Worldcrunch
ANTI-TERROR SWEEP ACROSS EUROPESuspected terrorists were arrested in France, Belgium and Germany in a series of dawn operations aimed at preventing future attacks. According to Le Figaro, 12 people were arrested in several outlying towns around the French capital, with some of the suspects believed to have provided weapons, hideouts and cars to to Said […]
An odd postscript to the dramatic events in Paris that says much about the evolving state of the media in China, which sometimes can be as “free” as it wants to be.
PARIS — What just happened? This question, which is still on everybody’s lips after Sunday’s historic rallies, goes beyond the three days of massacres that have shaken France, and also applies to its president. François Hollande has indeed seen an astounding reversal of fortunes. His popularity was stuck at its lowest levels just a week […]
PARIS — Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner instructed her Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, who happened to be in Paris this past weekend, to skip Sunday’s march to honor the victims of last week’s terror attacks, Buenos Aires daily Clarín reports. The march, which followed the deadly Jan. 7 attack on the Paris-based satirical weekly […]
After the Paris attacks, French authorities are looking for new tools to combat terrorism. But the risk is high for undermining basic democratic liberties.
One week after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris that killed 12 people, the weekly satirical magazine, which has taken refuge in the headquarters of the daily Libération, will publish a defiant new issue Wednesday. The day before its publication, several pieces of information filtered about what has been labeled the “survivors’ […]
‘Je suis Charlie’ is a defense of neither blasphemy nor free speech. It is a stark and collective reminder that we know our enemy, and the stakes.
FRANCE ITALY GERMANY BELGIUM SPAIN GREECE PORTUGAL UNITED KINGDOM TURKEY ISRAEL SAUDI ARABIA AUSTRALIA ARGENTINA BRAZIL COLOMBIA MEXICO U.S.
Where the French Revolution took place, religious terror now haunts the streets. Today’s voices of free speech must turn to state authority to feel secure. What we need to do now.
PARIS — The terror attack against Charlie Hebdo has deeply shaken Muslims in France, and their dread is twofold. They fear not only for their own safety but also that the shooting might make it even more difficult for them to take their place in the national community, that it will fuel the rising Islamophobia […]
The situation has largely calmed in France, after a three-day manhunt came to a bloody end on Friday evening with a total of 17 dead on top of the three gunmen killed by the police in the final assaults. Here are Saturday’s key events. 1. FOURTH SUSPECT ON THE RUN The police are still looking […]
This thing called freedom lives in its most extreme form in satire, which by definition can never be blasphemy.
PARIS — First came the shocked reactions, not just form France but from all over the world, in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s cold-blooded killing of 12 people at the offices of weekly satirical paper Charlie Hebdo. But as events carried through to a hostage standoff and climactic showdown late Friday, which saw four more […]
After the deadly attack against French magazine Charlie Hebdo, two other Paris-based news organizations, L’Obs formerly Le Nouvel Observateur and Worldcrunch, have collected those three plain words of support — “Je suis Charlie” — from 21 different people around the world, in their native languages. I Am Charlie …
A French-Algerian writer launches a loud and clear message for whoever carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine.
PARIS — There’s a nice trompe l’oeil mural on rue Nicolas Appert here in the 11th arrondissement. I once stood in front of it for a little while on my lunch break, trying to make sense of the artist’s visual tricks. Today, making sense of what happened on that street feels impossible: Twelve people, among […]
PARIS — The brazen terrorist attack against the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo that left at least 12 dead Wednesday has shocked the nation and the world. But it doesn’t come in a vacuum, following a series of attacks in the past few years that have no parallel in any other Western country. There […]
DAKAR — Security concerns in Africa currently revolve around two central issues: the anarchy in Libya, and the Boko Haram caliphate that has taken root in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Looking ahead to 2015, the Islamist terrorist threat looms over the continent, even as some question whether the military-driven reaction of African governments may […]
As Pakistan began to bury its children Wednesday, the world reacted to one of the most horrifying terrorist acts in recent years: the Taliban’s methodical assault on a school in Peshawar. The death toll in Tuesday’s attack stands at 141 people, including 132 children, as survivors recounted point-blank-range elimination of one student after another. The […]
A Swiss NGO convenes representatives of 35 rebel groups in Geneva to talk about the mechanics, and great difficulties, of respecting humanitarian laws when fighting civil wars.
