Worldcrunch
MOSCOW – They say that the most expensive lunch enjoyed by anyone in the world was when the head of Greenlight Capital, David Einhorn, spent ‘only’ $250,100 for the right to dine with Warren Buffet, who he had always admired. Nikolai Taishikhin, who lives in a small town on Russia’ border with Mongolia, didn’t quite […]
TAIPEI – Flags have a particular knack for causing trouble in Taiwan, the de facto sovereign island state, which is nevertheless still lacking full sovereignty and therefore does not have much say in the matter when it comes to showing off its national colors. The Republic of China (the official name of Taiwan) is participating […]
EL PAIS (Spain) Worldcrunch On Tuesday, hundreds of members of the Spanish SAT workers’ union walked out of two supermarkets without paying for the shopping carts they had filled with food. The supermarket raids took place in Andalusia, in southern Spain. “Is this a theft? A symbolic act? An atrocity? An act of violence ?” […]
GOMA – After trying their luck in Europe, a growing number of Congolese immigrants are returning home to Goma in the North Kivu province to start their own businesses. Their accounts of hardships – which offer an alternative view of Europe – discourage those who are thinking of following in their paths. “Life in Europe […]
The athletic potential of a nation relies on several cultural, social, biological, genetic and environmental factors. These are hard to dissociate and their role only partly explain the current Jamaican hegemony. First let me remind you that dignity, tolerance and respect are the best values and must serve here as guidelines. Exposing the correlations between […]
THE KOREAN HERALD, YONHAP (South Korea), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak is visiting the disputed Dokdo islands Friday, in an attempt to reassert the country’s control over the territory which is also claimed by Japan, reports the Korean Herald. The Dokdo islets, or Takeshima as the Japanese call them, are equidistant between […]
NEW ZEALAND HERALD, TV ONE, RADIO NZ NEWS (New Zealand), THE AUSTRALIAN (Australia), ASSOCIATED PRESS (USA) AUCKLAND – A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast of New Zealand, reports the New Zealand Herald. The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week […]
CNN (USA), BBC NEWS (UK), KHAAMA PRESS (Afghanistan) Worldcrunch An Afghan man wearing a military uniform killed three American soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Friday, only a day after U.S. authorities condemned a suicide bombing earlier this week that killed four other Americans. The attack is the latest in a string of ‘green-on-blue’ attacks, where […]
New age limits, coupled with the lowering of minimum age of certain government jobs, has dovetailed with a general celebration of youth in burgeoning China
Recent pictures of Kim Jong-un and his wife attending public events is just one sign that has insiders wondering whether North Korea has started to shift toward a ‘post-totalitarian’ regime.
BERLIN – Normally in Germany, there’s a waiting list procedure for organ transplants. The Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (German Foundation for Organ Transplantation) coordinates the information about available organs from donors, and these organs are then allocated by the Netherlands-based Eurotransplant to seven central European member countries. In Germany, transplants take place at 50 transplant centers […]
LA TRIBUNE (France) JERUSALEM – France has prepared a contingency plan to evacuate its citizens from Israel, La Tribunehas learned. According to diplomatic sources, a plan to evacuate the 200,000 French nationals living in Israel has been drafted to prepare for the enventuality of conflict between Iran and Israel. The objective, says the French financial […]
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France), THE DRUM (UK) Worldcrunch LONDON – To protest against strict adverstising rules imposed by the IOC on everything Olympic-related, reports Le Nouvel Observateur, a British website has launched a “Fauxlympics” advertising campaign. People were invited to send in Fauxlympic adverts in four different categories: The Sprint: Guerrilla ads that would be […]
BUENOS AIRES/ASUNCION – Argentine actress and pop star Moria Casán is still in trouble for supposedly stealing a sapphire and diamond necklace and earring set worth around $85,000. Paraguayan officials have issued an international arrest warrant for Casán, her manager and her assistant. Her lawyers have requested that she be exempt from preventative incarceration, and […]
AL ARABIYA (UAE), REUTERS (UK), BBC (UK) – The Free Syrian Army told Al Arabiya on Thursday that Bashar al-Assad’s chief of protocol had defected, amid an escalation of violence across the country. Muhui al-Din Maslamani is reportedly safe in an undisclosed location in Syria. The rebels are also claiming that more defections in the […]
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (USA), THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch Russian authorities have charged members of an Islamic sect with child abuse after discovering underground cells near Kazan in Tatarstan where a self-proclaimed prophet and his followers kept one to 17-year-olds for nearly a decade without heat or sunlight. The Guardian reports that prosecutors have opened a […]
CNN (USA), BBC NEWS, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Gu Kailai, the wife of recently deposed top official in the Chinese Communist Party Bo Xilai, raised no objections to the prosecution’s charges as the trial ended on Thursday, reports BBC news. A court official told reporters Gu did not contest the charges. The […]
Don’t cry for her, Moria Casán…or the $85,000 diamond and sapphire set
CAIXIN MEDIA, CHINA DAILY (China), CHINA TIMES (Taiwan) Worldcrunch YONGZHOU – Six years ago an 11-year-old girl was raped and forced into prostitution in Yongzhou, Hunan province. It took three months for the victim’s mother to rescue her. After three judgments, the Hunan Provincial Higher People’s Court has given a final verdict on the seven […]
CHINA METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION, CHINA DAILY, XINHUA (China) SHANGHAI – Typhoon Haikui ploughed into China’s eastern coast on Wednesday morning, knocking down buildings, cutting off power, disrupting train and airline services and forcing authorities to relocate millions of people. The winds were at “severe typhoon” strength when Haikui made landfall in the province of Zhejiang, about […]
