ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, NASA (USA) Worldcrunch PASADENA – The NASA Curiosity robotic exploration vehicle successfully landed on Mars early on Monday morning at 5:30 a.m. GMT, a historic event that prompted relief and excitement within the scientific community. The Curiosity rover will spend the next two years looking for traces of life on the red […]
Month: August 2012
Categories
Syria: Monday Morning Wrap-Up
SANA (Syria), AL ARABIYA (UAE) , FARS (Iran) , BBC (UK) Worldcrunch Here are the latest developments on the Syrian conflict: →Syrian state-run TV announced Monday morning that Prime Minister Riad Hijab had been sacked, amid rumors that he has defected to Jordan. #Syria is controlled by security & army apparatus, PM is just a […]
HAARETZ (Israel), BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), ASSOCIATED PRESS (US) Worldcrunch JERUSALEM – Israel says it has found the bodies of eight gunmen who attacked a checkpoint on the border with Egypt on Sunday, killing sixteen Egyptian guards, reports BBC News. The attack was launched at around 8pm on a security checkpoint in the […]
LA NACION (Argentina) CLARIN (Argentina) Worldcrunch BUENOS AIRES – The Argentine capital was at a virtual standstill for a fourth straight day Tuesday as a major subway strike began to take its toll on both people and businesses, La Nacion reports. The strike, which started Friday evening, is expected to continue for at least another […]
Categories
Prudish Vietnam Makes Its Coming Out
About a hundred cyclists streamed the streets of Hanoi on August 5 waving rainbow pennants and yelling “Support gay marriage!” Good Lord! Has prudish Vietnam initiated a sort of ‘social coming out,’ even before turning to democracy? The fact is that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a tightly controlled single-party state still shaped by Confucian […]
LE MONDE (France), LA REPUBBLICA (Italy), THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch PARIS – Do you find yourself cheering like mad for an athlete whose name you just heard for the first time? Are you passionately tuning into sports you never knew you cared about? And though the endless ads and omnipresent sponsors can be a drag, […]
LE TEMPS, APS, THE LOCAL, LE MATIN (Switzerland) Worldcrunch BERN – The Swiss Public Welfare Society (SSUP) has launched a contest to change Switzerland’s national lyrics by August 2015, reports Le Temps. According the newspaper, the association finds the existing lyrics too awkward and outdated — so much so that a majority of Swiss don’t […]
Syria is sinking deeper into civil war as the UN Security Council remains deadlocked. The death toll keeps rising, massacres and torture continue, all under the helpless eyes of the international organization that’s in charge of peacekeeping and human rights. The inaction of the Security Council is largely due to the Russian veto, or threat […]
FOSHAN – As a professional criminal defense lawyer, I have been to detention centers everywhere. They are of course all different, but at a recent first-time meeting with a criminal suspect he was separated from me by frosted glass. Because I had come all the way from Beijing, the pre-trial official of the Public Security […]
REUTERS, RIA NOVOSTI, ROSCOSMOS (Russian Federation) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – Russia’s Proton rocket failed to bring two satellites into orbit after the launch late on Monday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said. Although the launch itself was a success (see video below), the rocket — carrying two multi-million […]
CHINA TIMES (Taiwan) Worldcrunch SHENZHEN – The secret to economic growth? Unmarried women left free to shop, according to one prominent Chinese economist. Jin Yanshi, who has since become the target of outrage and contempt from colleagues and others, recently laid out his theory that “cities where there are more leftover and divorced women should […]
Protests are rising against plans to convert vast tracks of the sprawling Rome movie studios that were at the heart of La Dolce Vita, both in real life and on the big screen.
