London generously opened its doors to Hong Kongers fleeing Xi Jinping’s regime, which stands in strong contrast with the closed-minded attitudes driving Brexit. Where does it power lie now?
Tag: united kingdom
There are some signs that China may be gaining economic concessions from Iran in exchange for giving it diplomatic, and perhaps military and security, backing against regime opponents.
An activist and Oxford professor of anthropology of South Asia recounts her experience, and reflections, during a Black Lives Matter protest in the UK.
For the coming weeks, Worldcrunch will be delivering daily updates on the coronavirus global pandemic. The insidious path of COVID-19 across the planet is a blunt reminder of how small the world has become. Our network of multilingual journalists are busy finding out what’s being reported locally — everywhere — to provide as clear a […]
A closer look at the iconic photo of the three Allied leaders gathered to bring an end to World War II, and shape the map of the coming Cold War.
Welcome to Tuesday, where the UK’s isolation deepens, Rio’s mayor gets arrested and a baby elephant gets CPR. And if you’re late on your Christmas shopping, Die Welt tells you not to worry: kids have too many toys anyway. SPOTLIGHT: BORIS JOHNSON AND THE COLLAPSE OF CHAOS-AS-LEADERSHIP As the sudden arrival of harsh new lockdown […]
Welcome to Monday, where stocks plummet and borders are blocked after news from Britain about a new faster spreading COVID strain. Mada Masr also takes us to Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region and considers the ramifications of the conflict along the border with Sudan. SPOTLIGHT: THE PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED THE MEANING OF WORK AND FREE TIME […]
A derivative of the Bauhaus revolution, the Isokon building brought modernity, and affordable rent, to conservative Britain — 85 years ago.
A messy withdrawal from the EU could cost the U.K. its current trade routes and threaten supplies of brie and parmesan, avocados and tomatoes…and even tea!
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Europe On Brexit: Pick Your Metaphor
-Analysis- “It’s almost like Shakespeare: Brexit or no Brexit? That was the question.” German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle resorted to a passing twist on Hamlet after the British Parliament delivered what may be the final defeat Tuesday night in Prime Minister Theresa May’s attempt to lead the UK to an orderly divorce from the European […]
His record in Britain’s former colonies more closely resembles that of a war criminal than a defender of democracy and freedom.
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Is Modernity Destined To Destroy Beauty?
-OpEd- PARIS — Between all the brutal Brexit fireworks, the British government took an initiative of rare poetic dimension by establishing a “Building Better, Building Beautiful” commission. According to its official terms of reference, the commission’s task is to “develop practical policy solutions to ensure the design and style of new developments, including new settlements […]
On January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar, the great David Bowie was gone. The shape-shifting rock icon behind songs such as “Space Oddity,” “Starman,” “Heroes’ and “Let’s Dance” was also a major creative force in film, fashion and technology, constantly pushing the boundaries of performance-based disciplines. Born David Robert Jones, his chameleon career is reflected in the many flamboyant alter egos he used over the years. We made this OneShot to mark his death and celebrate what would have been his 72nd birthday on January 8. Ashes to ashes […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — Theresa May can only lose. The British Prime Minister is fighting alone against a grand alliance of conspirators, poisoners, and wire-pullers, supported by opportunists, weather-vanes and underlings from her own Tory party — ready to tear each other apart wherever they feel they can gain power: on the one hand, ambivalent personalities […]
-OpEd- PARIS — While Brexit uncertainty continues with “last-chance summit” after “last-chance summit,” the hard questions are becoming more difficult to avoid with each passing day. Are we moving towards a brutal divorce? Or a compromise? Will the Irish question turn everything upside down? Can a second referendum turn the tide? All these questions refer […]
-Essay- PARIS — I shall spare my readers today a highfalutin reflection on the obsolescence of the French Fifth Republic, evolutions in Romanian culture or the worldwide rise of the extreme Right — thanks to Banksy! The uber-famous but ever elusive London street artist recently returned to the limelight with another of his visual pranks: […]
Spare a thought for the globe-trotting European stock salesman. Europe’s equities have seen 25 straight weeks of fund outflows, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, wiping out all of 2017’s inflows. It’s the only region recording meaningful outflows this year — even emerging markets, performing far worse, can’t make that claim. So why can’t Europe get any love? The push factors are obvious: From Brexit to the Italian budget, Europe is still a continent that has a reputation for in-fighting for global investors. At the same time, the pull factors are lacking: Economic and earnings growth is decent but unimpressive […]
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Is Empathy Determined By Genes?
Education and experience certainly play a role in how well an individual understands other people’s feelings. But there may be certain genetic predispositions at work too.
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A Pirate’s Feast
The United Kingdom isn’t exactly renowned for its gastronomy, but I (lifelong French bon vivant ) have a special fondness for English pub food. Here in Cornwall, southwestern England, you could feast on delicious seafood — provided you first got past the local pirate.
Pakistani activist for female education, who survived a brutal Taliban attack, Malala Yousazfai became the youngest person to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize. Now she’s celebrating a special all-grown-up birthday on July 12! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/ijRSJpmSYNw expand=1] Happy Birthday Malala — OneShot OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
Promising voters to get the EU to change is easy, delivering that change is next to impossible.
