Worldcrunch
TUBUAI – For the past 30 years, local residents from the Austral Islands have been dumping their garbage just a few kilometers from the Tubuai airport, in the swamps. “When the hole starts to overflow, we pack it with machines, we fill the hole and dig a new one,” explains Therese, who owns a bed […]
Top Congolese leaders say it’s time the DRC got off the US currency and returned to the local franc. But ending “dollarization” comes with risks if not done properly.
At the end of this year, when Apple’s cheap iPhone comes out, it is going to be amusing to listen to all the Apple fans who consoled themselves about Apple’s loss of market share by dismissing competitors’ phones as “cheap plastic crap.” Because the new cheap iPhone is supposed to have a cheap plastic back. […]
BARCELONA – The couple looks in love and relaxed. The evening twilight gives the picture perfect lighting and the background is idyllic. But right next to them, in front of the Alpine range, there’s a herd of tourists with their horrible fluorescent bobble hats. You know them – the photo bombers, the people who just […]
CAIRO – “Hey there, Number 28!” – A friend texts me using my new nickname. Indeed, for at least one day of every month that’s what I answer to; Number 28. That’s where I fall in the list of 43 defendants on trial for working in what the government deemed “illegal civil society organizations.” It’s […]
OUEST FRANCE, DIRECT MATIN (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Some might say that McDonald’s in France is getting just a wee bit too, well, French. A year after introducing various “McBaguette” offerings using the famous French bread, the American fast food chain has just introduced its version of France’s national sandwich: jambon-fromage. If that sounds chic, […]
CLARIN (Argentina), EL PAIS, EL DIARIO DE LEON (Spain) Worldcrunch MADRID – Unemployment, rising taxes and falling wages have combined to change the calculus for more and more people in Spain. Increasingly, according to new studies, Spanish households are dealing with the economic crisis by reducing the quality and quantity of foods they eat. According […]
MUNICH – A major research project set up to shed light on sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Germany has been shelved, according to information obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung. Germany’s Catholic Church has cancelled the project, and a letter to that effect has been sent by the German Bishops’ Conference to the Criminal Research Institute […]
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – The recent corruption scandal involving Walmart in Mexico has coincided with the last corruption ranking by Transparency International. The giant American retailer, which also has stores in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and several Central American countries, has been accused of systematically paying bribes in Mexico that total more than $24 million over the […]
HÜRRIYET (Turkey), THE GUARDIAN (UK), REUTERS, FRANCE 24 Worldcrunch ISTANBUL– The Syrian government has announced it would free 2,130 civilian prisoners on Wednesday, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranians held by Syrian rebels. Iranian state TV confirmed that the 48 hostages, captured by the Free Syrian Army back in August, had been freed. […]
BBC, EL NACIONAL, EL UNIVERSAL, ULTIMAS NOTICIAS (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS- After a three-hour debate, the Venezuelan National Assembly has approved the request of President Hugo Chávez to postpone the inauguration for his new term in office, which was scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 10. Photo: Wilson Dias/ABr via Wikipedia According to the BBC, the Venezuelan constitution […]
INDIA TIMES, HINDUSTAN TIMES (India) Worldcrunch NEW DELHI – India lashed out at Pakistan after two Indian soldiers were killed in a firefight in the disputed region of Kashmir, and reports spread that one of the soldier’s body had been mutilated. India’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement about the incident that used the terms “barbaric […]
BBC MUNDO (UK), CLARIN (Argentina) RIO DE JANEIRO – The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is just 18 months away, and the entire nation is preparing. Local prostitutes, for their part, are getting ready to make sure they can keep up with the expected influx of international visitors by studying English, French, and Italian, as […]
BEIJING – In the history of Eastern and Western art, the aesthetic standards for painting have been more or less the same. The most esteemed paintings were large scenes with people in them. They can be broken down into the two categories, of either historical or religious nature. The classic scene of Christ being taken […]
LE POINT, LE PROGRÈS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – It’s been an eventful couple of days for French actor Gérard Depardieu. Or is it Belgian actor Gérard Depardieu? Wait, you said Russian? In case you’re having trouble keeping up with Gégé’s moves, here’s a quick overview of what’s happened the past three days in the life […]
PARIS – For the past ten years, Mundiya, head of the Hulis tribe, has been traveling across France, finding things, movies… to bring home with him to his native Papua New Guinea. His last find – three showgirls from the Lido. There are many things Mundiya Kepanga could export to France. He could start by […]
DIE WELT (Germany), PNAS (USA) Worldcrunch PISA – Take a guess how many types of medication you have in your medicine chest. Fifty? A few hundred? Medication is a banality in our day – but things looked very different 2000 years ago when there were no pharmaceutical giants and mass production facilities. Hippocrates had to […]
VATICAN CITY – The last few days before he was ordained archbishop at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, “Don Giorgio” Gänswein was without his iPhone or PC, and also well away from the landlines and fax machines and the Vatican’s old-fashioned pneumatic and courier mail systems that are still so much a part of his […]
John Brennan as CIA Director: What It Means
“FRIENDS OF SYRIA” TO MEET IN PARIS ON SUNDAY Foreign Ministers of the group of 11 countries dubbed “Friends of Syria,” including the U.S., UK and France, will meet with the opposition group Syrian National Coalition on Sunday in Paris, AFP quotes an official source as saying. On the battleground, opposition fighters are still fighting […]
BBC, BELFAST TELEGRAPH (Northern Ireland), THE IRISH TIMES, RTE (Ireland) Worldcrunch BELFAST– The North Ireland capital of Belfast saw its fifth consecutive night of violence last night after a largely peaceful demonstration at City Hall erupted into riot. The Union flag over Belfast City Hall. Photo: Anosmia via Flickr The Belfast Telegraph reports that loyalist […]
BBC NEWS (UK), PAKTRIBUNE (Pakistan), REUTERS Worldcrunch ISLAMABAD – At least seven militants have been killed in two U.S. drone attacks close to the town of Mir Ali in northwestern Pakistan, a region along the Afghan border that is a key stronghold of the Taliban. According to the news service Paktribune, unmanned aircraft fired three […]
Smuggled in from Burma and North Korea, meth is flooding Chinese mean streets.
