Worldcrunch
PARIS — Jihadism in Europe seems to always be one step ahead of European security services, which despite enhanced cooperation remain fundamentally national operations. Paradoxically, terrorism is unifying Europe with a sense of common identity in the face of the attacks in Paris and Brussels, which seem as if they could have just as well […]
The Brussels attacks are a reap-what-you-sow moment for Europe, after biding its time and coddling its dangerous allies for too long.
In Brussels, the jihadists have again shown they have a plan, which extends from the Middle East to the heart of Europe. The West must urgently get one of its own.
-Editorial- PARIS — This time, it’s Brussels, the heart of Europe, that was hit by Islamist terrorists. They targeted this free city, where humor, impertinence, a Belgian way of not taking yourself too seriously, is the opposite of what these barbarians have in mind: cheap certainties, hatred towards others, the violence of the “pure.” The […]
Most of the world’s front pages Wednesday are dedicated to the terrorist attacks in Brussels, the day after a series of explosions attacks killed at least 34 and wounded hundreds. BELGIUM “The day everyone feared” — De Standaard “Right in our heart” — De Tijd “Our darkest day” — Het Belang Van Limburg “Hold strong” […]
Coming four months after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, the series of explosions Tuesday in Brussels show that terrorist networks in Europe are one step ahead of authorities, who struggle with the Schengen border loopholes and collaboration between nationa
PARIS — This is a new kind of police investigation. It is a terrorist affair that touches the edges of childhood, psychological manipulation and social discontent. The protagonists of this story are a group of girls torn between their teenage troubles and the traps of a tormented time. Aged between 14 and 19, they come […]
LUNEL — Tac trimmed his beard and cut his hair short. He also stopped wearing his long prayer shirt. After the Paris attacks in November, he thought, the police were bound to come looking for him. Even his family had gotten into the habit of calling him “Daesh” (acronym for ISIS) as a joke about […]
Maya and Mehdi were seriously injured at Le Carillon café during the Paris attacks. Three of their friends (including Maya’s husband) were killed in front of them. Three months later, moving on is almost impossible.
German behavioral scientist Johannes Siebert is on a Pentagon team researching the motives of ISIS followers. Not all are driven by religion, and some even see themselves as humanitarians.
With six European Union countries instituting new border controls, the end of three decades of free movement comes with a heavy price.
Researchers across the globe are trying to understand what drives the sense of martyrdom to which terrorists aspire. Complicating the explanations is the fact that these killers have a wide range of psychological profiles.
Since the Jan. 7, 2015 killings, many humorists have been struggling to tackle the question of Islamic terrorism, security and freedom of speech. Most are undeterred.
On Jan. 7, 2015, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi gunned down most of the Charlie Hebdo staff. It should have been a wakeup call that the number of radicalized Muslims in France is increasing at an alarming rate.
Since the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris, reams of new government safety measures and orders have been issued to schools, where teachers say the atmosphere is tense and their responsibilities overwhelming.
Hey Donald Trump, Hugo Chavez Would Be So Proud CHILE / America Economia, Aug. 25 Jihadism As Nihilism, An X-Ray Of Homegrown Terror In France FRANCE / Le Monde, Dec. 3 The Siberian Fasting Cleanse For Body And Mind RUSSIA / Le Temps, Aug. 17 El Chapo Escape, When Income Inequality Breeds Corruption MEXICO / […]
PARIS — Our fair-minded but ever subjective staff of journalists, translators and editors have chosen what we believe to be the year’s most engaging and provocative stories. Why The Chinese Are So Good, But Rarely Great CHINA / Caixin, Jan .5 That Slippery Euphemism We Call “Cultural Differences” FRANCE / Worldcrunch, Jan. 15 Artificial Intelligence […]
Heaps of flowers, candles and other memorials to the Paris attack victims still remain on sidewalks and in front of businesses where tragedy struck Nov. 13. Locals understand the desire to pay homage, but say limits are needed on visible reminders of the
PARIS — Two nights ago, there were sounds outside our apartment window that I was convinced were gunfire. It was 9 p.m., and my husband was 30 minutes late getting home. I sent a breathless text message right away, imagining him on the sidewalk with bullet holes through his chest. He was on the Metro. […]
-Analysis- France is at war! Perhaps. But at war against whom, or what? The Islamic State (ISIS) isn’t sending Syrians to commit attacks in France in order to dissuade the French government from bombing it. ISIS instead is tapping into a pool of young radicalized French who, whatever happens in the Middle East, are already […]
Inside the de-radicalization program that began last year in France to undo the indoctrination that pushed young Muslims toward extremism.