Amid the mayhem of civil war, huge money is to be made from stealing and selling archeological treasures from Iraq and Syria. ISIS ambitions are fueling an already huge black market.
In Jabel Mukaber, in East Jerusalem, relatives of Oday and Ghassan, the two Palestinians who attacked a synagogue this week, are ready to continue their fight.
A policy of war abroad, mixed with tighter border controls at home, won’t meet the challenge.
The kidnapping of a Colombian general is the clearest sign that FARC guerrillas may have entered in peace talks, but have yet to give up their war mentality and false populist ideology.
MUNICH — It began nearly a year ago, on the weekend after Christmas. On Saturday night, unidentified individuals broke into a church in the Cologne district of Porz-Urbach. They broke open the safe in the sacristy and got hold of the key to the church. They ended up stealing money from the collection boxes, liturgical […]
In a secret location in the Lebanese capital, a 60-bed hospital treats ISIS and other Islamic extremists whose backers must pay cash in advance. Enemies share doctors where medicine is a blind business, and cash is king.
A reporter witnesses a city fall to the hands of Boko Haram, as locals recount the brutality they’ve witnessed. Meanwhile, slim hopes for a negotiated solution.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees enemies everywhere: Assad, Kurds, but not the murderous Islamist radical group just across the border in Syria.
After militants serve time in Guantanamo or Saudi prisons, the kingdom tries to ease them back into society with a mix of carrot, stick and religion.
Compared to radical Sunni terrorist organizations like ISIS, the regime in Tehran can seem relatively tame. But don’t be fooled.
CAIRO — Since the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared a caliphate, much has been written about the movement — but still more remains unclear. How seriously should we take their rise? How does ISIS define Islamic law, and how would it be implemented? There are also more basic […]
Just how should the West deal with terrorists as ruthless as ISIS? Hunt them down, ally with their enemies, mess with their minds? Some concrete options, but there’s no time to waste.
Hamas methods for getting information to and from its fighters can pose intelligence challenges for the Israeli army, preventing it from deploying its full technological capabilities.
TEL AVIV — Last February, a court in Jerusalem ordered a seven-year prison sentence for Kifah Sarhan, a senior Hamas official based in Jerusalem, on charges of membership in a terror organization and dealing with property for terrorism. A resident of East Jerusalem and member of the organization’s advisory council, Sarhan had a key position […]
A prominent Iranian politician has characterized Israeli operations against Gaza as the third phase of Israel’s current plot to destabilize the Middle East region. Mohsen Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and current member of a state arbitrating body, said the first two phases of Israel’s strategy were the civil wars provoked in Syria and […]
The Sunni jihadist group ISIS continues to conquer territory in Iraq, while its leaders have declared an Islamic caliphate — in a bold bid for power across the Muslim world. But back in Syria, where ISIS has been a growing presence for more than a year, a citizen-reporter for an independent Syrian news site recounts […]
Since 1979, Iraqis have known only war and conflict, both from outside and within. With Islamist radicals advancing toward Baghdad, the future looks as grim as ever.
After the verdict sentencing Al Jazeera journalists to prison, it is difficult to consider the country’s court system independent. Dark days ahead for freedom of expression in Egypt.
Abandoning Iraq and failing to act in Syria have left a vacuum that ISIS and other terrorist groups are filling. Obama’s criticism of his predecessor is no substitute for a real foreign policy.
BEIJING — Recent acts of violence in China have prompted the country to step up its anti-terrorism measures, leading the Beijing government, for example, to give police more authority to use force to stop a terror attack. The capital’s public security bureau has given anti-terror units twice the normal amount of bullets, Beijing News reports. […]