It was Paris in the late 1950s, and Jean-Claude Silbermann knew where the Surrealists met every evening from 5 to 6 p.m. He waited outside Le Musset, a cafe between the Palais Royal and the Louvre, until André Breton — the writer and poet who led the fluctuating, anarchic group — emerged with about 15…
French prosecutors said on Monday that the police had arrested seven people over the weekend in connection with the kidnapping of the father of a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, adding that the captive had been freed. In a statement, the Paris prosecutor’s office said it had been informed on Thursday that a man had been kidnapped in…
When more than a million refugees and economic migrants poured into Europe a decade ago, Pope Francis urged compassion and, in a display of empathy and support, washed the feet of 12 asylum seekers at an Italian reception center. Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Hungarian archbishop considered a contender to succeed Francis, took a different approach:…
India and Pakistan are on the precipice of a possible military confrontation, nearly two weeks after a deadly terrorist attack on the Indian-controlled side of the troubled Kashmir region set off aggressive statements between the archrival nations. India has suggested that Pakistan was connected to the April 22 attack that killed 26 people, a claim…
The police in Brazil said on Sunday that they had foiled a plot to detonate explosives at a Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro, an event that, by some estimates, drew more than two million people. Rio de Janeiro’s civil police made the announcement a day after Lady Gaga’s free concert on Copacabana Beach….
Trump’s effect on global elections President Trump has been back in power for less than four months, but already his policies, like imposing tariffs and upending alliances, have rippled into domestic political battles around the world. In major votes in Canada and Australia over the past two weeks, the center-left incumbents surged ahead of conservative…
Until recently, Pakistan’s most powerful man preferred to stay behind the scenes, tightly controlling his public profile and limiting his pronouncements mostly to choreographed addresses at set-piece military events. But after the deadly terrorist attack nearly two weeks ago in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, has stepped to…
A restless crowd of people under a blazing morning sun pressed up to an immigration official in a remote corner of Mexico, each person begging to get on a flight out. They were not trying to get to the United States, as many of them had hoped to not long ago. Now they were trying…
There are so many unfamiliar faces, cardinals are wearing name tags. The Vatican guesthouse for out-of-towners coming to choose the next pope is overbooked. Daily Vatican meetings have taken on the feel of theological speed-dating sessions. “The cardinals don’t know each other so well,” said Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Sweden, who has spent recent days…
George Simion, a right-wing nationalist who has promised to “Make Romania Great Again,” won the first round of his country’s presidential election on Sunday, bucking the recent trend of voters punishing candidates seen as friendly to President Trump. With more than 98 percent of the votes cast inside Romania counted, Mr. Simion was far ahead…
