“Fear of terrorism in Berlin,” read the front page of Berlin-based daily Der Tagesspiegel on Tuesday, a day after a seven-ton truck plowed into a Christmas market in the heart of the German capital, killing 12 and wounding dozens. German police are investigating the event as a terrorist attack. Early this morning, police raided a […]
Tag: terrorism
De Telegraaf, Dec. 12, 2016 Deadly blasts in major cities around the world returned, seemingly in sync the past two days. Dutch daily De Telegraaf“s Monday front page reads: “Weekend of attacks’ above two pictures of crying women, one in Istanbul where 44 people died Saturday, the other in Cairo, where at least 25 were […]
Categories
Obama’s Journey In Times Of Trump
As he embarks today on what is expected be his last major trip abroad as president — with stops in Greece, Germany and Peru — Barack Obama might find himself thinking back to that remarkable visit he made to Germany in August 2008 as Democratic nominee. It was an unprecedented event that included a jam-packed […]
PARIS — How much is the life of a victim of terrorism worth? How do you quantify the loss of children taken from their parents? Of husbands or wives torn from their spouse by the bullets of a madman? These are harrowing questions that require reflection but also a dose of cold economic reasoning. The […]
Categories
Baghdadi, Making It Personal In Mosul
BAGHDADI, MAKING IT PERSONAL IN MOSUL Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, is back on your screen. After almost a year of public silence, and amid rumors that the self-proclaimed “caliph” might be dead, ISIS released what it claims is a 31-minute audio recording of its leader. In his message — which was recorded […]
The reach of American power, of both the hard and soft varieties, seems to know no limits. People across the planet are affected in real ways by what happens in the United States — from which movies get made in Hollywood to how Facebook builds its algorithms to who earns the keys to the White […]
This is supposed to be the week that Canada and the EU ink their landmark Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) after seven years of painstaking negotiations. Hopes are fading, however, due to last-minute objections from Belgium’s Wallonia region. The French-speaking area’s 3.6 million people represent less than 1% of the EU’s total population. Yet […]
In southern Italy, mob clans have entered into an unlikely alliance with the Islamic terror group, exchanging Kalashnikovs for ancient artifacts pillaged in war. One reporter went undercover looking to make a deal.
Categories
Mosul, Mother Of All Battles?
It has finally begun. More than two years since ISIS conquered Iraq’s third-biggest city, a coalition of local ground forces, supported by U.S. air power, has launched a coordinated attack to recapture Mosul. “The time of victory has come and operations to liberate Mosul have started,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised […]
Categories
Is The Smartphone Past Its Peak?
The ills of the Smartphone industry go beyond the meltdown of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7. A market sector that was still booming not so long ago is now expected to suffer losses this year for the first time, and is forecast to stagnate for the foreseeable future, a recent report from tech research and advisory […]
Categories
Yemen, Airstrikes And Air Time
Beyond the threats and name-calling, foreign policy was high on the agenda of Sunday night’s second U.S. presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Russia was mentioned 35 times. Syria 14 times. China, usually a Trump favorite, was uttered a mere four times by the candidates during the 90-minute debate. That was still more […]
Categories
Donald Trump, It’s Not Okay
When Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination from a major party, the historic moment got a rather lukewarm response. Many young women who had grown up taking gender equality as a given were unmoved. One twentysomething concluded that Clinton’s nomination was “greeted with a collective millennial yawn”. Was there really […]
Categories
A New Diplomat-In-Chief For A Messy World
Since its birth in the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations has faced innumerable crises. The eternal messiness of global affairs is, of course, exactly why the UN was created. But perhaps never in its 71 years of existence has the biggest of global institutions been faced with so many simultaneous fires — […]
JAKARTA — Teuku Akbar Maulana, 17, is from the westernmost Indonesian province of Aceh. He was a brilliant student and was offered a scholarship to study in Turkey. Akbar left for the Turkish city of Kayseri in 2013 to attend the International Imam Khatip High School but grew tired of it after a few months. “We were studying something that I had learned before so I wasn’t getting what I wanted,” he says. Bored, Akbar, who was 15 at the time, started to spend more time on social media, including Facebook. His feed was flooded with brutal videos of what […]
Categories
RIP Valley Of Tombs
Next to the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra lay several funerary towers known as the Valley of the Tombs. You can see them in the background of this photograph, as my wife Claudine walks among local ethnic Druze. Sadly, we know that the first-century necropolis was destroyed by ISIS terrorists last year. Some Druze villages, […]
Investigators assume that ISIS instructors are looking for new candidates for becoming potential terrorists on the Internet. Chat protocols reveal how they proceed.
In the scenic Loire Valley southwest of Paris, a town was designated to accommodate the first center of “deradicalization” of Islamic extremists in France. Since then, the community in Indre-et-Loire has been consumed by anger and fear.
Categories
Women In Jihad
The days without reports of a terrorist attack, somewhere in the world, have become rare. And no, today is not one of them. Details are emerging this morning of three veiled women attacking a police station in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, reportedly wounding two officers before they were shot dead. What stands out in […]
It is a philosopher’s job to debunk prejudice and foregone conclusions. But isn’t there also a duty to not ignore the facts? A look back 15 years later from a prominent Paris thinker.