REUTERS, THE LOCAL (Sweden) Worldcrunch Belarus announced on Wednesday it was pulling all of its remaining embassy staff from Sweden and gave Swedish authorities until August 30 to withdraw their own diplomats from Minsk. The move worsened a disupte about a pro-democracy teddy bear drop over Belarussian territory in July that embarassed authorities and further […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), HAARETZ (Israel), CNN (USA) Worldcrunch CAIRO – Egypt launched air strikes in North Sinai early Wednesday killing twenty suspected terrorists in response to a series of attacks by masked gunmen on military checkpoints, reports CNN. Egyptian army Apache helicopters fired rockets at armed militants near the port town of El Arish. Witnesses […]
TIMES OF SWAZILAND (Swaziland), REUTERS, MAIL & GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT (South Africa), AFP (France) Worldcrunch As weeks of protest culminate in an ongoing teachers strike and public enterprises’ workers threaten to down tools en masse this week, reports the Independent, King Mswati III of Swaziland has launched a three-day “people’s parliament” in an attempt to appease […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – Vladimir Putin, the newly re-elected president of Russia, presents himself as a humble, down to earth man of average means. But rumors about his wealth, and the secrecy surrounding it, have been circulating for years, as far back as his time as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the […]
MOSCOW – The three members of Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band accused of hooliganism for anunauthorized performance in a Moscow cathedral, had their last words in court on Wednesday after a weeklong trial. The verdict will be announced on August 17. For those outside Russia, this whole affair has been a litmus test for […]
LE MONDE, FRANCE TV (France) Cuba’s dreams of winning Olympic gold in the pole vault today were left in shatters – after Lázaro Borges’ pole snapped into pieces. The 26-year-old slammed the pole into the ground when attempting to clear a height of 5.35 meters but ended up awkwardly crashing into the mat when the […]
RAI, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) Worldcrunch It has become an Olympic tradition for an athlete or two or three to test positive for banned substances during or after the Games. Also traditional are the subsequent heartfelt denials, stone-faced defiance and/or mysterious disappearance of said suspected performance-enhanced athlete. This year, however, we have a new response: The […]
RAFAH – Those living in Rafah have military forces responsible for securing the border at their doorsteps. While this should provide extra protection for the locals, on Sunday, it was the locals who struggled to save the soldiers undergoing a brutal attack. The failure to prevent an attack on a military checkpoint, carried out by […]
The Royal family, the English pound and driving on the left, none of these British characteristics seem to be in synch with the rest of the world. However, the British don’t particularly care what others might think. Their traditions have a special meaning for them. They are the most complicated, most contradictory, and most interesting […]
BRASILIA – At first sight, Brasilia is made exclusively of highways. So either the city is hiding below the carefully trimmed grass, or it is just another Latin American myth. Its inhabitants are also invisible. How do they go from one place to another if there are no sidewalks or walkways? Our bus makes another […]
In Iran, the shortage of poultry has become the symbol of the economic “war” imposed on the Iranian regime by the West to pressure the country into abandoning its nuclear program. Since a new round of European and American-led economic sanctions were enforced on July 1, the price of chicken has soared in Iran, rising […]
PHILIPPINE STAR, PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER (The Philippines), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate the Philippine capital Manila due to severe floods. Ten people were killed on Tuesday in a landslide caused by the torrential rain, reports the Philippine Star. Eight members of a family, including a two-month old […]
THE NEW YORK TIMES (USA), THE TELEGRAPH (UK) Worldcrunch A remote controlled bomb killed at least nine people and wounded three others outside of Kabul early Tuesday morning. An improvised explosive device was detonated underneath a bridge as a crowded bus carrying commuting Afghans drove overhead, northwest of the capital city. The suspect was captured […]
NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 3 NEWS (New Zealand), BBC NEWS (UK), WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA) Worldcrunch WELLINGTON – Mount Tongariro erupted late Monday for the first time in nearly a century, reports the New Zealand Herald. Roads were closed, internal flights were disrupted and nearby residents were advised to stay indoors and disconnect water tanks, reports […]
MOSCOW – Proposed legislation in the Russian Duma (Lower House of Parliament) would forbid all public employees, including government ministers, the President and the Duma MPs themselves, from owning any real estate, stocks or bank accounts outside of Russia. In its current form, public employees found to have property or accounts abroad would be removed […]
QIDONG – At 18-years-old, Li Wei does not look like a dissident. She is mostly focused on her studies in accountancy, her friends – with whom she is always in contact – and chatting with her sister. However, none of that stopped the young girl – who has given us a false name because of […]
LAUSANNE – Inevitably, any question on the importance of science in sports brings up the topic of doping. “We tend to focus on the cheaters and not enough on clean athletes,” says Swiss judo champion Sergei Aschwanden, bronze medalist in Beijing. “What message do we want to send to young athletes? That doping is required […]
MARSEILLE – The Old Port, the historic quarter’s main street known as the Canebière, Notre Dame de la Garde church — these are three must-sees for any tourist in Marseille, France. And everybody visits them. But how about the old quarter known as the Panier? Very few venture there. Even many locals take the long […]
THE COURIER MAIL, PERTH NOW, BRISBANE TIMES (Australia) Qantas has confirmed it has stood down a female captain from duties after she was suspected of drinking before a flight from Sydney to Brisbane last week, reports the Courier Mail. According to the Brisbane Times, the incident occurred as the Qantas aircraft was about to depart […]
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) Worldcrunch Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt won gold in the Men’s 100 meter final in the London 2012 Olympics on Sunday, becoming only the second sprinter to win two consecutive 100m Olympic races. LONDRES 2012 – Usain BOLT double champion… par VideosMediaStudio Bolt shot to fame during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and […]