Can a clone have a birthday? Well, let’s just say that Dolly the sheep was delivered 22 years ago on July 5 — the world’s first cloned mammal to see the light of day. The result of a successful cloning experiment at The Roslin Institute in Scotland, the wooly work of science sparked public outcry back in 1996, eventually leading to an extension of the ban against embryo research in the United States. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/-uYYsNf61WA expand=1] Hello Dolly! — OneShot (© Roslin Institute) Fears of cloning linger: Earlier this year, Chinese researchers were busy trying to convince the public that […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/gsNK2vpeWpA expand=1] OneShot — Witnessing the immediate aftermath, 2017 (©Toby Melville/Reuters) This photo was taken just after a terrorist drove into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge, killing five people. An injured woman gets comfort from a passerby. This photo is among the World Press Photo of the Year 2018 Nominees. OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot: [rebelmouse-image 27068863 original_size=”320×320″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068864 original_size=”174×174″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068865 original_size=”128×128″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068866 original_size=”227×227″ expand=1][rebelmouse-image 27068867 original_size=”256×256″ expand=1]
Beverage companies have responded to the planned tax by reducing the sugar content of their drinks.
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The Spy Who Came In From The Cold War
-Analysis- Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in critical condition, three days after they were found unconscious on a bench in the English city of Salisbury. The pair were presumably poisoned by what is so far referred to as an “unknown substance.” Britain’s counter-terrorism police have now taken over the […]
-OpEd- PARIS — While leafing through the newspapers in an English pub last weekend, I was surprised to see The Sunday Times, hardly a tabloid, portraying the three fiercest Brexiters as “musketeers.” A rather flattering image assuming Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg — the three men in question — are not offended by […]
Weighing collateral damage in the wake of Oxfam prostitution scandal.
The negotiations and the complex, chaotic debates around Brexit are revealing of a major dilemma facing democracies: What do you do when a country is profoundly divided?
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Psychedelic King Arthur
Glastonbury Abbey, in southern England, is held by some as King Arthur’s final resting place — the mythical Avalon. When I photographed his fabled tomb, I was experimenting with a different brand of film that, as the decades went by, turned the green grass a strange tinge of blue and the red sign pink.
The Bitcoin rate spike, still alive despite bitter divisions in the community that supports the cryptocurrency, has laid bare the biggest problem with Bitcoin: Compared with fiat currencies, it’s painfully inconvenient and expensive to use as a means of payment. Bitcoin is set up to reward users for verifying transactions. Miners who package transactions into “blocks’ receive two kinds of rewards: The additional Bitcoin they produce by using their hardware to solve mathematical problems (an income stream that will eventually cease since 21 million bitcoins are the maximum that can be mined) and the transaction fees paid by users to […]
After half a century of failed endeavors by the United States to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, maybe it’s time to send that geopolitical hot potato back to the British. It has been 100 years since Britain first declared its support for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people.” The Nov. 2, 1917 Balfour Declaration was part of a British plan at the time to gain a mandate over Ottoman-controlled Palestine. Then, less than 10% of the territory’s population was Jewish; today there is a Jewish majority in Israel and the Palestinians are still seeking […]
For several years, the south of England has started to fill with Champagne vines. Faced with global warming, French wine-growers are choosing to diversify their production sites.
Millions of British citizens don’t want to give up being European.
-Analysis- When the song came across my favorite German radio station this morning, my eyes rolled with the familiar lyrics: “Your candle burned out long before your legend ever will.” Still, with today’s 20-year anniversary of the death of Lady Di, Elton John’s prediction is holding up strong. Princess Diana’s “death by media” was a […]
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Costume Curiosity
As the conductor of a traditional French choir, I was invited several times to the international music festival in Llangollen, in Wales, where I got to see costumes from around the world. Here, a singer from my choir studies a woman in a rural Welsh costume that includes an apron and a tall felt hat.
-OpEd- Can you be a Christian and a politician? I’m not talking about a fundamentalist who would seek to apply Biblical precepts across all of society. I’m talking about a “moderate” Christian, one who knows how to distinguish between the moral principles that rule his life and the secular values that rule the life of […]
Ever wondered what’s the French for “Slytherin”? Or how Harry Potter”s voice sound in Hindi, or Hebrew? To celebrate 20 years since the J.K. Rowling’s first installment of the series hit our bookshelves, Worldcrunch has conjured up a video that speaks to Potterheads all around the world! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/EsTAF0QcFHw expand=1]
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Harry Potter V. The Internet
“The boy who lived” turns 20 years old today. Harry Potter, the turn-of-the-century literary sensation, topped bestseller lists and broke box office records across the globe, featuring seven book installments and their eight celluloid versions, and redefining the fantasy genre for a generation. Readers in some 68 languages — including Ancient Greek, Latin, and Urdu […]
PARIS — Donald Tusk had a dream: The United Kingdom was staying in the European Union — For him, this vision isn’t just a pure imaginary digression. The European Council president even appealed to the words of one of Britain’s most famous voices, quoting John Lennon’s “Imagine“: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m […]
You don’t need a brain like Jeff Bezos to figure out why he began selling books online and not cars. Books are a cheap and easily-shipped commodity product. By contrast, people rarely buy a car without driving it first, while vehicles are bulky and customization options abound. There’s more: new cars are typically bought on credit. Manufacturers and dealers tend to have tight-knit relationships, and in the U.S. there are pesky laws protecting dealers (as Tesla has discovered). U.K. CAR MARKET 90 billion pounds Still, besides a few exceptions — bullets and cigarettes — Amazon.com Inc is getting closer to […]