Categories
North Korea’s Biggest Nuke Test
At first, most thought it was another earthquake. But the 5.3-magnitude rumble coming from the northeastern corner of North Korea was a potentially much more frightening event: Pyongyang had set off its most powerful nuclear weapon test ever. World leaders were quick to react to this latest act of defiance. South Korea denounced Pyongyang leader […]
Categories
Duterte, Not Lost In Translation
Foreign correspondents, and their editors, have long wrestled with translations of newsworthy words from one language to another — both those quotable quotes from colorful personalities, and the jargony langue de bois of international bureaucrats and businessmen. We like to think of ourselves at Worldcrunch as experts in the field, and watched with some amusement […]
Categories
Dilma Or No Dilma
All signs say this is the end of the line for Dilma Rousseff. Both O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo, two of Brazil’s main newspapers, report that she will lose today’s vote in the Senate and will be impeached. Many are hoping the decision, which arguably has more to do with Dilma’s perceived ability […]
Terrorism and social networks contribute to the exacerbation of a general feeling of fear, as recent incidents in New York and the South of France have shown.
Categories
Italy’s Perilous Fault Lines
As mourners gather today at a funeral for at least 200 of the 292 victims of the Aug. 24 quake in central Italy, the initial search for survivors has been replaced by the grim final task of recovering bodies and identifying the dead. As has happened in the wake of natural disasters in the past, […]
Categories
Hacking, From Submarines To A News Bureau
Although conventional warfare makes headlines, a more insidious conflict also warrants attention. Cyber warfare, in its many forms, is arguably still in its infancy. But the new-age combat is a growing concern — so much so that the latest NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland, chose to focus on cyber defense. The list of government agencies, […]
Police officers probing the attack on a priest in the quiet northern French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray were led to an unusual location in their investigation: Telegram, a messaging application that has 100 million active users worldwide. With both private and public chats, the application’s flexibility, as well as its policy on privacy, makes it attractive […]
Categories
Presidential Bids And Baggage
France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his bid to become the Republican party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election. He did so despite his previous claim that he wouldn’t run again. (See our Extra! feature for more) Sarkozy will focus on tax and budget cuts, stopping economic migrants and “organizing Islam,” according to French newspaper […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — The ministers of the interior of Germany’s 16 federal states have presented their plan against terrorism. Among them, the abolition of the dual citizenship and a public ban on wearing the burqa. As far as is known, no dual citizenship holder has committed a crime of a terrorist nature. The number of […]
MUNICH — Shortly after the 1985 hijacking of a TWA plane by a splinter group of the Shiite Hezbollah militia, Britain’s then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, blasted the media for its handling of the affair and called for a new code of conduct. If the press would simply stop covering terrorist attacks, she argued before […]
CASABLANCA — Morocco is no stranger to the jihadist violence afflicting other Muslim countries: In 2003, a suicide bombing killed 33 people in the country’s largest city, Casablanca, while a 2011 attack killed 17 in Marrakesh. But unlike most of its neighbors, Morocco has a detailed policy to reform rather than destroy followers of Salafism, […]
Categories
Explosions In Thailand, Questions Of Label
SPOTLIGHT: EXPLOSIONS IN THAILAND, QUESTIONS OF LABEL Thailand was hit by a series of coordinated blasts across the country last night and early this morning, leaving four people dead and 34 injured. The Bangkok Post reports that the heaviest damage was in the resort town of Hua Hin, where explosions killed two and injured dozens, […]
Terrorists and mass murderers are often seen as maniacs. But that may hide an uncomfortable truth: You don’t have to be insane to commit atrocities.
Categories
How Low Will Trump Go?
SPOTLIGHT: HOW LOW WILL TRUMP GO? Waking up in European Central Time to the morning headlines means two things right now: Rio Olympic results and Donald Trump’s new low. We’ve been trying to digest the latest installment of the latter after the Republican nominee in his inimitable, er, offhanded way, said yesterday in North Carolina […]
For years, Muslims helped police identify radicals in Italy. But this assistance isn’t enough. Italy needs to address legislative gaps and promote cultural integration.
Categories
Venezuelan Political Crisis Intensifies
SPOTLIGHT: VENEZUELAN POLITICAL CRISIS INTENSIFIES Stories about Venezuela’s toilet paper shortage are no laughing matter, especially when people are also struggling to access basic food supplies and medicine, and face soaring crime rates and rolling blackouts. But rather than work together to help alleviate the crisis, President Nicolas Maduro and the political opposition, which controls […]
Note: This article was originally published on July 13, before the failed coup attempt -Analysis- ISTANBUL — This newspaper (Turkish daily Hürriyet) published the following report last month: “Syrians who want to spend the Ramadan Bayram (Eid al-Fitr) holiday with the relatives they left behind in their country where a horrible civil war is still […]
Can we accept cultural “sensitivities” as an excuse for undemocratic behavior? Can we accept a Muslim father not shaking the hand of his child’s teacher because she is a woman? Yes, it’s all connected to recent terror attacks in
Categories
One Week Before The Olympics
Correio Braziliense, July 29th Friday’s edition of the Correio Braziliense daily features images of final preparations for the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, which are now just one week away. As the Games near, concerns about security and logistics are rising. The country is still reeling from a series of political and economic crises, and […]
Nice, Turkey, Wurzburg, Ansbach. The escalating violence of the last few days raise the pressure on the German Chancellor, whose refugee policy is again in the spotlight. The political repercussions could strike where it matters to her most.
SPOTLIGHT: THE POWER OF NOT INFORMING With the increasing number of terror attacks in France comes an intensifying debate on the role of media coverage of the events. French news outlets have begun to ask whether spreading the identity of terrorists, who often are seeking some twisted sense of glory, feeds the problem. Reporting on […]