Worldcrunch
SYRIA: EVACUATIONS, SANCTIONS, ARCHEOLOGY THREE-DAY MOURNING AFTER PLANE CRASH IN ALGERIA Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared three days of mourning after yesterday’s plane crash in which at least 77 people died, website Algerie Focus reports. The crash appears to have been caused by bad weather. TWO CRACKS FOUND NEAR RADIOACTIVE WATER TANKS AT FUKUSHIMA Two […]
KCNA (North Korea), REUTERS Worldcrunch North Korea has confirmed it “successfully” conducted a third nuclear test at a northeastern underground test site, in defiance to UN Security Council’s orders to shut down its atomic activity. “It was confirmed that the nuclear test that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect […]
Worldcrunch PARIS – After yesterday’s announcement that Pope Benedict XVI would resign from the papacy on Feb. 28, the world’s newspapers reacted today: ITALY UNITED KINGDOM AUSTRALIA ARGENTINA BELGIUM CANADA BRAZIL CHILE COLOMBIA FRANCE GERMANY INDIA USA SPAIN POLAND SWITZERLAND HONDURAS MEXICO PARAGUAY SOUTH AFRICA SWEDEN PORTUGAL THE PHILIPPINES IRELAND AUSTRIA
SABAH (Turkey), THE GUARDIAN (UK), YNET (Israel) Worldcrunch Nine years after her husband’s death, Suha Arafat regrets her marriage to the former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. They married in a secret wedding in Tunisia in 1990 when Suha was 27. Arafat, then 61, was 34 years older. In an interview given last week to […]
As the Catholic Church reels from the surprise announcement Monday that Pope Benedict XVI will step down at the end of the month — the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years — the world will again watch from afar as the Cardinals prepare for the secret Conclave to pick his successor. Meanwhile, the Russian […]
STUTTGART – The man who called himself Ryan Davis was playing a strange game. He moved in Neo-Nazi circles, and at the beginning of the new century he created a German chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the city of Schwäbisch-Hall in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. But for years he also provided […]
NIAMEY – The small restaurant sits on the corner of two sandy streets in Niger’s capital city, Niamey. It is here, at Le Toulousain, that two Frenchmen were kidnapped by AQIM (Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) on Jan. 7, 2011. The two young hostages – an aid worker and his friend – were killed during […]
Worldcrunch 1. ARGENTINA “Benedict XVI resigns because of waning energy” – Clarin 2. CHINA “Pope announces resignation” – Apple Daily 3. USA New York Times 4. FRANCE “Pope resigns. Benedict XVI doesn’t have “enough energy” to lead the Church. He will be stepping down on Feb. 28.” – Libération 5. ITALY “Pope announces: I will […]
DAGENS NYHETER, ABBA THE MUSEUM (Sweden), COURRIER INTERNATIONAL (France) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – Thirty years after the broke up, iconic Swedish pop band ABBA is still making headlines, writes Courrier International. On May 7, a huge ABBA museum will open in on Djurgarden island, in Stockholm. Tickets have already gone on sale, says ABBA The Museum. […]
CHINA AND TAIWAN MEET FOR HISTORIC GOVERNMENT TALKS Representatives of the China and Taiwan governments met today in the Eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, the first face-to-face meeting of cross-strait officials since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, which saw the separation of the two states. While no official agenda was released […]
ANSA, LA STAMPA, VATICAN RADIO (Italy) Worldcrunch ROME– Pope Benedict XVI stunned his Church and the world at large, by announcing that he will resign from the papacy on February 28. He made the announcement himself, in Latin, during Monday morning’s consistory for the canonization of martyrs of Otranto, victims of a massacre in 1480. […]
KFAR KAMA – Bent down in his field in this lower Galilee town, Amjad Shami points out the countless underground tunnels dug by voles. Three years ago, he says, these rodents destroyed his entire harvest. Shami says he continues to try to fight them with pesticides, which do little more than poison his land, infect […]
LOS ANGELES – And the winner of the 55th Grammy Awards is… the younger generation. Sunday night’s Gammys were all about Mumford & Sons, Fun, Gotye and the Black Keys. Gotye (left) and Kimbra (right) during their acceptance speech, Youtube. Here are the night’s big winners: Record of the year: Somebody That I Used To […]
BBC NEWS (UK), TIMES OF INDIA, HINDUSTAN TIMES (India) Worldcrunch ALLAHABAD – At least 36 pilgrims on their way back from the world’s largest religious festival in northern India have died in a stampede late Sunday. The death toll may rise again, as dozens of other injured were in a critical condition after the stampede […]
A landslide last month in Zhenxiong County in southwestern China killed 46 villagers. Once the bodies were recovered, the local authority — without any prior agreement from family members — cremated them. This set off a storm of protest from relatives of the deceased, and widespread criticism from the public. Zhenxiong authorities sparked further outrage […]
Worldcrunch PARIS – Call it “Horsegate” or just a really bad case of un-authentic Italian food, but the story of horse meat winding up in one of Europe’s most popular brands of “all beef” frozen lasagne has been galloping on for four days. We have Romanian meat in question? And also e-questrian. You see where […]
BERLIN – People who were there said he cried for several minutes at the executive committee meeting on the morning after his defeat. As party members analyzed what had gone wrong in the state election campaign, the governor of the German state of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, burst into tears. Angela Merkel comforted him, and […]
Look up (with binoculars) for a glance of 2012 DA14, size of half a football field.