Worldcrunch ZURICH – The results for Golden Ball 2012 killed any remaining doubt over who is our era’s undisputed emperor of the soccer planet. FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi won his fourth straight trophy for best player of the year, the first to notch that record for a man whose talent seems to know no limits. […]
TRAPANI – After Pretoria until 1993, and Alabama through the early 1960’s, the Italian city of Trapani has discovered Apartheid in 2013. The cold bureaucratic language of Trapani City Council member Andrea Vassalo leaves little room for doubts: the head of the council’s urban territory commission cited the “frequent complaints of the indigenous” (using exactly […]
ASAHI SHIMBUN (Japan), KICKSTARTER (UK) Worldcrunch TOKYO – Japan is a country known for its cutting-edge science and technology. Walkmans, videocassette recorders, Compact Discs, Blue-Ray, digital cameras, flat panel tvs – you name it, it was invented in Japan. But this new Japanese invention will – literally – blow your tail off. The “Tailly,” according […]
MUNICH – Wearing a bright checked shirt, the man is strikingly tall, fit, with very short brown hair and brown eyes. He smiles a lot. Right now he’s looking for a suitable female partner – not in cafés or bars as such a search might have been conducted just a few short years ago, but […]
BOGOTA – According to legend, Colombia is blessed with coffee thanks to sinners. The legend comes from Francisco Romero, the priest of Salazar de las Palmas in the Santander province, who had a strange penance for residents who confessed their sins: to sow coffee seeds. The priest wasn’t naive – it was yet another push […]
BBC, CNN, NEW YORK TIMES Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s choice for Secretary of Defence is Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and former Republican senator from Nebraska. White House officials have also confirmed to multiple sources that Obama is set to name his counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan as the new director of the CIA. […]
URBAN TIMES, XINHUA (China), MING PAO (Hong Kong) Worldcrunch BEIJING – A top Chinese official announced on Monday that China would put an end to its controversial “Reeducation Through Labor” system. According to the Urban Times, addressing a meeting in Beijing, new Political and Legal Affairs Committee head Meng Jianzhu, said: “the use of Reeducation […]
BEIJING – At least 8,572 premature deaths occurred in four major Chinese cities in 2012 due to the high levels of fine particle pollution. This was the conclusion of a joint study called PM2.5: Measuring The Human Health And Economic Impacts On China’s Largest Cities carried out by Greenpeace and Peking University. Apart from the […]
SOUTH SUDAN CEASEFIRE TALKS BEGINGovernment and rebel representatives of South Sudan have both confirmed the beginning of ceasefire talks in neighboring Ethiopia, almost a month after the alleged coup attempt from soldiers loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Read more from Al Arabiya. STATE OF EMERGENCY IN N.Y. AS COLD CONTINUESNew York Gov. Andrew […]
RAMNICU VALCEA – To the tourist eye, Râmnicu Vâlcea is a quiet, leafy city. Located at the bottom of the Carpathian mountain range, in central Romania, no one would guess this town’s secret, buried in its working-class neighborhood, Ostroveni. You have to leave the boulevard that stretches across the city to end up in narrow […]
CHINA MEDIA PROJECT, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (Hong Kong), REUTERS Worldcrunch GUANGDONG– Journalists at the Chinese newspaper The Southern Weekly (also known as the Southern Weekend) have gone on a rare strike, claiming in an open letter that a New Year’s editorial calling for political reform and protection of individual rights was censored and re-written […]
THE AGE, AAP, THE MERCURY, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) Worldcrunch As wildfires rage across eastern and southern Australia, authorities warn that persistent record temperatures could spark the country’s worst fire catastrophe in recorded history over the coming days. With at least 100 people unaccounted for, people are being told to be diligent amid warnings that […]
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, YONHAP NEWS (South Korea) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – Google Chairman Eric Schmidt became the highest profile American corporate executive ever to visit North Korea, arriving Monday on a mission led by former US Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, the Associated Press reports. Richardson, also a former governor of the state of […]
-Essay- BEIJING – There has been a succession of dynasties in China’s long history, but Chinese culture has always followed the same basic ideology. This ideology is composed of ideas from three sources: the Book of Changes, Confucianism, and Taoism. Today, if we want to export the soft power of Chinese culture, we must first […]
A new L.A. exhibit shows the legendary director’s concern that IBM, which advised him on “2001: A Space Odyssey,” would not be happy with the 1968 classic’s scary tech storyline.
In Colorado, meet the nation’s first newspaper weed critic.
IRAQ’S PM URGES FALLUJAH TO ‘EXPEL’ AL-QAEDA Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on “the people of Fallujah and its tribes to expel the terrorists” so that “their areas are not subjected to the danger of armed clashes,” the BBC reports state television channel Iraqiya as saying. Last week, al-Qaeda-linked fighters took control of Fallujah […]