Worldcrunch
NEW YORK – Chen Guangcheng, the blind self-taught lawyer and one of the best-known Chinese human rights activists, arrived in New York last spring after an incredible escape from his village in the coastal Shandong province. He finally arrived thanks to a last-minute compromise reached between the Chinese authorities and U.S. diplomats who had sheltered […]
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, WASHINGTON POST, CNN, SALON (USA) Worldcrunch The U.S. unemployment rate fell below 8% for the first time in nearly four years, according to the September jobs report released on Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate decreased to 7.8% in September, while total non-farm employment rose by […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), FRANCE 24-ARABE (France) Worldcrunch AMMAN – Led by Jordan’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, thousands of protesters marched in the capital on Friday demanding democratic reforms from King Abdullah. Following the Friday prayers, protestors who’d come from across the country descended on the Husseini mosque in downtown Amman, chanting: “Listen Abdullah, our […]
BEIJING – What exactly is the Chinese dream? You could define it using current key words buzzing on the Internet: “the counter-attack of the diao-sze”, meaning the little people, and in particular the poor who succeed in raising their status in society through their own great efforts. The Chinese dream is related to the “American […]
MING PAO, THE STANDARD (Hong Kong), LIBERTY TIMES (Taiwan), EPOCH TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – Is Hong Kong nostalgic for British colonial times? Hundreds of people turned up in front of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong earlier this week to mark China’s National Day. They were waving red-white-and-blue […]
Viruses have become world travelers, thanks mainly to the growing mobility of humankind – and of insects. Climate change is also a source of the exotic infections currently spreading in Europe. According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German government institution responsible for disease control and prevention, we will increasingly have to deal with […]
MARRAKESH – In the French Quarter of Gueliz, past the trendy Café de la Poste, you need only walk down the street to see the soliciting for yourself. In this very European neighborhood, where youths gather around the McDonald’s, it is more visible than in the infamous Djemaa El-Fna Square, in Marrakesh’s old town. Here, […]
MOSCOW – Rattled by a horrific traffic accident in Moscow, Russian authorities have finally turned their attention to strengthening the country’s laws against drunk driving. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Russia needed to implement a stricter penalty for drunk driving and called it the biggest issue in Russia. On September 22, a man was driving […]
HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST, ISRAEL RADIO (Israel) Worldcrunch EILAT – A U.S. tourist opened fire in an Israeli hotel resort on the Red Sea coast Friday, killing one person. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli counter-terrorism units arrived on the scene after the gunman barricaded himself in the kitchen. Counter-terrorism units subsequently killed him in an […]
HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, PRESSETEXTE (Germany) Worldcrunch HAMBURG – Aggressive dreams and other unusual sleep-related activity may be an early warning sign that someone will develop Parkinson’s disease, according to a new German neurology study, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports. At the annual convention of German neurologists this week in Hamburg, Prof. Wolfgang Oertel of the University of […]
RUE 89 (France), YOUTUBE Worldcrunch Hiding for months in plain view on YouTube, a grainy video has begun to circulate of longtime Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser laughing off the Muslim Brotherhood demands that the state uphold Islamic traditions. The clip is charged with historical significance in light of the Brotherhood’s rise to power earlier […]
The former East Germany is still considered to be a hotbed of neo-Nazism. Still, the movement to oppose the extremists is growing even stronger – to the point that leaders in the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) know that when they stage their public gatherings and marches more opponents will be in attendance […]
LE SOIR-LES ECHOS, MAP (Morocco), COURRIER DE L’ATLAS (France), BBC AFRIQUE Worldcrunch SMIR – A Dutch boat that provides abortions to women on the high seas has reached the edge of Morocco’s territorial waters, and was being blocked Thursday from further progress toward the North African shore by a warship, according to the AFP. The […]
