Worldcrunch
TROMSO — Officials in China, now the second-largest economy in the world and a major global emitter of greenhouse gasses, now acknowledge that the country is important in the fight against global warming. It and many other Asian nations such as Singapore are also voicing greater concern about environmental changes in the Arctic region, changes […]
-OpEd- MUNICH — Talk to a Greek person about the difficult situation their country faces and you’re likely to hear some pretty astounding things. Some argue, for example, that the financial collapse came at the right moment, that without it Greece wouldn’t have been pressured into the reforms needed to halt its downward spiral. But […]
In Hebron, military intelligence recently broke up what it claims was an ISIS cell. Some say there’s real cause for concern. Others see the crackdown as a convenient way to justify Israel’s occupation of the area.
Syria’s tangled web grows even more intricate. Hezbollah is key to Assad’s strategy, moderate rebels avoid ISIS and al-Nusra at all cost, and Israel helps the Free Syrian Army.
CAIRO — Much has been made about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cairo. There has been speculation since the 2013 coup that Egypt’s ruler Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been contemplating a shift in alliances toward Russia. This has been in response to the popular belief in Egypt, propagated by the regime and its media […]
For years Beijing has said it’s working to provide safe drinking water to people in the countryside, but experts say the goal is far from being realized.
While Ukraine combat continues despite peace efforts, the Donbass region’s famously rugged coal miners have divided their loyalties: some keep working on Kiev’s behalf, others fleeing to the pro-Russian rebels.
If urban traffic jams and bustling restaurants are symptom of prosperity, long lines outside shops indicate a distorted, depressed economy. This is the current face of Venezuela’s capital.
-OpEd- TURIN — Geography is inexorable: Italy can never be isolated from Libya, which is just 300 miles from the coast of Sicily. Still, the Italian public tends to be isolated from the rest of the world. The government knows both these truths. Unlike any other European or Western country, Italy kept its Libyan embassy […]
The latest deadly anti-Semitic terror attack happened to come in a city that once heroically saved most of its Jewish citizens from the Nazis. What’s the lesson for today?
The Cairo regime is facing criticism after the ISIS beheading in Libya of 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt. Too many poor Egyptians risk it all in search of work across the border.
COPENHAGEN — Niels Ivar Larson, a Danish journalist and one of the organizers of last Saturday night’s debate on Islam and free speech at the Krudttønden cafe, says he’s in shock that a terrorist attacked the event and subsequently a synagogue, killing two and injuring five police officers. “Despite having received threats, Denmark has never […]
A group calling itself “Defenders of Jerusalem” is throwing its lot in with ISIS, making the battle between Cairo and Islamists ever more since the army ousted the Muslim Brotherhood.
From Greece and Spain, to Brazil and beyond, people are no longer convinced that politics is working for the greater good.
PESHAWAR — Schools in Peshawar now look like police stations, equipped with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and snipers after the Taliban’s December assault on a school that killed 132 students. Officials told schools to be prepared for other attacks, and in an extraordinary measure, the Khyber Pakhtunkua government is allowing teachers to keep guns at school. The local police are also now training female teachers in how to use guns. Ashraf Khan teaches in a primary school not far from the army public school that the Taliban attacked in December. The first thing he does in the morning when he […]
Some Nigerians have lost hope that the state military can stem the Islamist insurgency. This group of vigilantes has stepped in, relying on ‘speical powers’ to help see the enemy.
Moscow sees huge new business opportunity in northern shipping routes. But figuring out the best ways to travel via the Arctic is a massive, and chilly, undertaking.
The way ISIS shocks us with its evil prompts fantasies of retaliation. How can we make these thoughts subside? What does it take not to lose our own civilization? Confessions of a monster.
Turns in the war in Syria, as well as shifting resources and alliances across the Muslim world, mean tensions are easing between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah.
Yes, an open mind in Europe is necessary, but debt reduction isn’t even in the Greeks’ own interest. It’s time to change the way Greece works.
Once a backer of the Free Syrian Army, a harsh reality caught up with this father of three near Aleppo.
Australian colleague Peter Greste has been deported, and Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy is expected to be released to Canada. But Baher Mohamed, the third Al Jazeera prisoner, is being treated differently for what appears to be a very simple reason.
Governments in Latin America and Africa are scrambling to build so-called “stategic trading partnerships” with China. But is it really a win-win situaiton?
From the capital to the native village of the pilot who was burned alive by ISIS, Jordanians of all tribes and places may mark the first major national Arab movement against the jihadist group.
Though the Pakistan Taliban was responsible for the murders of 130 students in Peshawar, the local government believes some of the country’s longtime Afghan refugees harbor terrorists. Deportation and confinements have begun.
In Chad, savage accounts from the first wave of refugees after reported massacres in Nigeria. Meanwhile, forces Wednesday have begun to step up the military response to Boko Haram.
Novelist and Nobel laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio welcomed the resolve of millions of his fellow Frenchmen uniting against terrorism. But he’s ready to ask the uncomfortable questions.
BRASILIA — Not so many months ago, pollsters were saying she’d be Brazil’s next president. But now, three months after failing to make it to even the second round of the election, former Sen. Marina Silva is nowhere to be seen. The once high-flying candidate seems to have lost more than just a presidential race. […]
Deadly attacks in Tripoli are prompting fears that ISIS is spreading north and west. Others however warn of the spectre of a “counter-revolution” of Gaddafi nostalgics similar to what’s happened in Egypt.
Though many voters believed they were electing a pro-human rights president, Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, has demonstrated no mercy in executions, even for drug trafficking.
Editor’s Note: Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who was imprisoned in Cairo for 400 days with two of his colleagues, has been released by Egyptian authorities. The two other Al Jazeera journalists — Baher Mohamed, a producer, and the channel’s Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy — still remain imprisoned in Egypt. The three journalists were […]
Political drama may have once served Argentine President Kirchner, but now national debt, corruption and the suspicious death of a prosecutor are turning the people against her.
PARIS — What first attracted Linda B. to her partner was his bad-boy side. He was, like her, from the French West Indies and was serving a prison sentence for repeated robberies and jailbreaks. When he converted to Islam while in prison, she started doing some research and bought “books to learn about and understand […]
After the Greek election of radical leftists and the European Central Bank’s new liquidity, Europe is still where the rest of the world looks to understand themselves. History has so much to say.
BOGOTA — The significance of Uber goes well beyond its specific function, which is to connect willing drivers with people who need to move around in a safe, comfortable and punctual manner. The deeper message of the controversial digital application — and others like it — is in the changing way labor and service markets […]
After the Soviet collapse, Russia and Ukraine split what was left of the Red Army. Now an open war between the two is becoming increasingly likely in a bitter twist of history.
A German take on new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who looks ready to peddle his sense of alienation beyond Greece’s borders? If so, Europe itself is at risk.
The anti-corruption activist, under house arrest in Moscow, says that Putin is pursuing war in Ukraine to consolidate his power and fulfill his ambition to be Russia’s “president for life.”
Pure necessity could turn Alexis Tsipras Greece’s liberal prime minister-elect, into an unexpected reformer willing to go against client politics.
Despite lacking basic amenities, residents of a small Syrian village persist in their quest for education. But to keep the children warm in shelled-out buildings, they must bring wood to school.