SECOND ROUND OF SYRIAN PEACE TALKS BEGIN The Syrian government and opposition representatives are meeting in Geneva for the second round of peace negotiations, during which Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to meet separately with both delegations, AFP reports. The talks come as civilians from the besieged city of Homs were evacuated during […]
TOKYO – While he was Prime Minister of Japan from September 2009 to June 2010, Yukio Hatoyama did not demonstrate a particularly acute political vision. But when he visited Beijing recently, he showed common sense shared by many Japanese but seldom seen in their leaders – he admitted that there was a “territorial disagreement” between […]
As many as one billion people may not have access to clean drinking water by 2050. Changes are needed, which may also create investment opportunities.
TECH CENTRAL, IRISH INDEPENDENT (Ireland), LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch DUBLIN – The European Union is banking on broadband. More than eight million euros in EU funding have been awarded to a project that promises to “revolutionize” broadband in Europe. According to Tech Central, the DISCUS project aims to address issues at the heart of the […]
KAYANZA – It seemed like such a small thing when it began nearly a year ago here in northern Burundi: Pygmies would share their unique weaving techniques to the ethnic Hutus and Tutsis of the Kayanza province. But learning to weave carpets, nets, handbags, even tables and chairs…and for free…has earned unexpected waves of good […]
CANNES – “The MP3 is dead.” As the Midem yearly music industry event opened in France last week, Yves Riesel, president of music streaming service Qobuz, declared the end of the top online music format. “From Feb. 1, we won’t be selling MP3s anymore. All of our downloadable content will be in CD quality sound, […]
ISTANBUL – Four heavily made-up, peroxide blondes are sitting on a talk show set. In broken German, they’re trying to prove that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is wrong. It’s a particularly bizarre bit of religious propaganda – but since 2011 creationist theories have been packaged this way for Western viewers and broadcast by the […]
BEIJING – Recently, pharmaceutical company Renhen Pharmacy went through a public relations nightmare after a doctor wrote on the popular Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo that its children’s cold medicine was dangerous. Could better preparation and response on Weibo have substantially mitigated the damage to Renhe’s image? On Jan. 21, a Weibo post about Renhe Pharmacy […]
LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) Worldcrunch NAPLES– They say if you want to enjoy Italian theater, just walk out the front door. That goes 20 times over in the endlessly colorful southern city of Naples. Just such teatro di strada is all here in this amateur video (below), as a man unsuccessfully tries a U-turn in a […]
LE TEMPS (Switzerland) Worldcrunch PUERTO BAQUERIZO MORENO – The famous giant tortoise of the Galapagos is saved! At least for now… It was thought that the ancient Galapagos tortoise endemic to these South American islands had gone extinct with last year’s death of Lonesome George, the last of the living among this type of tortoise, […]
CHICHICASTENANGO – “What happened to the Mayans? Why did they disappear?” asks a tourist, while the minivan enters the winding streets of Chichicastenango, in Guatemala. The guide, Haroldo, smiles, just as every guide should when asked that question, and answers: “Disappear? Look around you, these are the Mayans, they are here.” This is the first […]
PARIS – Temptations for children take many forms: video games, computers, TV, tablets. According to French audience measurement company Mediametrie, children between four and 14 spend more than two hours in front of the TV every day. On Jan. 22, the French Academy of Sciences issued a warning about children watching television or movies from […]
Documents reveal how American intelligence officers turned a secret training center for Polish security forces into one of the controversial “black site” prisons for terrorism suspects.
AP, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS Worldcrunch NEW YORK– Even before the first flake has fallen, the tabloid New York Daily News had already declared Friday that winter storm Nemo was “a pain in the butt.” With a major blizzard predicted to begin later in the day, Newark, Boston’s Logan and New […]
THE INDEPENDENT, THE GUARDIAN, THE DAILY MAIL, BBC (UK) Worldcrunch LONDON – British government food officials have warned the public not to eat frozen beef lasagna sold by the Findus brand after tests showed they contained up to 100% horsemeat. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has ordered all British companies to test their processed beef […]
BBC, AP Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A series of car bombings in Iraq on Friday have left at least two dozen dead and scores injured. The targets of the attacks, which included a double bombing at a market in northern Baghdad that killed as many as 14, appear to be Shia population, reports the BBC. Officials […]
This musical and cultural project in Switzerland aims to redefine the very essence of the creative process.
-Opinion- CARACAS – The Venezuelan opposition is at a crossroads after two electoral defeats and in front of imminent political change for the country. Instead of weakening him, President Hugo Chavez’s cancer has reinforced his power and pushed his opposition ever deeper into a corner. The opposition did not instigate the political change – they […]
ANSA, LA STAMPA, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) Worldcrunch FLORENCE– It only took a step in the wrong place by a worker doing maintenance in the floor above to bust through a 500-year-old fresco in the famed Uffizi Gallery. According to ANSA news agency, the fallen piece depicted an allegorical female figure from the 16th Century. The […]
LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – A new French study has found that the risk of diabetes may actually increase more with the consumption of diet or light soft drinks than with sugary ones. Researchers at Inserm, the French biomedical and public health research institution, followed the health and consumption habits of 66,188 women since […]
President Kirchner lets loose on Twitter…
SWEDEN – Sagas are epic tales full of symbolic details, and the IKEA saga is no exception. The story of the Swedish furniture giant, founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, who is now 86 years old, definitely qualifies as a saga. It combines successes, setbacks and the carefully maintained mythology around the patriarch, who even […]