Worldcrunch
BERLIN – With all its other problems, the euro is also getting unexpected — and “underground” — competition from a new virtual currency. It’s called the bitcoin, and in case you haven’t heard, it is the most ambitious (and to-date, successful) attempt to create a new online currency, generated by the calculations of thousands of […]
HAARETZ (Israel), WAFA (Palestine), REUTERS, AP Worldcrunch RAMALLAH – Barack Obama arrived Thursday in Ramallah in the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders, on the second day of his visit to the Middle East. The U.S. President met with President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah’s presidential headquarters to emphasize the […]
AAP, ABC, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia), TVNZ (New Zealand), IRISH TIMES (Ireland) Worldcrunch CANBERRA – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologized Thursday to two-decades worth of mostly young, unwed mothers who were forced to give up their babies for adoption. From the 1950s to the 1970s, an estimated 150,000 unwed Australian mothers had their babies […]
Too many Chinese have taken their pursuit of happiness to the United States, and elsewhere in the West. China must ask itself why are there still so many good reasons for leaving.
BERLIN – How fast is evolution? Pretty fast, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Tulsa published in the scientific journal Current Biology. An estimated 80 million birds are killed by cars each year. In Europe too, millions of birds die the same way. But over the past 30 years, the […]
CLARIN, LA NACION (Argentina), BBC MUNDO Worldcrunch VATICAN CITY– Pope Francis will meet Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Vatican confirmed late Wednesday, as questions linger about the new pontiff’s role during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Pérez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Peace Prize for his defense of Human Rights during the dictatorship, […]
LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch VATICAN CITY – A book by Pope Francis and the Chief Rabbi of Buenos Aires will be translated and published into English on May 7. “Sobre El Cielo y La Terra” (On Heaven and Earth) was written as a series of conversations between then Archbishop of Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario […]
With his proposal to cut bonuses for European bankers, Belgian politician Philippe Lamberts has become public enemy No. 1 for Britain’s financial industry. Nothing could make him happier.
MOSCOW – Catholics aren’t the only ones who have noted the significance of Pope Francis’ name choice. Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and head of the Russian Orthodox Church“s Department of External Relations, says the Argentine pontiff’s decision to honor Saint Francis of Assisi puts “service to the poor” at the top of the […]
Worldcrunch MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google has made it easier to search for GIFs and other animations on their Google image search engine. Enter your search term into Google images, click the search tools button and under Any Type, click animations on the drop down menu – voilà! In celebration of this, here are some of […]
President Obama’s arrival in Israel with no new peace proposal to offer is reassuring to many Israelis. They should be worried instead.
LA STAMPA, LIBERO QUOTIDIANO (Italy) Worldcrunch MILAN – Fido has an appointment with the vet but your boss just scheduled a last-minute meeting? No worries, let Pet Taxi take care of it for you, says La Stampa. Pet Taxi is an initiative started by Farmina Pet Food in collaboration with SCIVAC (Society of Italian Vets) […]
UKRAINE TO WITHDRAW TROOPS IN CRIMEAThe Ukrainian government announced plans to withdraw its troops from Crimea and relocate 25,000 service personnel and their families. This comes after pro-Russian self-defense groups and Russian troops forced them to leave more military bases yesterday, The Washington Post reports. The announcement seems to contradict a Parliament resolution adopted this […]
YNET, TIMES OF ISRAEL, CHANNEL 2 TV (Israel) Worldcrunch JERUSALEM – Barack Obama landed in Israel on Wednesday for his first trip as U.S. president. He was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport by President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the Times of Israel, President Peres welcomed Obama “with open arms,” saying: […]
LIBERATION, LE PARISIEN, LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – French President Francois Hollande’s government faces its first confidence vote Wednesday over its handling of the country’s finances as a government heavyweight resigns over allegations of tax fraud. The confidence vote was called by the opposition Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP). While it is […]
KOREA TIMES, YONHAP, KOREA INFORMATION SECURITY AGENCY (South Korea), AP Worldcrunch SEOUL – Two banks and three major broadcasting stations in South Korea went into shutdown mode on Wednesday in what is a suspected hacking from North Korea. According to Korean news agency Yonhap, three broadcasters, three banks and two insurance firms reported to the […]
The justification for war was false and the victims are endless, even extending to those dying today in Syria. A bitter look back from leading Moroccan daily Le Soir.
The death penalty is alive and well in the land of the rising sun — and death row is particularly wretched.
LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch VENICE– You no speeka the English? Well then, signori, you will not be welcome at Italy’s prestigious Ca’ Foscari and Bocconi universities. La Stampa reports that Ca” Foscari, a 145-year-old public university in Venice, and Bocconi, the private Milan business and economics university, are requiring that all students enrolling for the […]
BEIJING – Less than six months ago, U.S. Under Secretary of State Robert D. Hormats gave an exclusive interview to Caixin, in which he said that one of the most important tasks in US-China relations was to define differences on intellectual property rights protection and find common solutions within the next six months. On Feb. […]
ALSASUA – Here in the Spanish Pyrenees, the locals celebrate quite a bizarre tradition with roots in ancient times — made alive again by those who like to mingle with the walking dead. During this weeklong Alsasua fiesta, abandoned in the 1930s but picked up again in the 1990s, the “Momotxorros” are dressed in blood-spattered […]
-OpEd- PARIS – A lot of people in Europe, especially the French, cheered heedlessly when the Arab Spring took off in 2011. But then came the 70,000 dead from the Syrian war; the proliferation of terrorism in Libya and Mali; the assassination of the main Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid in a country where there […]
PRO-RUSSIAN MILITANTS STORM UKRAINIAN NAVY BASE A group of Crimea’s pro-Russian self-defense militants stormed the headquarters of the Ukrainian navy in Sevastopol, one day after Russia declared the peninsula part of its federation. According to AP, Ukrainian servicemen offered no resistance and calmly left the building. NO SIGN MISSING PLANE ENTERED CHINA China hasn’t found […]
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE (U.S.), CLARIN (Argentina), VATICAN RADIO (Vatican) Worldcrunch VATICAN CITY– The inauguration of Pope Francis took place Tuesday morning in St. Peter’s Square before a sea of simple faithful and heads of state from around the world. Babies were kissed, flags were flown, and the Vatican rolled out its open-top white papal jeep. […]
It’s the failure of an entire business model, not just a few banks. Who might be next?
REUTERS, BBC NEWS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A spate of car bombs and shootings killed at least 56 people and wounded more than 200 in Baghdad, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. Reuters reports that several car bombs hit Shi’ite districts of Baghdad on Tuesday […]
Leading by example can be more powerful than any doctrinal diktat.
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, TEPCO, KYODO (Japan) Worldcrunch TOKYO – Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) announced on Tuesday that cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant have been partially restored after a power failure had suspended cooling operations at three spent fuel ponds on Monday. Map Saneef/Babbage The shutdown of cooling systems occurred after a power […]
Officially incoronated Tuesday as the 266th Roman pontiff with a mass in St. Peter’s Square, the path for Jorge Mario Bergoglio began one September day nearly six decades ago.
TURIN – Have you ever wanted to take a stroll in Yosemite National Park? Or discover the South Omo Valley in Ethiopia? How about Cappadocia in Turkey? Now you can explore all of these sites from the comfort of your living room thanks to Trail Me Up, a sort of Google Street View, where you […]
DIE WELT (Germany), HURRIYET DAILY NEWS (Turkey) Worldcrunch AMSTERDAM – Turkey has launched a campaign to retrieve Turkish children that have been adopted by gay and Catholic couples in European countries, reports Hurriyet Daily News. Currently at the center of the debate is nine-year-old Yunus, the child of Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands, who is […]
–Editorial- BEIJING – It is a well-known fact that Chinese people don’t like to spend money. Since the 1998 financial crisis, China’s policy makers have been trying to expand domestic demand, and in particular Chinese consumption, to let the “caged tiger” loose. In other words, it is time that people dig into their savings. Since […]
CRIMEA OFFICIALLY PART OF RUSSIA Russian President Vladimir Putin officially asked the Russian Parliament for Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to become new members of the Russian Federation and introduced a bill that he urged them to sign following his address. CHINA BEGINS LAND SEARCHES FOR PLANE China has begun land searches for Malaysian […]
AFP, FRANCE 24 (France) Worldcrunch KARACHI – Pakistani security officials said Monday they have arrested a former senior leader of a banned militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) who was allegedly involved in the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, AFP reported. Qari Abdul Hayee, popularly known as Asadullah and from Karachi’s eastern Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighborhood, was […]
JOURNAL DE MONTREAL, METRO MONTREAL (Canada), CTV NEWS, CNN (USA), AP Worldcrunch MONTREAL – Two inmates have been recaptured early Monday morning, only one day after their daring escape from a jail northwest of Montreal, in the Canadian Province of Quebec. Quebec provincial police told the AP they had arrested four people about 30 miles […]
Can you guess what demographic smells the worst?
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Global markets tumbled Monday as new doubts spread about the solvency of the eurozone with the Cypriot government preparing to impose a new levy on bank deposits in order to qualify for bailout funds. Finance ministers in the eurozone Sunday had demanded that Cypriots pay up to 10% of their […]
GAZA – They have almost all left: Bachar for Sweden, May for Spain, Imad for Tunisia, Mohamed for Qatar, Assad for Egypt, Adham for Belgium. Moustapha, Asmaa’s brother also left for Belgium, while Mohamed Matar, aka Abou Yazan, the leader of the short-lived March 15 Movement, that tried to bring the Arab Spring to Gaza, […]
FOLHA DE S. PAULO (Brazil) Worldcrunch BALNEÁRIO CAMBORIÚ – A sea lion measuring about three meters (9.8 feet) long left his home in the warm waters of the Golfo do Mar and took a waddle-walk into this Brazilian resort city’s downtown shopping area. It was around 5:20 p.m. Saturday evening when onlookers watched as the […]
SANTIAGO – On January 16th a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from All Nippon Airlines (ANA) was forced to perform an emergency landing in a regional airport after smoke was detected in the electric compartment. This was the fourth incident in less than a month for one of the world’s most state-of-the-art aircrafts. Dreamliner had represented a […]