After a nearly 10 percent jump in obesity, the first efforts have been launched at educating Congolese about both diet and exercise. But skinny to many means sick — and poor.
Month: January 2013
UKRAINE PM RESIGNS Ukraine Prime Minister Mykola Azarov offered his resignation early Tuesday in an effort to end the country’s political crisis. This was followed by news that the Ukrainian Parliament had voted to repeal nine of the 12 anti-protest laws that reignited the anti-government protests two weeks ago. SYRIAN DEFENSE MINISTER’S HOMETOWN BOMBED According […]
FRANCE 24, FRANCE TV INFO, AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch PARIS – French forces, supported by the Mali army have captured both the rebel strongholds of Timbuktu and Gao in a fast-moving offensive against Al Qaeda-linked fighters occupying northern Mali. Battling together to loosen the grip of Islamist fighters in the country’s north, French […]
BEIJING – French Minister of Economy Pierre Moscovici was recently in Beijing to convince Chinese officials that the French debate over the transfer of the nuclear technology to China was nothing to worry about. “We are discussing the way the strategic clauses will be applied in regard to technology transfer and intellectual property,” said Moscovici. […]
BERLIN – “I think it totally sucks that you think that word should be left in children’s books. You can’t imagine how it makes me feel to hear or read that word. It’s really really terrible. My Dad is not a ‘negro’ and neither am I.” That was written by nine-year-old Ishema Kane in her […]
DER SPIEGEL (Germany), THE GUARDIAN (U.K) Worldcrunch BERLIN – This is not your daddy’s “video game.” Privacy activists in Berlin are protesting against surveillance video cameras by destroying and debilitating them, as part of a social game where you earn points for every CCTV taken down. The Guardian spoke to the anonymous creator of the […]
REUTERS, BEERSHEBA – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for seven years, has surprised doctors by showing brain activity and a “certain degree of consciousness” for the first time since his debilitating stroke. The extent of the 84-year-old’s response is still limited as he cannot move any muscle, though […]
BASEL – Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s bust can be seen at the foot of the monumental staircase of his family’s palace in Basel, Switzerland. It is hard to believe that this is his family home when you see his long curled beard and oriental turban. Burckhardt – also known as Sheikh Ibrahim – who died at […]
FOLHA DE S.PAULO, O GLOBO, ZERO HORA (Brazil) Worldcrunch SANTA MARIA – At least 245 people were killed early Sunday in a fire that swept through a popular nightclub in the city of Santa Maria, in the Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, reports O Globo. The fire broke out at around 2 a.m. […]
PARIS – Industrial-style metallic chests, steel chairs, and workshop lamps – as soon as they were featured on the pages of mail-to-order furniture catalogs, French hipsters shunned them. Industrial-style is done, dead. It has been replaced by colorful Formica, linoleum and oilcloth fabrics. “Plastic is fantastic!” sang French pop band Elmer Food Beat in 1991 […]
SYRIA TALKS TO FOCUS ON TRANSITION Talks about Syria’s future are due to continue today in Geneva and will focus on the thorny issue of power transfer, amid reports that the Israeli air force bombed a Syrian base in the town of Latakia. Yesterday, both parties agreed to let women and children leave the besieged […]
BERLIN – Social networks like Facebook make many things easier. You can find out right away if Alex got the job or not, and you can not only read about Marie’s vacation, but you can also see all those pictures of her on the beach, too. There’s also a downside to this. Researchers have conducted […]
PORT SAID – Following an unpopular court ruling linked to a deadly burst of violence last year, clashes in this northern Egyptian city have left at least 30 dead on Saturday. The Ministry of Health announced the death toll in a statement, added that more than 300 people have been injured in the clashes. According […]
Two decades after the Sicilian Mafia killed magistrate hero Giovanni Falcone, crime networks have shifted drug trafficking from bases to Russia, Colombia, Burma…and beyond.
Some 1.2 million were forced to relocate by China’s massive Three Gorges project. Moving to unfamiliar land, many of these internal migrants struggle. Some tell another story.
UNITED DAILY NEWS, RADIO TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL (Taiwan) Worldcrunch TAIPEI – “Just by smelling it, I can tell where it comes from and what its quality is…” This unique touch of boastfulness comes from You Qi-Cheng, who runs condom manufacturer Fuji Latex. Mr. You’s claim of olfactory prowess quickly circualated on the Chinese Internet, after the […]
SAINT-NAZAIRE- “Business is slow these days, too slow…” says 34-year-old restaurant employee from Saint-Nazaire in western France, Cedric Derouin. As he dries drinking glasses, he talks about the consecutive closings of dozens of local businesses, the laying off of his only coworker a few months ago. He shares his uncertain future with the workers from […]
ISTANBUL – Turkey has finally passed a hotly-debated law that will allow Kurdish criminal defendants to speak their mother tongue in court. The drama leading up to Thursday’s vote is a reminder of how complicated — and charged — the broader “Kurdish Question” continues to be in Turkey. The final round of debate on pitting […]
As tensions increase again on the Korean Peninsula, and China rethinking its rapport with Pyongyang, a reset could be in order between Seoul and Beijing.
SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The German military looks eager to get in the drone business. According to Der Spiegel Germany’s coalition government is planning to rapidly equip the country’s defense forces with armed combat drones, saying they would provide a “credible deterrent” to enemies and thus offer greater security. The government […]
Awash in cash, the Swiss National Bank has been making major direct investment in the private sector and the bond market. It’s a frightening level of financial sway.
At an employement agency in southeastern Poland, notices offer a variety of job opportunities abroad. One particular post advertising agricultural work in Germany looks, at first glance, to be a good offer. The reality is very different. To be able to send people to work abroad, Polish employement agencies need to be signed into a […]
AL ARABIYA (Saudi Arabia/Egypt), MASRAWY (Egypt) Worldcrunch CAIRO – At least 16 people have been injured in and around Tahrir Square as both protesters and Egyptian police geared up for major demonstrations Friday to mark two years since the Arab world’s uprising coalesced in the region’s largest country on Jan. 25, 2011. Ahead of what […]
GLOBAL TIMES, XINHUA (China), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – For the second straight day, North Korea has lashed out at its enemies, raising the stakes in the showdown over its nuclear program by warning Friday that new UN economic sanctions would amount to a “declaration of war.” The KCNA North Korean news agency, relayed a […]
AFP, FRANCE 24 (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch BAMAKO- Two weeks after the start of the French military intervention in Mali, the Ansar Dine Islamist militant group has split into two, with the dissident faction calling for peace negotiations. The dissident group is calling itself the Islamic Movement of Azawad (MIA) according to France 24. In a […]
BERLIN – Chinese censors have made some significant changes to several parts of the latest James Bond film “Skyfall.” One scene, showing a French hitman killing a Chinese guard in a Shanghai skyscraper, was cut out entirely. So was a mention of prostitution in Macau. Other changes are reflected in the subtitles. In the original […]
CAIRO – While still both recognizing the ongoing struggle for freedom and social justice, the Muslim Brotherhood and its political party on one side and the opposition on the other will mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 25 Egyptian revolution in two very different ways. As the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party […]
Already in place in several cities, the federal Department of Homeland Security may install state-of-the-art acoustic technology in DC that can cover areas of up to 20 square miles.
LA STAMPA (ITALY) Worldcrunch BUCHAREST– A public service campaign in Romania is trying to prevent pedestrian deaths by showing how some stray dogs in Bucharest are street smarter than humans. Say WHAT!? Yes, really. You can scroll to the bottom of the page to see the video. But first, you might want to remember all […]
A book by a longtime friend of the Colombian legend includes never-before-released letters from when Garcia Marquez was writing his epic “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
PARIS – In the U.S., they are called the helicopter parents. These are the hyper-moms and uber-dads who hover relentlessly over their children, transforming themselves into personal assistants on the weekends: driving them to baseball or dance practice, Chinese lessons, screaming at the math teacher who had the nerve to give little darling a B […]
After UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s support for a referendum on pulling out of the European Union, a German viewpoint on what it means for a country and a continent.
ABC.AU, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia), REUTERS Worldcrunch PRAGUE – Meet Karel Schwarzenberg, the bow-tied, 75-year-old prince who channels the Sex Pistols and wants to be president of the Czech Republic. Born into a family that owned large amounts of Czech and Austrian lands, the Schwarzenbergs fled when the Communists took over in 1948, writes Reuters. […]
“Behind the closet are those wives imprisoned in an unhappy marriage…” A Chinese woman used her personal blog to describe life as the wife of a gay man, before her husband decided finally to come out. According to a report conducted in 2005 by Liu Dalin, a prominent sexologist, 90% of Chinese homosexual and bisexual […]
CLARIN (ARGENTINA), EL NACIONAL (VENEZUELA) EL PAIS (Spain) Worldcrunch MADRID – Spain’s most widely circulated newspaper El País was forced Thursday to retract a story and image it had claimed showed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez undergoing surgery. With information scant on the Venezuelan President, who is in Cuba for cancer treatment, the front-page story was […]
FRANCE – They are the “invisibles.” Behind closed doors, they cook, clean, take care of children and the elderly. They are often the victims of abuse – sexual and physical – they are underpaid and overworked – sometimes for more than 65 hours a week, they don’t get benefits and rarely have organizations to defend […]
LIBERATION, LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, L’EXPRESS, FRANCE INFO (France), REFORMACOM (Mexico) Worldcrunch Florence Cassez, a French woman sentenced to 60 years in jail in Mexico for kidnapping, is on her way back to France. Cassez, 38, is expected to land in Thursday afternoon in Paris, where she will be welcomed by France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs […]
AP, CNN, REUTERS, WASHINGTON POST (U.S.) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON- The Pentagon plans to outline details Thursday of a groundbreaking decision to lift a ban on women in front line combat service. This is the second historic reversal of longstanding military bans by outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, following the 2011 repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell […]
KCNA (North Korea), REUTERS, RT NEWS Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – North Korea raised its bellicose rhetoric to a new high Thursday, declaring that it now possesses enough fissile material to mount enriched plutonium on rocket heads, and is ready to test those nuclear missiles that would be “targeted” to reach the United States. “We are not […]
-Essay- RABAT – Along with Arabic, French has long been one of Morocco’s languages. It is the language of culture; it is the flipside of our identity — of our double identity, if you will, which is the result of a long coexistence and exchanges between generations. Even though Morocco has been independent from French […]