Worldcrunch
An Argentine couple is accused of keeping their adopted daughter locked up in a garage for seven years, feeding her bread and water, and occasionally food left over by a dog and a monkey that were kept with her. Buenos Aires daily Clarín reports that the couple is expected in court next week to face […]
KAPOOSAR — Pancho Mai is a villager in Kapoosar, located in the Tharpakar district. Today is the festival of Holi, but the 25-year-old mother is deep in mourning. Over the past three months, her three children have died. “They had fever for a few days, and then pneumonia killed each one of them,” she says numbly. Her mother-in-law, Kaplana Mai, had rushed the children to the only government hospital in the district. But it was too late. They died within days. This is not an isolated case. According to independent statistics reported by the local media, some 200 children, mostly […]
As the West wastes time with endless discussions and threats of sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to gain ground in Ukraine.
The news in numbers from gold teeth to a record-breaking Stradivarius to Beckett’s “lost” story.
After pleas for help on social media to defend pro-Russians across the border, soldiers and would-be soldiers have left Russia to travel to Eastern Ukraine. On the ground in Donetsk.
TEL AVIV — The collapse of Middle East peace talks is making headlines around the world and, of course, here in Israel as well. It is possible that the renewed negotations that began a few months ago are now taking a temporary break, or might even halt completely for an undetermined period of time. And […]
As the risk of war hovers over the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, one local explains why he looks to Moscow rather than Kiev.
History says a hegemonic power and a rising power may be inevitably bound for war. What both Washington and Beijing can do to avoid that.
The International Monetary Fund could be crucial providing aid in Ukraine and elsewhere, but much is on hold as the U.S. Congress blocks much needed IMF reforms.
TORA — It’s 10 a.m. and the contours of Tora Prison, south of Cairo, are filling with families arriving on time to visit relatives. Old Peugeot 504s are offloading passengers whose faces are marked by the fatigue of the trip. The scene feels like an invisible face of Cairo. Vendors selling oranges and mandarins are part of the prison economy, with families stopping and buying some on their way into the prison complex. A girl who looks about 10 years old is carrying a colossal tray of kanafeh pastries on her head. Her little brother is carrying a bag of […]
What’s the price of improved working conditions? Will the global clothing brands just pack up and go to the next cheap source of labor? Hard questions on site in Dhaka.
TEL AVIV — Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah made an official visit to Indonesia last month. While a number of economic agreements were signed on the visit, one stood out for its huge tourism potential. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has an increasing number of would-be pilgrims interested in traveling to Palestine’s religious sites. […]
As Hillary Clinton took to the stage for a speech Thursday night in Las Vegas, a woman threw a shoe at the former Secretary of State. It whizzed just past Clinton, who quippied afterward: “Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.” A spokesperson for the recycling institute, to whom Clinton was speaking, said […]
-Commentary- WARSAW — It did not end with Crimea, but then again, nobody thought it would. In the face of further Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, the European Union and the United States should no longer consider financial and political support for the Ukrainian government an option. It’s now a necessity. NATO, on the other […]
BOGOTA — Colombia’s National University is working on recycling used banknotes, by processing them into an absorbent material that cleans water and air of pollutants, El Espectador reports. Some 169 million banknotes in Colombia are replaced every year. And the University’s chemical engineering department found that shredding them creates “activated carbon,” a crystalline substance able […]
Embargo? Ha! The North Korean leader relies on an entire black-market system dedicated to getting around UN sanctions so he can enjoy the best the West has to sell.
KIGALI — The shocking thought is said out loud, and repeated. “I can only be relieved when I kill my father.” The 19-year-old who calls himself DG seethes with rage when talking about his father. “He’s a coward, a torturer who doesn’t deserve anything but death,” he insists. The truth about his conception, birth and […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had high hopes of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together, but fell into the same traps as other would-be saviors of the Middle East of the past.