GENEVA – Marie-Gisèle Sandoz lives by herself, and has no children or siblings. When the retiree decided it was time to make a will, it didn’t take long to decide who would be the benificiaries: three-quarters of her assets will go to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. “Ecology has always been an interest of […]
RUSSIA TODAY (Russia), BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, FOREIGN POLICY (USA), GLOBALWEBINDEX, TECH WEEK EUROPE (U.K.), IRISH TIMES (Ireland), DER SPIEGEL (Germany), MAIL AND GUARDIAN (South Africa) Worldcrunch PARIS – Facebook reached one billion users today. Now that one out of seven people on earth log on, the ubiquitous site has changed habits and affected lives worldwide. Here’s […]
SÃO PAULO – Brazil is the most expensive developing nation for doing business and has costs similar to developed countries, according to a study by consulting firm KPMG. “Competitive Alternatives” is a regular KPMG report that compares the structure of costs for companies in different countries and localities, taking into account taxes, labor, rent, cost […]
Worldcrunch The world’s most famous secret agent is turning 50 – the James Bond film franchise is marking five decades since the October 5, 1962 release of Dr. No, the first movie of the series produced by London’s Eon studio. Twenty-two movies and countless shaken-not-stirred martinis later, moviegoers are trying to sum up — and […]
HURRIYET, RADIKAL (Turkey), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch ANKARA – Turkish artillery has continued to target Syria for a second straight day, in retaliation for the shelling of a Turkish town that killed five people. Wednesday’s deadly mortar fire heightened tensions as it marked the first time that Turkish citizens have been killed as a result […]
CHINA NEWS SERVICE, XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch KUNMING – At least 19 people, including 18 school children, have been buried in a landslide in southwestern China. The landslide struck the village of Zhenhe village in in Yiliang County, Zhaotong City, where two farm houses as well as the Youfangtai Primary School, were caught in its path, […]
CNN, CBS, NEW YORK TIMES (US) Worldcrunch Instant reaction polls, conducted late Wednesday night, showed Republican candidate Mitt Romney won the first presidential debate in Denver, in a performance expected to raise GOP hopes just one month before the election. According to a CNN/ORC poll of 430 people who watched the debate, 67% of registered […]
-Analysis- PARIS – A specter is looming over France. That specter is called Qatar. Qatar’s announcement that it would invest 50 million euros in the impoverished suburbs outside Paris, an investment that will be matched by a fund partly financed by the French government and partly by the private sector, has sparked growing controversy. Some […]
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (Germany) Worldcrunch Halfway into the 2012 edition, incidents of sexual abuse at Munich’s Oktoberfest are on the rise as compared to last year, Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reports One woman was raped behind a beer tent. “One rape is a rape too many,” says a report covering the first half of Oktoberfest by […]
STERN (Germany), LE TELEGRAMME, LE PARISIEN, NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, CLOSER (France) Worldcrunch Paris Fashion Week, a twice-a-year ode to luxury consumption, has been going on for several days. It is the best time of year for celebrity-watchers to catch a glimpse of Kate Moss, Kristen Stewart, Salma Hayek, Princess Charlene of Monaco or Valerie Trierweiler, “first […]
MONTEVIDEO – Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica placed his country in the global drug-policy spotlight when he presented a bill earlier this year seeking to decriminalize marijuana. Many observers – including Nobel Prize winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru – pointed to the move as an example of what countries can do to prevent […]
BBC PERSIAN, AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch TEHRAN – Iranian riot police clashed with demonstrators and foreign exchange dealers in Tehran on Wednesday, over the plunge in the value of the country’s currency. The Iranian rial lost a third of its value against the dollar in a week. Protests erupted after the arrest of illegal currency […]
ROME – It was a disquieting statement from the former butler of Pope Benedict XVI, as he took the stand in a Vatican court hearing his case. Paolo Gabriele, who lived for six years in the papal apartment, explained the motives that had led him to photocopy the Pope’s private papers: “Over time, I developed […]
