In northern Mali, Islamist extremists are on a rampage, destroying Sufi Muslim shrines and historical treasures. In a Timbuktu library, a man has vowed to protect his precious manuscripts from the fundamentalist wrath that has taken over the city.
Month: August 2012
COPENHAGEN – It’s party time in Christiania, a neighborhood of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Hundreds have gathered to listen to Sussie & Leo, a crazy duet that plays old rock and roll hits with a certain touch of self-mockery. “I’m an absolute fan,” says Inge, a fifty-something-year-old woman with blue hair. “This group is part […]
The members of the Russian female punk rock group are on trial for a protest concert in an Orthodox shrine that offended many believers. But now, Church leaders are in a bind of their own as public opinion could sway against them.
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US), FOLHA DE SAO PAULO (Brazil), BBC NEWS (UK), BRASILIA – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has ratified the entry of his country into South American trading bloc Mercosur, a boost to both his reelection chances and the economic influence of the free-trade bloc. Chavez was welcomed to Brazil on Tuesday by […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, THE TIMES OF INDIA (India), AFP (France) Power has been fully restored Wednesday in India after a grid failure left more than 600 million people without electricity for two days. The failure of the northern grid in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) on Monday brought the country’s expansive railway system to a […]
BERLIN – Last week it became clear that, as regards the euro, political Europe has overstepped the limits of its power. The joint statement by France’s President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying that “Germany and France are deeply committed to the integrity of the Eurozone and are determined to do everything to […]
REUTERS, BBC NEWS, AL ARABIYA (Saudi Arabia) Worldcrunch Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned that the conflict between rebels and government forces across Syria will “decide the fate of the nation.” This is a big admission by Assad: “the fate of Syria hinges on this battle”. Likely to be justification for the scale of the […]
NPR, LOS ANGELES TIMES, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE NATION, ABC NEWS (USA) Worldcrunch Gore Vidal, American author and essayist whose prolific career spanned six decades, died Tuesday at age 86, reports NPR. He died at home from complications of pneumonia. “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” RIP Gore Vidal, a great intellectual […]