London 2012 roundup for the week: everything you need to know — and some things you don’t: OK Great Britain. Let’s rock! #olympicceremony #theempirestrikesback — Elizabeth Windsor (@Queen_UK) July 27, 2012 Articles: Welcome To The *Lodnon Oimplycs* Finally A Chance To Shine: Libya’s First Olympics Without Gaddafi Olympic Biz – Why London Is Rolling Out […]
URUGUAIANA – Deportations, detention centers, �coyotes� helping to stow away immigrants in car trunks and boats to try to cross borders undetected. Although it may sound like a scene along the border between the United States and Mexico, this is instead the deep south of Brazil. Uruguaiana, a town in the southern state of Rio […]
Now that scientists have uncovered the elusive Higgs boson particle, it’s time for them to move on to another piece of the puzzle: the mysterious substance that fills one quarter of the universe – dark matter.
LE PARISIEN, L’EQUIPE (France), TELEGRAPH (UK), L.A. TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch LONDON – Just after winning the team gold in the men’s team track sprint, British cyclist Philip Hindes admitted he had deliberately crashed in the heats in order to get a second chance at the race, the Telegraph reported. “We were saying if we have […]
Full statistics aren’t yet available — but even with partial numbers, it is clear that teen pregnancies are on the rise in Burundi. So far this year, 30 students from the Budahunga communal school in the Kirundo province have already been expelled for being pregnant. Ten others from two private schools of Bujumbura have suffered […]
Once an island paradise, Bali is turning into a concrete jungle, threatening its environment, culture, religion, and even language. Can Bali survive tourism, ask the island’s worried inhabitants?
CCTV (China), SIN CHEW DAILY (Malaysia), CHINA TIMES (Taiwan) Worldcrunch BEIJING – A Chinese television reporter looking into accusations that private hospitals were scamming patients with false (and costly) diagnoses applied an unusual undercover trick: he submitted tea as his urine sample. And as it turns out, the CCTV reporter is suffering from quite a […]
EFE, EL COLOMBIANO (Colombia) MEDELLIN – The luxurious “prison” that infamous Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar built for himself and lived in for a year starting in the summer of 1991 is now going to become a home for the poor elderly, EFE reports. The palatial “prison,” called La Catedral, boasted splendid rooms, a gym […]
A new demography study shows that the much ballyhooed rise in the retirement age to 67 simply delays the hard questions about how to finance pensions as Germany’s population ages.
If the Olympics are showing the British all dressed up for public viewing, other activities going on now show the ever pragmatic UK approach to business.
YAHOO! (USA), NEW ZEALAND HERALD (NZ), THE AUSTRALIAN (AUS) LONDON – New Zealand taekwondo athlete Logan Campbell has rejected being labeled “a pimp” after it was known he had financed his dream to take part in the London Olympics by running a brothel. The Kiwi athlete came under fire for opening a 14-room brothel in […]
IL GIORNALE (Italy), WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA) Worldcrunch Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale chose a deeply provocative headline for Friday’s front page: “Quarto Reich” – Fourth Reich, to comment on Germany’s refusal to give the European Central Bank more leeway. Il Giornale is a right-wing newspaper owned by Silvio Berlusconi“s brother Paolo. “Since yesterday, Italy […]
BBC NEWS, THE GUARDIAN (UK), BLOOMBERG (USA) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG –North Korea has requested immediate aid from the United Nations, including food supplies, after being hit by devastating floods last month. The aid also includes fuel and clean water to avoid diseases, as wells have been strongly damaged by the floods. UN officials in Pyongyang said […]
ROMANIA LIBERA, REVISTA 22 (Romania) Worldcrunch BUCHAREST – The political crisis in Romania worsens, threatening the country’s already fragile economy. On Thursday, the Constitutional Court was expected to invalidate the results of July 29’s referendum on the impeachment of President Traian Basescu, Romania. Eighty-eight percent of those who participated in the referendum voted to dismiss […]
BBC (UK), CNN (US), FINANCIAL TIMES (UK) Worldcrunch The UN General Assembly is set to vote on a resolution to increase pressure on the UN Security Council in a bid to resolve the Syrian conflict, reports the BBC. Drafted by Saudi Arabia’s government, who openly support the rebel forces in the country, the resolution condemns […]
