EL PAÍS, VANGUARDIA, CORREO (Spain), GUARDIAN (U.K.), DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch BILBAO – Two Basque independence parties have triumphed in regional elections in northern Spain’s Basque country this weekend, the latest sign of growing separatist sentiment in crisis-plagued Europe. The two parties together took nearly two-thirds of the vote, 48 of the 75 Basque legislative […]
Month: October 2012
AP, BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch BEIRUT – Overnight clashes in Lebanon have killed at least three people in the northern city of Tripoli and left dozens injured, following the funeral of senior intelligence official Wissam al-Hassan. Al Jazeera reports that violence erupted after protesters tried to storm the offices of Lebanese Prime […]
Why it is time for British art to leave its bad boy behind.
MOGADISHU – General Barisse’s men are in the pick-up trucks, one next to the other, holding their weapons, looking around. They do not fidget, a military patience having descended upon them: they simply wait. They have been waiting for food, pay, the enemy’s attack — in this, they also wait for the end of a […]
The Luxemburg-based European Court of Justice ruled this week a product the Czechs call butter is not butter, which means that the beloved spread known as “pomazankove maslo” (“spreadable butter”) can no longer be labeled as such. Non-Czechs would never have called it butter, which it bears no resemblance to – it doesn’t even really […]
LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch A study published this week by two economists for the German Bertelsmann Foundation says that if Greece defaults on its debts and leaves the euro zone, it would cost the world’s major economies 17.8 trillion euros by 2020, and cause a severe worldwide depression, reports French business newspaper Les Echos. Greece’s […]
UMOJA – In a wooden hut in Archer’s Post, a small settlement in Kenya, three men of the Samburu tribe are drinking tea. The eldest is wrapped in a red-and-white checked cloth; the other two wear shirts and jeans. Nothing much going on, so they are happy to talk. Question: Why should only men have […]
PYONGYANG – The austere, angular façade of the Taedongmun movie theater, surmounted by large statues depicting a worker, a soldier and a peasant, gives off an air of power and authority. The date of construction, 1955, is carved into the building, which stands close to Kim Il-sung Square, near the center of the North Korean […]
Categories
Erdogan Raises Stakes With Syria
HURRIYET, MILLIYET, PRESS TURK (Turkey) Worldcrunch ANKARA – Turkey shows increasing signs that it wants to raise the pressure on the neighboring regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A full week after a Syrian passenger plane was forced to land in Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to insist publicly that the jet was […]
CASABLANCA – Cafés are a public space like any other. Theoretically, nothing prevents women from entering one. But too many women still will not frequent certain cafés, which are always occupied almost entirely by men. Obviously, we are not talking about chic cafés in the center of town. When they have the choice, some women […]
IT SECURITY RESEARCH GROUP (Germany), HONEYNET PROJET Worldcrunch A red dot is an attack on a computer, a yellow dot is a “honeypot,” a system set to record incoming cyber attacks. On the bottom of the screen, a box tells you where the attacks are coming from (Friday was mostly Eastern Europe). You are not […]
MONTREAL – She’d been preparing for this day for 30 years. On September 4, Pauline Marois became Quebec’s first Prime Minister, though her victory wasn’t as clear-cut as she’d hoped. As the leader of the Parti Quebecois (PQ), best known for its call for the independence of the French-speaking province, the 63-year-old told constituents during […]
AMBOSELI TRUST FOR ELEPHANTS (Kenya), AAP (Australia) Worldcrunch They say elephants never forget. We humans don’t either. When the Amboseli Trust for Elephants organization in Kenya learned of a baby elephant calf stuck in a 1.5-meter well somewhere on the savannah, there was only one thing to do: Jump in the SUV, hurtle toward the […]
PANAMA CITY – Panama’s fiscal incentives are luring more and more people to its shores: multinationals, retirees in search of sun and investors seeking new opportunities. Real estate prices are ballooning into a mini Manhattan-on-the-Pacific. The latest notable arrival is PKB Privatbank, the first private Swiss bank to open a “banking center” in Panama City. […]
