After several high-profile miscarriages of justice, could a Chinese movement take root to abolish capital punishment? But public outrage cuts both ways.
Month: April 2013
FRANCE 3 BRETAGNE, LE TELEGRAMME (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – From Ernest Hemingway to Carla Bruni, the French capital has seen its fair share of notable visitors over the years. But this week saw a surprising arrival from the provinces: four black woolly sheep brought in from Ouessant Island, a remote island to the west of […]
Nuclear arms are more shield than weapon, so long as no one is suicidal.
CORRIERE DELLA SERA, LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch VENICE – The city famous for its canals and occasional “high water,” has withdrawn its candidacy to become European Capital of Culture in 2019 because it is already flooded with tourists, reports Corriere della Sera Forrestn While other cities line up for all the residual payoff of getting […]
AFP, LE MONDE (France), HAARETZ (Israel) Worldcrunch PARIS – The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has admitted to having plagiarized and lied, after it emerged that several parts of his book Forty Jewish Meditations were taken from other sources, reports Le Monde. “The plagiarizing unmasked on the Internet is true,” Bernheim wrote in a […]
NEW YORK TIMES, HARTFORD COURANT (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Connecticut lawmakers approved a comprehensive package of gun laws in the early hours of Thursday. The sweeping package bans the sale of magazines carrying ten or more bullets, requires background checks on all firearms sales, sets up a registry of weapons offenders and imposes mental health […]
LAVROV HITS BACK AT UKRAINE ACCUSATIONSRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the fact that Ukraine ignored “independent ” expert assessments in its investigation of the deaths of more than 100 protesters and police officers in the last days of Kiev’s Maidan standoff Voice of Russia reports. Lavrov also said that a leaked conversation between EU […]
AFP, CLARIN, LA CAPITAL, LA NACION, TERRA ARGENTINA (Argentina) Worldcrunch LA PLATA – At least 56 people were killed and 3,000 evacuated after flash floods hit the coast of Argentina, prompting President Cristina Kirchner to declare three days of national mourning. Around 40cm of rain fell on La Plata in a short period late Tuesday […]
MOSCOW – The past month has brought record-breaking snowfall and cold snaps throughout central Russia. But the bad weather has done much more than spoil people’s moods and clog roads — it has raised new alarms about global climate change. First the data: March was one of the coldest in the past 50 years in […]
The most memorable graffiti and wall murals are often demolished by the force of urban real estate development projects.
SINA (China) MASHABLE (US) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Internet giant Baidu has made billions following in Google’s footsteps in China’s emerging online market. Now, after coming to dominate the Chinese online search business, Baidu is right on the heels of the rollout of Google Glass, with its own interactive eyewear, reports Sina Tech. Though still in […]
Mediapart uses old-school reporting to get major scoops, including a probe that just forced France’s Budget Minister to resign. But you have to pay to read. A news model for the future?
TURIN – Music and organized crime are a duo that have gone hand-in-hand since way back when. Outlaws often see songs as a way to glorify what they do, creating legends that inspire as well as frighten the regions they come to dominate. The Mexico we hear about today is said to be held hostage […]
AAP, PLOS ONE (Australia) Worldcrunch SYDNEY – A new study from Australian scientists has concluded that animals are just as tempted by tasty treats as we humans are. In an article published in the PLOS One journal on Wednesday, researchers found that rats exposed to what they call a “cafeteria diet” increased their bodyweight by […]
Worldcrunch SEATTLE – Did you ever wonder what the Big Bang sounded like? Physics Professor John Cramer at the University of Washington has spent a chunk of his career trying to recreate what the ecoustic experience was like back billions of years ago when the universe was formed. Cramer has just released his most precise […]
It’s simple economics: people with math skills have higher-paying job offers than teaching.
