Activity at European businesses hit a near three-year low in May and the euro dropped sharply to $1.2515, its lowest level since July 2010.
Month: May 2012
From Tokyo, Japan to Esslingen, Germany, researchers are coming up with ways to make robots more intelligent, autonomous and even sensitive. One test bot knows how to make popcorn – without burning the kernels. Another is being designed to keep senior cit
Ahmed Shafik’s giant posters are all over Cairo as Egypt goes to the polls to pick a new president. Well-financed, this candidate was once a minister for deposed President Hosni Mubarak. He famously offered to pay Tahrir Square demonstrators in c
A new report found that Italy suffers an acute shortage of young people in positions in power. The first place to look is inside the ruling cabinet of (69-year-old) Prime Minister Mario Monti.
ÉCRANS, RTL (France) PARIS – Four French anti-racism organizations have sued Google for its automatic suggestion function that prompts search requests to see if certain public figures are Jewish, French website Écrans reports. The Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), SOS Racism and two other groups said the search engine corporation’s “auto-suggestion” tool was breaching […]
In Burundi, birthdays, baptisms and burial ceremonies tend to be marked with big family gatherings. Guests are expected to help out by offering, for example, a case of beer. For families with modest incomes, the price of so much partying is often untenabl
LA TERCERA (Chile) SANTIAGO – Emergency workers in Chile have pulled off another daring mine rescue, lifting two men to safety early Wednesday morning from a partially collapsed coal pit in the town of Colonel. The rescue comes nearly two years after the world was captivated by the drama of Chile’s “los 33,” a group […]
JAPAN TIMES (Japan) TOKYO – While some might have been worrying about earthquakes, the world’s largest tower has opened safely in the Japanese capital. Still, the first day was not all stable at the structure, dubbed Tokyo Skytree, as high winds forced two elevators to shut down around 6 p.m., stranding visitors in the No. […]
AL ARABIYA (Dubai) In the first such step of its kind, the Syrian Army has agreed to a prisoner exchange with the opposition forces of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Syrian government forces freed two arrested men from Syrian prisons in exchange for the remnants of a destroyed tank in the town of Khan Sheikhoun […]
LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) ROME – Doctors of the Bambino Gesù Hospital announced that they have successfully transplanted what is believed to be the lightest-ever artificial heart, La Repubblica reports. The titanium heart, weighing 11 grams (0.39 ounces), was transplanted in a 16-month baby last month. The average adult heart weighs 300 grams.H The baby is […]
Officials of six world powers –the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China– begin a fresh round of talks with Iran amid hopes of progress toward a deal on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
Egyptians are voting in their first free presidential election, a historic achievement for those who worked to topple longtime leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago.
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) CANNES – Alongside all the beauty on display, the 2012 Cannes film festival is also revealing an ugly side: first, reports of sea dumping off the scenic French coastline, then the notable lack of women directors, and now anger growing about celebrities demanding payment for press interviews. Canadian motion picture production […]
A U.S. drone fires two missiles at a compound in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants in an attack that comes as Washington is running out of patience with Islamabad’s refusal to reopen supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan
A series of drownings in the Garonne river has traumatized the French city of Bordeaux. First believed to be the work of a “serial pusher,” it has become clear that the cause of this spate of accidental deaths is binge drinking.
Op-Ed: Elections can be both democratic in appearance, and anti-revolutionary in substance. Egypt’s post-Mubarak presidential election does mark a moment of transition, though it is likely to be followed by a not-so-subtle return to the past.
Researchers in the northern state of Pará want to use the Internet to track the thousands of plant and animal species in the Brazilian rain forest. It’s part of an even more ambitious global project.
In the small French-Swiss border town of Viry, a new “ecodistrict” is being built from scratch. With environmentally friendly homes, the town is aiming to attract a rich population from neighboring Geneva – to the detriment of locals, wh
The Turkish Parliament is weighing whether to revise a clause in its Workplace Safety Law that could lead to the dismissal of employees who attend work after having consumed alcohol.
The conflict in Syria has already cost some 10,000 people their lives, according to U.N. estimates. Rebel fighters must rely on outside help to combat the Assad regime, which means money from Gulf states and fighters with jihadist objectives.
