Worldcrunch
From boardrooms to barroom debates, knowing what to say in the moment can change everything. You’re either born with the skill or not, right? A writer from Germany’s Die Zeit weekly joins a Berlin debate club to test whether quick wit can be trained.
Million-dollar jackpots, free food and … a cow? Governments around the world are getting creative to encourage COVID vaccination, particularly among the young and healthy, who have some of the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy. Not everyone, of course, can be convinced. Die-hard antivaxers who fear medical side effects (that have no scientific grounding) may […]
PARIS — After first reckoning with the physical toll of COVID-19, the world also began to register the risk of rising rates of depression and isolation as the first wave of the virus forced hundreds of millions of people to stay confined at home for months at a time last spring. But now the second […]
The announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech that their COVID-19 vaccine trials have tallied a 90% success rate comes as a second wave of the virus is hitting not only public health, but the public psyche.
In developed countries, this long period of self-isolation has caused waistlines to bulge — a serious matter, especially since obesity is a clear COVID-19 risk factor.
With people returning to work, there’s the question of how to get there. Many cities around the world are encouraging biking, walking and other private transportation methods to avoid clogging public transit systems that could be cesspools for the coronavirus as lockdowns ease. But for those without other options, taking trains, subways and buses will […]
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.
It used to be South America’s shining star. But these days, things seem to be a bit rotten in the state of Chile, where corruption scandals are eroding public confidence.
Often accused of sympathizing with the left, Pope Francis has a simpler ‘apolitical’ view of politics and public office: it should be at the service of the disadvantaged.
MUMBAI — On December 14, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) abruptly terminated its contract with the Indo-Malaysian consortium L&T-Scomi Engineering Bhd to manage the city’s monorail. The authority said that there had been issues such as poor maintenance of the monorail fleet, as many rakes were found unfit for use. This ended another chapter in the sorry saga of a transportation experiment that was doomed from its very inception. India’s first monorail was flagged off on February 1, 2014, with the hope that it would resolve Mumbai’s transport woes — or some of them, at least. The MMRDA […]
After 17 months in power, Emmanuel Macron is touching the depths of unpopularity. He still has ways to bounce back, but should start by re-reading the author of ‘The Prince.’
The two-year-old housing project is clean and orderly, unlike the makeshift dwellings its thousands of relocated residents left behind. But it’s also isolated and dull.
Germany’s right-wing AfD party says school courses give too much attention to Hitler’s reign, overlooking other historical periods. A syllabus offers an answer.
GENEVA — The specks of green and blue light splashing down from above alter the atmosphere along this riverside walkway completely. The illumination is smooth and complex, with colors that change in rhythm — a sharp contrast to the rigid lamppost light that used to shine along Geneva“s 800-meter long Seujet wharf. The made-to-measure public […]
Invisible to the naked eye, the attitudes and regulations of local officials are blocking an expansion of private hospitals that most agree is much needed in China.
Searching for a quiet public space in Cairo sets you up against unscrupulous police and leering neighbors, oppressive moral codes and an eternal maze of streets. One woman’s failed hunt for tranquility in the Egyptian capital.
Gossip columns and scurrilous TV shows peer into people’s private lives more every day. Not about freedom of information, they perpetuate the social complexes of the Colonial era.
CORRIERE DELLA SERA, LA STAMPA, RAI NEWS, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) Worldcrunch VATICAN CITY– Pope Benedict XVI presided over his final papal audience Wednesday before a crowd of some 200,000, reaffirming his own faith and a conviction that his historic decision to resign was for the good of the Church. Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported […]