NASA and others have chimed in on the likelihood of black holes, solar flares striking on Dec. 21.
Month: December 2012
EL PAIS (Uruguay) CLARIN (Argentina) MONTEVIDEO – The past year has been a momentous one for supporters of gay marriage. And 2013 looks like it may begin with at least one more country — and the second ever in Latin America — to legalize same-sex marriage. Last week, the lower house of Uruguay’s legislature approved […]
In Aesop’s Fables, the story about the race between the hare and the tortoise tells people that the rabbit’s complacency and the turtle’s perseverance resulted in an unexpected ending to a seemingly predictable contest. In the 21st century, will the economic race between China and India also offer similar twists and turns, notably because of […]
PARIS – For Christmas this year, eight-year-old Thomas has asked for… a laptop computer, just so he doesn’t have to use his mother’s. Last year, when he was seven, he got an iPod. This Christmas will be characterized by society’s evolution toward high-tech gadgets; an evolution that has not bypassed children. For dozens of years, […]
BBC, LONDON FIRE BRIGADE (UK) Worldcrunch LONDON – Are you already getting Twitter alerts from the subway company? Football results? Movie listings ? Now it’s your turn to do your city a favor. The London Fire Brigade is now recruiting the Twitter army to spread information on fires and incidents around the city. Tweet your […]
-Editorial- If there is one thing that both government supporters and the opposition in Venezuela can agree on: daily life in is an endless series of unnecessary frustrations. Here are just a couple of recent examples: problems with the ports delayed the arrival of Christmas trees – which are imported from Canada – raising the […]
CNN, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, CBS, MSNBC (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – As the devastated Connecticut town continues to bury its young, attention elsewhere in the United States has begun to shift more squarely to Washington and the question of gun control legislation. Will last Friday’s mass school killing n Newton, Connecticut be a tipping […]
RISING DEATH TOLL IN SOUTH SUDAN Between 400 and 500 people have died in the past three-plus days of clashes between opposing army factions in South Sudan, the BBC reports, citing UN officials. This comes as former vice-president and opposition leader-in-exile Riek Machar told the Paris-based Sudan Tribunethat he didn’t orchestrate a coup attempt, instead […]
DUBLIN – Ireland, its scenery, its music, its hospitality… who has never dreamed of having a couple of drops of Irish blood in their veins? That’s the idea behind “The Gathering.” In 2013, Ireland is calling on “all the Flynns, O’Malleys and Schweitzenburgs to come back home (…) no matter when their families left.” The […]
GLOBAL TIMES, XINHUA (China), THE GUARDIAN (UK), CNN (US) Worldcrunch Chinese authorities have arrested at least 101 people for spreading rumors about an impending apocalypse, the state-run news agency Xinhua reports. The 101 people arrested (including 37 in Qinghai and 34 in Fujian province in the east of the country, according to CNN) all belong […]
NBC NEWS (USA) Worldcrunch ISTANBUL – NBC News’ chief correspondent Richard Engel and members of his production team were freed from captors in Syria after a firefight at a checkpoint on Monday, NBC News said early Tuesday. “After being kidnapped and held for five days inside Syria by an unknown group, NBC News Chief Foreign […]
Exclusive investigation: The terror network in Syria includes dozens of European members, and wants to get its hands on Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons.
Online nvitation was for Dec. 21, the Mayan calendar’s fateful day…
BEIJING – After the end of last month’s 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China seems to have witnessed a nationwide wave of corruption investigations against the rich and powerful. First several high-ranking officials from Canton were dismissed from their posts. Then it was the turn of Li Chungcheng, the Deputy Party […]
-Essay- BERLIN – My five-year-old son Finn goes to an American kindergarten – a place just like Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Bethlehem in Pennsylvania is about as far from Philadelphia as Newtown is from New York – in their own way, both are typical U.S. East Coast towns. Finn’s school even looks […]
Worldcrunch French acting legend Gérard Depardieu said he was surrendering his French passport after France’s prime minister called his move to Belgium for tax reasons “pathetic.” The acting legend had come under criticism last week for declaring permanent residency in the Belgian town of Néchin – allegedly to duck out on France’s new 75% tax […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia), REUTERS MOSCOW – The crackdowns against Kremlin opponents continue. Just this past weekend, police detained four opposition leaders and tried to ban a rally demanding an end to Vladimir Putin’s rule, Reuters reports. Still, last week, a decision that got much less attention could take Russia one important step toward a more open, […]
GUNFIRE CONTINUES IN SOUTH SUDAN Heavy gunfire continued last night and this morning in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, one day after President Salva Kiir announced he had defeated an attempted coup by military members loyal to one of his rivals, AFP reports. According to government officials, 26 people have died and another 140 have been […]
BOSTON GLOBE, CNN (USA) Worldcrunch NEWTOWN – On Monday the Connecticut town prepares for the first funerals of the mass shooting at an elementary school that killed 20 young children and six educators. President Obama vowed on Sunday to use “whatever power this office holds” in coming weeks to prevent other mass shootings like the […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch KABUL – At least 10 young girls have been killed and two others injured in a landmine explosion in eastern Afghanistan, officials say. The explosion occurred Monday morning in the Charparhar district, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, reports Al Jazeera. The girls were collecting firewood outside the […]
MOSCOW – When Vladimir Putin took office as President for the third time, he sent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a document outlining the philosophy that would guide his approach to international relations for the next five years. Only recently released, the document is very revealing, showing that Putin’s worldview, and his idea about Russia’s […]
DAILY YOMUIRI, JAPAN TIMES, ASAHI SHIMBUN, (Japan) SKY NEWS (UK), WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA) Worldcrunch TOKYO– After three years in the opposition, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) crushed the left-wing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in this Sunday’s House of Representatives election, reports the Daily Yomiuri. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda suffered a harsh defeat […]
-OpEd- PARIS – America is crying for its children. The country is in mourning, after the Connecticut elementary school shooting that left 28 dead, including 20 children between the ages of six and seven. President Barack Obama shed real tears as he was listing the number of recent shootings: “These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and […]
As he did last year, Charles Landow draws highlights from a range of democracy and development indexes for this year-end edition of Missing Pieces. The UN Human Development Index and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy are not included this time because they were not published in 2012. Enjoy the reading and the holiday […]
DOHA – Jean-Pierre Moreau is growing flowers in the desert. Just 30 kilometers west of the Qatari capital of Doha, roses, gladiolus, chrysanthemum are blooming. At the request of Hamid Khalifa al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, the Frenchman produces four million flowers a year, with the help of 60 employees mostly from Nepal and India. […]
CALCATA – Alessandro Falconi had promised he would pick up his guests by car, but he is an hour late. Luckily, the 30-kilometer drive to Calcata, where Falconi runs a small Bed & Breakfast, more than made up for the long wait. The roads in this countryside north of Rome are narrow and winding. Falconi’s […]
KIRKUK – Fifty kilometers out of Kirkuk, an oil city in Northern Iraq, the main road from Baghdad is already lined with tanks, artillery, Humvees and patrolling soldiers. Life has returned to the military barracks and checkpoints from the Saddam Hussein era that locals had thought were left behind for good. Tents have also been […]
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (Germany) Worldcrunch Located some 1,800 kilometers off the coast of South America, South Georgia Island has no permanent human residents – but millions of rats. The rodents first made their way to this south Atlantic island on whaling boats in the 18th century and, feeding on sea birds, proliferated quickly. No one can […]
GENEVA – The disappearance of many sailors has been blamed on something that doesn’t quite seem real: hallucinations, which have even prompted sailors to believe they had reached port and to climb over the railing of their boat. Loss of lucidity, loss of bearings – sleep deprivation can wreak havoc on a sailor’s mind, to […]
PARIS – World leaders expressed their shock and condolences to U.S. President Barack Obama and the victims of Friday’s mass school shooting in Connecticut that left 27 people dead, including 20 children… AUSTRALIAPrime Minister Julia Gillard: “We share America’s shock at this senseless and incomprehensible act of evil.” U.K.Prime Minister David Cameron: “I was shocked […]
CALCUTTA– Captain Manpreet Jolly has not quite recovered yet. Nothing in his career at the Haldia port authority had prepared him for this. The captain was abducted by masked men in the middle of the night, and told at gunpoint to leave and never return to the port town. “We were at my assistant’s house […]
NEWTOWN (Reuters) – Residents of the small Connecticut community of Newtown were reeling on Saturday from one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, as police sought answers about what drove a 20-year-old gunman to slaughter 20 children at an elementary school. The attacker, identified by law enforcement sources as Adam Lanza, who once […]
So far Benedict XVI’s new @Pontifex on Twitter has avoided controversial topics.
Twenty of the victims are reportedly children. The gunman, a son of a kindergarten teacher at the school, killed himself.
SOUTHERN PEOPLE WEEKLY (China), MING PAO (Hong Kong) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – Martial arts star, Jackie Chan, has kicked up a fuss this week when suggesting that Hong Kong authorities should crackdown on the nation’s burgeoning protest movement. Chan, who was born in Hong Kong, told China’s Southern People Weekly: “Hong Kong has become a […]
GOMA – Following the withdrawal of the M23 rebel troops that for 12 days occupied the eastern city of Goma, locals remain cautious and fearful, despite reassurances from government authorities. Meanwhile, those who had supported the M23 are keeping a low profile. The M23 rebels took control of Goma, the capital of the North Kivu […]
-Film Review- PARIS – Since December 2001, movie fans all over the world have been divided into two categories. On one side, you have the Peter Jackson fans – the “chosen ones,” possessed by an unwavering and somewhat disturbing faith, and on the other side, you have the heretics, pagans and other trolls of the […]
Russia worries the Patriot missiles set to be deployed by the West to the Turkish-Syrian border could actually be moved to any part of Turkey.
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch MUNICH – New details have emerged Friday of a vast police raid this week against Deutsche Bank in an ongoing tax evasion case. Some 500 state prosecutors, tax and crime investigators were involved in the Wednesday raids on Deutsche Bank offices in Frankfurt and branches in Berlin and Düsseldorf. […]
LA STAMPA (Italy), BBC (U.K), NASA, CHRISTIAN POST, LATIN TIMES (U.S.A.) Worldcrunch HUNTSVILLE– Every year around this time in December the real Christmas lights, aka the Geminid meteors, come out to light up the night sky. The BBC explains that the celestial shower occurs as the Earth passes through the path of an asteroid called […]