EL COMERCIO (Ecuador) QUITO – Why will there never be a coup d”état in the United States? “Because it doesn’t have an American embassy,” Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told Wikileak’s founder Julian Assange in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Russia Today. The left-wing leader credited the joke to his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales. “I really […]
EUROPE 1 (France) PARIS – Sport can been a good way to escape the grind of prison life. Last week, that was quite literally the case for one inmate in France who used a basketball game to make his getaway. But what made last Friday’s daring escape all the more galling for authorities was that […]
Private company Space X successfully launched its unmanned Falcon 9 rocket into space early Tuesday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, U.S.A. Though not quite Apollo 11, it is space flight history. Here’s what you should know. 1. SpaceX is the first private company to successfully launch a vessel to the […]
American artist Jeff Koons wows again in a new exhibit at the Beyeler Foundation outside Basel, Switzerland. Divided into three parts – the new, banality and celebration – the show is unapologetically trite but wholly seductive.
“Straighten up…!” Philips has developed a computer that advises its users on how they are sitting in front of the screen. It will also tell you when it’s time to take a break.
Russian President Vladimir Putin names seven former cabinet ministers as aides, in a move expected to weaken Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s new government and shift power to the Kremlin.
An unmanned rocket owned by privately held Space Exploration Technologies blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a mission designed to be the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.
A Malaysian court has charged opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and two of his allies with breaking various laws during a massive street rally to demand electoral fairness last month.
AL JAZEERA (Qatar) KABUL/KRASNOKAMENSK – When asked if he thought Vladimir Putin might change now that he’s returned to the Kremlin, jailed former Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky replies: “No.” But he also offers a caveat. Commenting just two weeks after Putin was sworn in for a third presidential term (after an interim as Prime Minister), […]
Op-Ed: The trial of accused corrupt businessman Lai, who’d been extradited from Canada, leaves some in China more than a bit unsatisfied — life sentence notwithstanding.
YANGCHENG EVENING NEWS (China) GUANGZHOU – Eleven anonymous multi-millionaire Chinese entrepreneurs, all multi-millionaires, have posted ads in ten cities in a new public search for wives. The chance to marry one of the men, each with a net worth of at least 100 million RMB ($15 million), found no shortage of eager applicants, reports the […]
Department stores executives are realizing that only a smart digital strategy can guarantee a future for them. The necessity of ‘omni-channel’ retailing progressively became obvious for these city-center venerable institutions.
L’ORIENT LE JOUR (Lebanon) BEIRUT – “Bring Candles & Lebanese Flags only..” pleads the message on Facebook. A group of young Lebanese activists have organized a meeting Monday night on Martyrs Square, in Beirut, under the slogan “Say no to War… we want Peace in Lebanon.” Sunday, two anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim clerics were killed at […]
Compared to some other natural disasters in recent years, the death toll of seven may pale in comparison. But then we hear the individual tales of the earthquake that struck northern Italy, and the sorrow quickly mounts. Here are their stories.
Categories
France’s Little Soccer Team That Could
L’EQUIPE (France) The small city of Montpellier won the French soccer championship for the first time in its history on Sunday. At the top of many sports in the country, the southern city team beat Auxerre, claiming first place ahead its main competitor: the all-powerful PSG, the top team from Paris. To have an idea […]
On the outskirts of Delhi, Gurgaon is archetypal of the new middle class ghettos sprouting all over the country: a disorganized gated community of luxury condos, shopping malls and golf courses, but that’s missing basic infrastructure and public
LE MONDE (France) LILLE – Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal troubles have taken a troubling new turn. The former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and onetime French presidential hopeful has been cited in a new ‘gang rape” investigation, a prosecutor in the northern French city of Lille announced Monday. The preliminary investigation concerns events that […]
A year and a half after the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood is in many ways enjoying a historical triumph. But in Egypt, where it was born, the movement is challenged by a splintering of political Islam — and by its own political err
The euro zone’s lingering economic woes and ends to buying restrictions are making Turkey suddenly look like the place to be – especially for Western European retirees. Vacation homes go for as little as 130,000 euros. Pool included.
Asian markets recover some ground on value hunting after last week’s heavy losses, but investors remain wary over the euro zone despite world leaders calling for Greece to stay in the monetary union.