It happens intermittently in Latin American countries. Residents exasperated with rampant criminality, police ineptitude and impunity decide to give criminals the lesson of their lives — or the last lesson of their lives. This practice associated more with rural Central America or Mexico is rearing its ugly head in Argentina, where rising crime has been […]
BARRANQUILLA — A four-year-old boy died this week in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla after he was run over by a taxi, which was being driven by a 12-year-old. The victim had been in intensive care for several days before being pronounced dead on April 5, Colombia’s El Espectador reports, citing local newspapers. The […]
The two Nordic countries, one of which shares a long border with Russia, have so far been carefully neutral as Moscow flexes its muscles. Could NATO membership be the answer?
ISTANBUL — “I was 13,” said Nezihe. “He had been following me on my way to school and back. One day, he forced me into his car while I was leaving school and kidnapped me. He was somebody I had never seen before. They had made a deal with my family that very evening. A […]
Photographs that have caught our eye and captured events.
MOSCOW — During a recent meeting with a who’s-who of Russian retailers and grocery chains, Moscow’s regional investment minister was talking wine. The idea is simple: to urge such companies to promote Crimean wine as a way to boost the economy of Russia’s newest region. Such measures are necessary because Ukraine has blocked Crimean wines […]
Even as diplomats look to push the peace process, a movement of ultraorthodox Jews is demanding the right to pray at the Temple Mount, home to the Dome of the Rock.
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Brazil’s military rule, which began 50 years ago with the coup on April 1, 1964, and lasted until 1985, has since been the target of well-deserved and widely-shared aversion. The solid establishment of a modern democracy over the last three decades helped shine a light on all that was wrong with […]
A French reporter is the first Western journalist to get inside the village of Lukqun where in June 2013, 27 people were killed under unclear circumstances before access was shut off.
MILOVE — This town located 900 kilometers from Kiev and Moscow is unwittingly embroiled in the bitter, and at times deadly, dispute between Russia and Ukraine. The border separating the two countries divides the town of Milove in half, and Ukrainian residents in this poor region vitally need to trade with the richer Russia to […]
Turkey’s Prime Minister warns his enemies, Condi Rice warns her friends, Rob Ford rides again, and other notable quotes in the news.
BERLIN — “You’re the ones who created this mess I’m in…” Mohammad points his finger at me, and doesn’t even want to tell me his real first name: “Call me Mohammad, we are all the same to you racist Italians anyway.” His age, though, he does tell me: He’s 47, but looks a bit younger […]
BEIJING — Since Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, two dozen nations have joined in the search and demonstrated a true spirit of international cooperation. But absent the timely release of information by certain countries — because of profound fear of compromising national security data — cooperating countries haven’t been able to wholly […]
ROME — A prominent Turkish journalist said she has been fired as payback for her Italian husband’s recent interview in La Repubblica with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s arch nemesis, Fethullah Gülen. In an interview published Thursday in La Repubblica, where her Italian husband Marco Ansaldo is a veteran correspondent, Yasemin Taskin confirmed that she […]
CAIRO — The Egyptian military, with its recently announced Complete Cure device, is hardly the first to claim unproven cures for diseases that have ravaged millions of lives. Since the discovery of HIV/AIDS, false claims of cures have been advertised and often endorsed by governments all over the world — especially in Africa, the continent […]
The Maidan protests were driven by public disgust with corruption, more than picking sides between the EU and Russia. But ousting Viktor Yanukovych has not ended the dirty business woven into the fabric of Ukrainian life.
BEIJING – There was an interesting Chinese twist to last week’s ruling by an Egyptian court to sentence 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death. While the decision was widely condemned in the West, it has also drawn criticism from an unusual source: China’s state-backed media. Xinhua News English edition featured a story entitled […]
One year after rising to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping shows no signs of turning back on major reforms…or sweeping purges.
Bracing itself for an influx of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Russia has indicated an easy path to citizenship. But skeptics note Moscow’s notoriously tough migration policies.
Could landlocked Switzerland finally get some coastline? There is a movement afoot pushing Swiss annexation of the Italian island of Sardinia.
ISTANBUL — The current state of Turkey offers little cause for comfort. • The claims of corruption and theft multiply with each passing day. • Those same claims are about to be swept under the rug. • The judiciary is effectively finished. • Limitation of basic freedoms is on the rise. • Authoritarianism is alive […]