GOMA – For the past 30 years, Dufina Tabu has been defending human rights in Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province in Congo. Tall and thin, with white hair, Dufina is a forthright man. He inherited his frankness, he says, from his father, a progressive man who worked as an accountant for the […]
BAROLO – One of the wine labels is of Veuve widow Clicquot champagne — when the widow still had a husband. The label bears the name of her now-unknown husband Eugene. Another label comes from one of the oldest vineyards in Burgundy, Labaume l’Ainé. It bears no date but is dated before 1798, the year […]
-Analysis- In September, China’s National Development and Reform Commission announced that China’s highways would be toll-free during the Golden Week national holiday. To boost domestic tourism, certain local governments, such as in Jiangsu Province, also passed a decree banning price hikes on tourist attractions during the eight-day holiday break, which this year combined the Mid-Autumn […]
For many researchers, one measure of intelligence is the ratio of brain size to body weight. But that would mean that the tiny mammal known as the shrew would be capable of great intellectual accomplishments, which it is not presently known for. Why is this? A human brain weighs 1.3 to 1.5 kilos (2.9 to […]
KCNA (North Korea), YONHAP (South Korea), YLEISRADIO (Finland) Worldcrunch North Korea announced Friday that it would launch a “merciless military strike” on South Korea, if the country allows anti-North activists to disseminate propaganda leaflets in the communist country next week. Yonhap news agency, citing the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), quoted the warning statement […]
WASHINGTON POST, LOS ANGELES TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch NEW YORK – President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney took a break from the presidential race on Thursday night to trade jokes and roast each other at charity dinner, reports the Washington Post. Every four years, the Alfred E. Smith Dinner, the Catholic Archdiocese of New […]
Tanja Nijmeijer joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) when she was barely out of her teens. Now, at 34, the Dutch woman is negotiating for the Marxist rebels in the peace talks with the Colombian government that began this week in Oslo. With her long, dark-blonde hair, brown doe-eyes and engaging smile, Nijmeijer […]
-Essay- PARIS – Twitter is a great tool, capable of changing lives. It opens a window on the world, an embodiment of a new kind of digital solidarity. All the same, in the past few days, many people in France had an eye-opening experience as they discovered Twitter’s unsavory side. The anti-Semitic hashtag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew), […]
DOMODEDOVO – I first met with the leaders of this town’s independence movement in a small Azeri cafe. Domodedovo is barely a town, really, more like just a street; and when I arrived, there was a Muscovite photographer obviously on the same story. We were waiting for the members of the independence movement led by […]
FOLHA DE S. PAULO (Brazil) Worldcrunch SÃO VICENTE – With his twin five-year-old sons in tow, South Korean university professor Kim Haeng-Chang has been to Thailand, India, Turkey, Croatia, Germany and Senegal. Part of the months-long journey is done on a bike that tows a small wooden wagon adorned with a sign that reads: “Your […]
DER SPIEGEL, HANNOVERSCHE ALLGEMEINE (Germany), FRANCE 24, AFP (France) Worldcrunch Twitter has agreed to block content from a neo-Nazi account at the request of German authorities. For the first time in its short history, Twitter has censored tweets in a specific country. The microblogging service has had the capacity since January 2012 to block tweets […]
MEXICO CITY – More blood and more death. Mexico’s drug wars seem to be getting crueler and more sadistic by the year. Of all the players involved, probably no one is more responsible for the increasing violence than Miguel Angel Treviño, a.k.a. ‘Z-40,’ who has just taken over control of the notorious Los Zetas cartel […]
PARIS – Although Switzerland’s Art Basel is still incontestably the top fair for contemporary art, London’s Frieze, which took place last week at Regent’s Park, and Paris’s FIAC, which begins Thursday, are now sharing the second place on the podium. “Each fair has a different identity and energy. Paris is more established, while London is […]
