Gaspard Koenig, a French philosopher, novelist, and modern-day gentleman farmer reflects on soil, freedom and the rhythms of life bridging Parisian salons and the fields of Normandy.
Tag: freedom
With less social pressure, more financial autonomy for women and more opportunities to meet new people, there are many reasons for French couples in their 50s and 60s to separate — and to take pride in their decision.
Five activists from organizations and collectives in Venezuela spoke to Latin American feminist media Volcánicas about how the anti-NGO law affects their work and puts their lives at risk.
Ukrainians are still processing Friday’s meeting. Donald Trump speaks about Zelensky’s “cards.” It’s as if he doesn’t realize what a war is.
In Syria, LGBTQ+ individuals are being stripped of their freedom, dignity and right to defend themselves. Only a few voices and organizations working in secrecy attempt to shed light on the violations against them in an environment that is increasingly hostile toward anyone who dares to advocate for marginalized groups.
Having your own car means unlimited freedom. Right? A study shows that yes, it can increase life satisfaction. But freedom is a myth, and dependency on your vehicle will reduce overall happiness.
Putting authors and artists in categories may help pinpoint their work in socio-cultural and stylistic terms, but is inevitably restrictive of literature’s essential universality. In South America, there is one, tiresome if profitable label literature seemingly cannot shake off, namely Magic Realism.
After the killing of Georgia’s best-known trans woman Kesaria Abramidze, and a harsh new anti-LGBTQ law, Holod spoke with another well-known Georgia-based trans woman, Sofi Beridze, about homophobia in the country, as well as her birthplace, Moscow.
The Left’s reluctance to denounce President Maduro’s fraudulent reelection in Venezuela may seem tactical or expedient to itself, but is nothing short of stabbing the very principle of democracy at a challenging juncture in modern history.
We live in a political, social, economic and fundamentally cultural environment that viscerally rejects all pain and suffering as irrelevant. For the modern individual, it is not so much a case of being free to do this or that, as to be free from whatever limits us.
Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest person who has just passed away at age 117, once talked about the importance of socializing in old age. Even if the aging and elderly tend to wind up confined to family circles, studies have shown the often untapped benefits of friendship in our later years.
For years Israeli activists have been helping securing water for Palestinians in the West Bank and recording abuses they suffered at the hands of radical Jewish settlers. The stakes, and risks, have never been higher.
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.
Former inmates of the Miraflores Women’s Penitentiary Center — where former Interim President Jeanine Anez is now serving her sentence — share their stories of solidarity and support among the women there, but they also call for changes within the prison system and society.
Children play to explore and learn. But that does not mean that adults are less playful. As we celebrate June 11, the first International Day of Play, Worldcrunch’s Irene Caselli considers what play means for kids and adults alike.
As citizens across the EU prepare to elect a new parliament, Italian author Viola Ardone remembers her late grandmother who, despite an elementary education and lack of political interest, never missed an election.
From Ukraine to the South China Sea, images of war are highly reminiscent of the horrors of the past. As the world marks 80 years since the Normandy landings of World War II, geopolitical analyst Dominique Moïsi wonders if history is bound to repeat itself.
Europe’s fate is also being played out in countries outside the EU, where East and West are battling for influence. In Georgia on Tuesday, the government bowed to pressure from Moscow, and passed a law on “foreign influence” modeled on a Russia law.
Updated April 25, 2024 at 11:450 p.m. On this day in 1945, Allied troops entered Milan and other major Italian cities, signaling the end of fascist rule and the Nazi occupation. The Italian resistance movement played a significant role in the liberation of the country. What was the fascist regime in Italy? The fascist regime […]
We’re renouncing books to gorge ourselves on digital imagery and short texts. If we continue like this, ditching the written word of the past, we may soon become fitting descendants of the cringing, timorous masses of the dark ages.
“If heroes were to ask themselves each time about the risks they face, then they would never accomplish their feats…”
How daily life continues in this city in eastern Ukraine of 1.4 million, which has been shelled by Russia throughout the nearly two-year war.
Women in the Islamic Republic are fighting to recover social rights and freedoms granted some 80 years ago by a monarchy that was once reviled and is now keenly missed by younger generations.
Free speech advocates are concerned that the government has been using the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act to keep citizens and journalists from expressing political opinions.
The “Pillar of Shame” in Hong Kong, a memorial to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, was a symbol of freedom and democracy. Beijing has taken it down, but a replica is being built in Berlin. Activist Samuel Chu explains why that means so much to him.
It’s impossible to travel incognito on a train, and it’s also difficult to walk down the street without running into surveillance cameras. Even when hiking, apps are multiplying. We can’t just wander around in anonymity anymore.
Two patients walk with our Naples-based psychiatrist on that fine line between freedom and insanity.
The Russian president has resorted to a string of changing lies to justify his war on Ukraine. He has shown contempt along the way for the Christian values he claims to defend. But like arms and ammunition, a regime can also run out of lies.
The latest round of anti-regime protests in Iran is different than other in the 40 years of the Islamic Republic: for its universality and boldness, the level of public fury and grief, and the role of women and social media. The target is not some policy or the economy, but the regime itself.
Since Cuba reopened its borders last December after COVID closures, the number of people leaving the island has gone up significantly. Migration has been a constant in Cuban life since the 1950s. But this article in Cuba’s independent news outlet El Toque shows just how important migration is to understand the ordeals of everyday life on the island.
It was typical of Gandhi to bring opposites together, by noting that the very experience of hatred had made love possible by allowing Indians to take responsibility for their own actions and so the future.
Shunned by the Nepal government, young Tibetans struggle to find work, travel overseas, and open bank accounts. One asks, “Who are we?”
A German soldier was reprimanded because of an online dating profile. She was punished for her sexual freedom — the same freedoms that the armed forces claim to be fighting for abroad.
Not only strict rules of freedom of movement as part of Zero-COVID policy but also an increase in censorship has raised many questions for the expat population in the megacity of 26 million that had long enjoyed a kind of special status in China as a place of freedom and openness. A recent survey of foreigners in the Chinese megacity found that 48% of respondents said they would leave Shanghai within the next year.
Less than a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a new cleavage in international affairs, U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a vision for confronting Moscow as necessary for the pursuit of America’s ambitions at home and abroad.
It’s not the presence of Western weapons that scares Moscow, it is the idea of freedom. And yet by threatening Ukrainians with invasion, his neighbors and rivals in the West rally around that same idea. Has the would-be strategic mastermind in the Kremlin finally painted himself into a corner? Unfortunately, that’s a dangerous place.
Iceland has been one of Europe’s COVID-19 hot spots the past few months, but citizens’ vaccination status doesn’t affect their access to public spaces. It is a conscious choice in a small nation to try to avoid conflict in society, and it seems to be working. But death rates are being kept down for one main reason: so many people were already vaccinated anyway.
Twenty years later the Islamist group is back in power in Afghanistan, but trying this time to win international support. Now that several months have passed, experts on the ground can offer a clear assessment if the group has genuinely transformed on such issues as women’s rights and free speech.
It’s about multiplying choices, not vanishing time…