24HORAS (Costa Rica), CLARIN (Argentina), CNN EN ESPAÑOL SAN JOSE – Costa Rican Vice-Minister of Youth Karina Bolaños is in hot water after a ‘hot” video of her, lying in bed wearing only lingerie and flirting with the camera began to circulate on the Internet, 24Horas reported. Adding to the controversy, the video was meant […]
KAZAN – Nobody has the exact numbers. The arrests are only talked about when the suspect is someone already well-known in the region. People like Artyom Kalashov, a Russian weightlifting champion, who they first interrogated, then tried to arrest without actually accusing him of the crime. The court blocked the arrest. Then they arrested the […]
MASHABLE (USA), BBC NEWS, DAILY MAIL (UK) Worldcrunch The number of fake accounts on Facebook is roughly the size of Egypt’s population and larger than most of the world’s countries, reports Mashable: 83.09 million. The astonishing figure makes up 8.7% of all Facebook’s 995 million active viewers, says the Daily Mail. According to the London […]
TRIPOLI – There were just five Libyan athletes in the delegation that walked out in London’s Olympic stadium for the Opening Ceremony. After 42 years of dictatorship, they want to “show they’re proud of being Libyan” under their new flag. A white crescent and star centered on a horizontal tricolor of red, black and green […]
BEIJING – Recently, the Chinese newspaper Global Times seems to have become less sensational than it used to be. But the other day, one of their commentary pieces showed they hadn’t lost their ability to shock — It was titled: “A proposal for repealing the appellation of intellectuals.” As expected, within a short time China’s […]
SALON, QUORA, KQ 103, CBS CLEVELAND (USA), HERALD SUN (Australia) Worldcrunch On Monday, writes Salon, Missy Franklin competed in two Olympic races in 15 minutes. She barely had time to get from one pool to the next, let alone make a pit stop along the way. Which made the website wonder: Since toilet trips can […]
Categories
Welcome To The *Lodnon Oimplycs*
LONDON – The telephone at Stephen Holt’s tailoring business hasn’t stopped ringing for days. Photos of his shop-front window in the English town of Surbiton are all over the Internet. Holt wanted to feature the Olympics somehow in his window display, but as a “non-sponsor” of the Games, he was strictly forbidden to do so: […]
LATINOSENLARED, OPINION (Bolivia), FORBES (USA) Worldcrunch Bolivian President Evo Morales has announced the end of Coca Cola in his country starting from December 21 2012, Latinosenlared website reports. The date of the ban is symbolic, explains the South American website, quoting the Bolivian blog Nada nos libre de Escorpio. For the Bolivian government, this infamous […]
REUTERS, AL JAZEERA (Qatar), NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch Barack Obama has authorized covert US support of Syrian rebels in order to oust President Bashar al-Assad, reports Reuters. The secret order, which was allegedly signed earlier this year allows the CIA to offer support and assistance to rebel fighters engaged in conflict, with similar reports […]
BLOOMBERG, BUSINESS INSIDER (USA), LA TRIBUNE (France), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – The European Central Bank (ECB) is holding a meeting today in Frankfurt (Germany) to make a crucial decision on the euro’s future reports French financial newspaper La Tribune. Investors are looking for the European Central Bank President to make good on his […]
SHANGHAI DAILY, RADIO TELEVISION HONG KONG (China), RADIO FREE ASIA (USA) Worldcrunch On Thursday, Chinese courts sentenced 20 people for terrorist and separatist crimes in Xinjang, a resource-rich autonomous region in northwest China, which is home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group. Chinese authorities have stepped up security against the ethnic minority since July. Radio […]
When a marketing ploy blows up in your face: French online tee-shirt retailer Early Flicker has become Anonymous’ new target after trademarking the hacktivist’s logo and slogan.
XINHUA (China), CHINA DAILY (China), BBC NEWS (UK) LONDON – Eight women badminton players from Korea, China, and Indonesia were disqualified from the London Olympics for unsporting conduct on Wednesday. Chinese double players Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli are accused by the Badminton World Federation of deliberately losing a game on Tuesday to get easier […]