One million CVs. That is how many resumes L’Oréal receives, year in, year out, in the 130 countries where the cosmetic giant has offices. From “job dating” on social networks to the avatars on Second Life, there have been various attempts to kill off the CV, but it keeps on being reinvented. Trends have come […]
GOMA – The stories here in eastern Congo are terrifying: large numbers of apes have begun attacking villagers. The main cause is the six-month-old war in the region, which forces the primates to leave their territory, and makes them see humans as a threat. The stories from Tongo, a village 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) north […]
-OpEd- BERLIN – In a recent appearance on German TV, former chancellor Helmut Schmidt repeated something he had already said earlier about Germans bearing more responsibility for Europe than other nations because of the “”industrial” killing of “six million Jewish fellow citizens.” Bulls**t. And on three counts. First of all, the overwhelming majority of Holocaust […]
LUANDA – The curtain will soon be rung down for the last time at the Elinga Theater in Angola’s capital, Luanda. The theater, where many rebellious artists got their start, holds an important place in Angolan culture. But it will soon be destroyed, its pink walls reduced to rubble by bulldozers. Like so many old […]
MOSCOW – The question of whether or not citizens in Russia have the right to defend themselves if they are being beaten by police was taken up by the Supreme Court in June. The case came just after a large protest on May 6 that was marred by several police beatings. In regulations released soon […]
MEDIAPART (France), CORRIERE DELLA SERA (Italy) DREAM TV (Egypt) Worldcrunch PARIS – The former intelligence chief for Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has alleged that a French secret agent working with the complicity of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi. NTC spy chief Rami el-Obeidi told Paris-based news website Mediapart on […]
BEIJING – It took five long years for You Lian to understand that fine words are more important than good food and the capacity to hold your drink. He can still recall the first dinner party he attended at his old state-owned enterprise. Not only did he not understand the polite words one is supposed […]
At the very mention of the words “male jewelry,” scary images come to mind: super loaded pizzeria owner, rings gleaming on fat fingers, shirt open down to here, gold chain nestling in a dense forest of dark chest hair. But you could also imagine a turbo-tanned pimp on Hamburg’s red-light district, or German reality-show star […]
SYFIA (Democratic Republic of Congo) Worldcrunch MBANDAKA – For centuries, Maria, Luke and Matthew sufficed for those among the faithful eager to give their newborns a biblical name. For something a bit more original, others could always turn to Jacob, Jeremiah or Jonah — not to mention Amaziah, Basemath and Zebedee. But now in the […]
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, THE STANDARD (Hong Kong), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – A large-scale rescue search is still looking for potential survivors after two ferries collided southwest of Hong Kong on Monday night, leaving at least 36 people dead, Hong Kong’s The Standard reports. “All of Hong Kong’s emergency forces are focused […]
THE KOREA HERALD (South Korea), THE FINANCIAL TIMES (UK) Worldcrunch Samsung Electronics confirmed Tuesday that it has filed papers with a U.S. court that accuse Apple’s iPhone 5 of infringing its patents. The South Korean electronics giant alleges that the new iPhone 5, launched September 21, infringes eight of its patents, including its wireless data […]
BOGOTA – In the middle of July, as the Colombian government was presenting a bundle of measures to reform the health-care industry, 5,000 people congregated in the Plaza de Bolivar in Bogota to hold a “White March.” One block away from the president’s office, the protest was led by a group of women in black, […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) RADIO SVOBODA (Russia) TBILISI – Celebrations continued into Tuesday morning in the capital as the opposition coalition “Georgian Dream” led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, scored a surprise victory in Georgian parliamentary elections. Pro-government forces conceded defeat, saying the opposition obtained 51% of the vote. According to the opposition television channel, the results were […]
KUNYANG – Li Jinsui is an ambitious man. He invested 250,000 euros of his own money in this insect factory, sitting amidst the hills of Kunyang, on the outskirts of Kunming, the capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan. With seven patents, production officially kicked off in 2009. Since then, no visitor comes by without […]