THE NEW TIMES (Rwanda), LE MONDE (France), BBC (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch Rwanda is tipped to take one of five UN Security Council seats today, despite mounting pressure on the country over the allegations that it is backing an armed rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A confidential UN report, leaked to Reuters on […]
BBC, GUARDIAN, SYRIAN NETWORK FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (UK), AVAAZ (USA) Worldcrunch According to human rights organizations, at least 28,000 civilians have disappeared in Syria since the beginning of the protests last year, the BBC reports. Most of them seem not to be militants but ordinary people who have been picked up by the regime of […]
REUTERS, KATHIMERINI (Greece) Worldcrunch ATHENS – For the second time in three weeks, crowds are gathering in central Athens today for marches against a new wave of spending and pension cuts. Trade union leaders says they hope to show EU leaders meeting in Brussels that a new round of austerity measures will only worsen the […]
CAIRO – Orwa Nyrabia is looking for an apartment in Cairo for a few months, just enough time to wrap his latest movie a month after being released from a Syrian jail. Nyrabia was arrested on August 23 in Damascus and held for 22 days. This 35-year-old filmmaker and creator of the renowned Dox Box […]
CLARIN (Argentina) NEW YORK TIMES (U.S.) Worldcrunch BUENOS AIRES – To combat violence in soccer, both on and off the field, a new law in Argentina will require each top league team to have a security chief who reports directly to the Ministry of Defense, Clarin reports. The role must be filled by someone who […]
AMSTERDAM – A filthy hotel room and food poisoning are definitely up there on the list of things that can ruin a trip. But for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam, they are part of the sales pitch — proud to be dubbed the “worst hotel in the world.” The low-cost establishment has enjoyed […]
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, SENCKENBERG INSTITUT (Germany) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – German scientists discovered what may be the world’s biggest spider species in a limestone cave in Laos, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports. Researchers from the Senckenberg Institut in Frankfurt, biodiversity specialists, reported that they found a spider with legs that span 33 cm (13 inches). The largest spider […]
ROSENHEIM – German authorities don’t believe his parents are dead, nor do they buy the stories about living on the streets as a child. And so Mohamed Kamara, an 18-year-old asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, is now due to be deported. His integration in Germany has been exemplary, and his therapist is convinced that he […]
NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) Worldcrunch One hundred years before Felix Baumgartner, there was … Franz Reichelt. According to French magazine Nouvel Observateur, this tailor from Vienna had moved to France as a young man and become a French citizen — and an inventor. Reichelt created a prototype parachute that he believed could save the lives of […]
ASAHI SHIMBUN, KYODO (Japan) THE GUARDIAN (UK), U.S. ARMY (USA) Worldcrunch Two U.S. Navy sailors in Okinawa, have been accused of raping a Japanese woman, reports the Asahi Shimbun. The case comes amidst American military efforts to combat sex crimes following several high-profile cases over the past decade. The two 23-year-old sailors allegedly perpetrated the […]
-Editorial- BEIJING – Just like the former extrajudicial “Custody and Repatriation” procedure for moving beggars and homeless people out of Chinese cities, the Re-education Through Labor (RTL) camp system has long been criticized. There is now a general consensus that the unjustified administrative procedures of the labor camp system should be reformed. After years of […]
NEW YORK TIMES, CNN, CBS (U.S.) Worldcrunch After his dismal performance in the first debate, President Barack Obama rebounded Wednesday night with a feisty performance in his “town-hall” style face-to-face against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Democrats appeared widely pleased with an Obama who appeared much more focused and forthright against Romney compared to his overly […]
-Analysis- PARIS – In Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist, the shepherd Santiago travels to the ends of the earth seeking a treasure that was close by all along. And sometimes, too, we find the key to understanding what is happening in our country today by reading about things far away. Two scholarly articles published last […]