PARIS — Colonel Eric de Lapresle had never seen anything like it. Since this month’s Paris and Saint-Denis terrorist attacks, the French Armed Forces recruitment services have received some 1,500 requests for information per day. That’s three times more than before Nov. 13, says de Lapresle, the head of marketing and communication for French military […]
Research suggests that sustained terror attacks over time deal a crippling blow to economies, but a single act of appalling violence, like the Nov. 13 attacks in France, may have fewer lasting effects than one might think.
The killers and victims of the Paris violence are part of the same demographic, though they share different realities. Authorities haven’t heard the angst, but rap has been telling us for years how little the two groups share.
LONDON — What’s a politician most afraid of? British Premier Harold Macmillan’s famous answer to the journalist’s question is more relevant than ever: “Events, dear boy, events.” If you add the Paris death toll to the number of victims who died after ISIS bombed a Russian plane over the Sinai, that’s 353. And the previous […]
Bewildering technology and savage capitalism fuels desperation and hatred against the West. War was declared a long time ago, and the underdeveloped world are the primary victims.
NEW YORK — French President Francois Hollande pledged a “pitiless” war on ISIS after Friday’s Paris massacre. Russian President Vladimir Putin says his nation is focused on “finding and punishing the perpetrators” who downed a Russian passenger jet over Egypt. U.S. President Barack Obama says the goal is to “degrade and ultimately destroy this barbaric terrorist organization.” How? That’s the question none of these men seems willing to answer. Here’s one idea that, while not optimal militarily, might hedge the political risk: Form a broad alliance, akin to the one that pushed Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991, […]
In the wake of wanton terror, psychology replaces practically everything, from social life to and information. Emotion is now political — and strategic.
-Analysis- PARIS — The Nov. 13 attacks that saw jihadists slaughter at least 129 people in Paris raise two crucial questions: Who ordered these attacks? And who carried them out? The answer to the first is ISIS, the so-called Islamic State that spreads terror, slaughters Muslims and non-Muslims, destroys treasured monuments inherited from centuries and […]
PARIS — One week after the Paris terrorist attacks that killed at least 129, here are some of the magazine covers from France and other countries around the world: FRANCE “How to defeat ISIS” — L’Obs “Our war” — Le Point “To souls, citizens” A reference to the French national anthem “La Marseillaise“ — Courrier […]
After the attacks in Paris, Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic, asked French entrepreneurs living abroad, sometimes for fiscal reasons, to come back to France.
-OpEd- ANTALYA — Opportunism may be one of the accepted facts of life in foreign policy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. The Turkish government is busy right now trying to make the most of two pieces of the Syrian crisis that have come to the fore: The recent flood of refugees to […]
Dismissed and wooed as so-called millennials, a young French generation supplied both the targets and perpetrators of the Paris attack. Simple answers are nowhere to be found, though maybe this label will stick.
PARIS — France’s intelligence services no longer rule out what not so long ago seemed unthinkable: the emergence on its territory of a “Lebanon-like” terrorism which would see suicide bombs replaced one day by the deadliest of operational modes — truck or car bombings, possibly activated remotely. “We have to accept the reality,” a well-informed […]
There are signs that the reaction to Friday’s massacre may unite the country, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, in a more lasting way than the Charlie Hebdo attacks did in January.
Germany was already clashing over the country’s recent migrant crisis. Now, the nationalist PEGIDA group is playing with fire by using the Islamist terror attack to justify its extremist positions.
French President Francois Hollande has declared that his nation is at war against jihadist terrorism. But how do those words translate into action?
PARIS — As investigators follow possible leads from Syria to Greece and Belgium, Friday’s deadly and meticulously coordinated assault in Paris was no doubt very much a European attack. Governments across the continent are busy taking measures to enhance security against a growing threat of similar coordinated terror assaults. FRANCE French authorities carried out anti-terror […]
WASHINGTON — The 2016 presidential campaign has been peculiarly disconnected from the real world of problems, crises and governing. It took the catastrophe in Paris to narrow the gap — and even a monstrous terrorist attack may not shake the trajectory of a contest that operates within a logic of its own. The inevitable distance between politicking and the business of running a government is especially wide this year because of the strange configuration of the Republican field. Donald Trump and Ben Carson in particular have detached themselves from anything resembling normal politics, and sometimes from reality itself. Moreover, the […]
Paris has been brutally attacked by Islamist terrorists two times in the past 10 months. Will Friday’s attack wind up changing the way the French live their lives?