in every language.
Updated Nov. 20, 2023 at 12:10 p.m. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip tied the knot in a royal wedding in 1947 that sealed the couple together for more than 70 years, including Queen Elizabeth’s record-setting reign. When did Elizabeth and Phillip marry? On Nov. 20, 1947, the bells of Westminster Abbey could be heard ringing […]
Despite controversies at home, Nordic countries were heavily involved in the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. As the Ukraine war grinds on, lessons from that conflict are more relevant than ever.
The state-owned Ukrainian energy operator and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have cast doubt on the visit of IAEA international inspectors assessing the risks near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occupied by Russia. Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage. Sign up to our free daily newsletter. Energy provider […]
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed the complete absence of high-level communication between Moscow and Washington, as tensions continue to rise over the U.S. delivery of long-range rocket launchers to Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rekindled the Nordic debate over the possibility of joining NATO, prompting Russian threats. It’s a microcosm for the conflict itself.
It was Jane Austen, back in 1816, who wrote that “every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.” That neighborhood is getting quite a bit bigger these days as our digitized lives and economies extract ever-deepening rivers of private data from the daily lives of citizens. Of course, with that has also come […]
Migrant associations and activists are saying there are not enough politicians of migrant origin in the new German Bundestag. But are such politicians guaranteed to support policies that benefit migrants? There are prominent examples that suggest otherwise.
Maybe that’s just what a mermaid looks like…
The process machinery to master vowel-heavy Danish explains that way adults tend to interact.
From France to China, these female worship leaders not only provide spiritual guidance but also encourage diversity and dispel stereotypes, from both within and outside of their community.
From climate change and migration, to tobacco deaths and exploitative business practices, governments and multilateral bodies are systematically failing to act.
PARIS — Block construction, robotics and basic coding — all in one package, and especially designed for a non-tech-savvy public. That, in a nutshell, is the idea behind Mindstorms, which toymaker Lego first introduced two decades ago to teach people (children primarily) about programming, but in a fun way — by creating educational robots that walk, talk, etc. For the first versions of Mindstorms, the two Lego engineers who came up with the toy — Gaute Munch and and Erik Hansen — worked closely with researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Munch is now director of advanced technology at […]
Crackdowns on immigration are one more sign that the small but influential northern European nation is now on the front edge of more sinister trends.
I was in Denmark multiple times, usually on our way to get up north to Sweden and Norway — and never disappointed by the scenery along the way. This shot stands out for the tree leaning over the stream and the vivid green contrasts, though I also did my best to catch the blond cyclist […]
COPENHAGEN — In the picturesque Danish capital, it’s easy to overlook the men lying on public benches with a beer in hand, or assume they’re immigrants from Southern Europe. Listen carefully, though, and you’ll notice that they speak fluent Danish, a task almost impossible for foreigners. These men, it turns out, are Danish citizens; indigenous […]
You will find many statues of the legendary 19th-century local fairy tales author Hans Christian Andersen in his native Denmark. My own little mermaid Cécile was here standing next to what was then one of the most recent ones, installed just two years earlier in the capital. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
If Nordic people are the happiest people in the world, it is thanks to the state of welfare and cuddling with friends in the candlelight. Today the word for this ritual invades the life of Francophones.
‘Flexicurity,’ the Danish labor approach, where it’s easy to be fired but also rehired, has helped unemployment remain among the lowest in the world. But the lack of skilled labor creates new demands.
These half-timbered structures of the Den Gamle By open-air museum in the Danish town of Aarhus remind me of some houses in the eastern French region of Alsace and across the border in Germany.
BORNHOLM — A meadow on this Danish island looks like it’s straight from the Middle Ages. Small, robust cows, sheep, geese and pigs are kept cool by the rains. Only a history expert would be able to recognize the small details that contradict what appears to be the perfect historical accuracy in depicting a medieval […]
I don’t often go for artistic shots, but this lighthouse staircase in the big fishing port of Hvide Sande, in western Denmark, caught my eye.
There probably aren’t that many places in the world where you can see a 2,400-year-old man in such an incredible state of preservation. The Tollund Man was naturally mummified in a peat bog, and his body is now carefully placed in the sleeping position in which he was found. You can see all this ancient […]
Amalienborg, the winter home of the Danish royal family, is located next to a ferry docking point — very convenient for tourists. You may notice this slide is a little bit dusty, but my grandson and I didn’t want to photoshop that away.
Denmark, much like the Netherlands, is mostly flat. That helps explains why cycling has been the country’s transportation mode of choice for decades.
Even in the small Danish town of Holbæk, officials have resorted to taking out their enemies with a campaign of drone strikes. The target: a flock of seagulls (not that flock) described as aggressive and, well, messy. After constant reports of the seagulls threatening citizens and stealing their food, the town in northern Denmark has […]
“Asylum seekers will learn more about sexual norms,” reads the headline of the provocatively creative front page of Danish daily Jyllands-Posten. The national newspaper, based in western Denmark, reports that the Danish Red Cross wants to expand education programs for asylum seekers to include what it calls “adult education.” Anne la Cour Vågen, head of […]
Flemming Rose was the man who commissioned caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad for the Jyllands Posten newspaper. He reflects on Islam, free speech and silent fear.
BT, June 19, 2015 “The Losers’ Triumph,” Friday’s headline in the Danish tabloid BT reads. Yesterday’s elections demonstrate a shift to the right in the Scandinavian country. While the Social Democratic Party of current Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt won the most seats, her center-left coalition lost to the right-wing opposition. She conceded defeat, as the […]
While the average Dane generates more than 10 tons of CO2 each year, a resident on the island of Samso actually spares the planet three. The island changed its fate by invest
There’s a place where children are as tall as houses, and where it takes about 10 steps to walk across an entire city, like Amsterdam … This place is Legoland, in Billund, Denmark.
Denmark and Eurovision are like a Viking ship on stormy northern waters: It goes up, it goes down, it goes back up etc. After winning the contest for the first time in 1963 with this song and hosting it the following year, Denmark decided to withdraw from the contest in 1966, as the new head […]
Transhuman technology pioneers and other geeks are embracing chip technology that can allow them to turn on lights, call wives or start motorcycles with a single touch. But is this slippery slope toward a new definition of human?