LE MONDE, FRANCE 24, JEROME-CAHUZAC.COM, LIBERATION, L’HUMANITE, LA VOIX DU NORD (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – French President Francois Hollande appeared in a brief televised address broadcast on Wednesday, after his former Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac admitted he was guilty of tax fraud. In the pre-recorded broadcast, Hollande said Cahuzac had “fooled the highest authorities of […]
Categories
Investing In – And From – The BRICS
In a recent interview, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill, whose pen gave birth to the concept of the BRICs —the constellation of emerging economic powers Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and now including South Africa) — said the countries’ combined growth had “exceeded all expectations.” Noted O’Neill, “in slightly over a decade the group’s GDP has […]
UKRAINE RIOT POLICE SUSPECTED OF ‘MASS MURDER’Twelve members of Ukraine’s now disbanded Berkut riot police have been arrested on suspicion of “mass murder” during Kiev’s Independence Square protests in late February, where over 100 people were killed, Reuters quotes a spokesman for the general prosecutor as saying. But RT reminds readers that both protesters and […]
YONHAP (South Korea), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch PYONYANG – North Korea blocked South Korean workers from accessing a jointly operated industrial park on Wednesday. North Korea banned South Korean workers from crossing the border to work at the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex, only allowing about 800 South Koreans who stayed overnight at the border town to […]
YNET, HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST (Israel) IRISH TIMES (Ireland) Worldcrunch GAZA – Israel launched an airstrike on Gaza early on Wednesday morning, reports Ynet, its first attack in months. Israeli warplanes struck two targets in the Gaza strip, in the first attack since November, when an informal ceasefire was signed between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel. Ynet […]
He was Benedict XVI’s right-hand man, and now runs daily operations for Francis, but it’s still not clear where German-born Georg Ganswein fits into other power struggles in Rome.
An interview with Zhang Xianmin, founder of one of the many independent cultural events that were banned last year by the Chinese government.
LA STAMPA (Italy) Worldcrunch PARIS – These are not the sorts of “islands” where you’d plan your next tropical vacation. Located in vast areas of the world’s Oceans, by some accounts comprising an area twice as big as Texas, they are home to neither human nor animal life. Instead these islands are instead simply monstrious […]
SANTIAGO – Venezuelan television network Globovision has announced it had accepted a purchase offer, and its sale would be finalized shortly after the presidential election on April 14. Globovision’s board of directors explained that they were selling the station because its operation had become both legally and financially impossible due to harassment from the government […]
A new study in Germany explores the role of Christian belief in driving Nazi brutality.
Some say, in the long run, segregating bus and tram lines will actually make it worse.
UKRAINE READY TO NEGOTIATE WITH RUSSIAUkrainian Interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk told investors at a conference this morning that the government “would like to hold negotiations on Ukrainian-Russian relations and we think that our foreign ministers should meet as soon as possible,” Voice of Russia reports. He named bilateral trade and energy as topics that […]
KNCA (North Korea), YONHAP (South Korea), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SEOUL – North Korea announced plans on Tuesday to restart a nuclear reactor it had agreed to shut down more than five years ago. Authorities quoted by North Korea’s KCNA news agency said the country had plans to re-open and refurbish all its nuclear facilities, […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – It’s a thorny question that has plagued governments for years: What exactly constitutes a bribe? It is particularly relevant in Russia, where corruption is so rampant that even well-meaning business people must grease the wheels in such a way that their counterparts in the West would scoff at. Russia’s Supreme […]
AP, BBC, THE IRRAWADDY (Burma); REUTERS Worldcrunch RANGOON – Thirteen children were killed in a fire at an Islamic building housing orphans in Burma’s biggest city early Tuesday morning. Sectarian violence has shaken Burma, also known as Myanmar, during the past week and the authorities were quick to blame the blaze on an accidental electrical […]
In the private sector as in politics, a small group of influential dynasties still rule the country. Being on the outside, makes a play on power virtually impossible.
When a crooked system is allowed to fester, there are few who are free of blame — and little chance we will remained unscathed. A view from the European Union’s eastern front.
REUTERS, AP Worldcrunch RANGOON – On Monday, Burmese readers had a choice of daily newspapers for the first time in 50 years, as a state monopoly on newspapers ended. Sixteen publishing licenses were granted by Burmese authorities, but only four privately owned newspapers managed to hit the stands today, reports Reuters. The other newspapers failed […]
LYON – Those familiar with the Freegan movement know that dumpster diving to find food to eat is nothing new. But organizing free food distributions to denounce food waste is a novel form of Freeganism – as practiced by the activists from the Gars Pilleurs organization founded by two young men from Lyon, east-central France. […]
AMSTERDAM – Land of tulips, windmills and canals, the Netherlands is always an enchanting country to visit. But 2013 holds some special surprises. Here in the capital, the eccentric and transgressive mix with more classic beauty and history: from the coffee shops and red light district to the many museums and over 7,000 monuments sprinkled […]
UKRAINE OKs HOSTING JOINT DRILLS WITH NATOThe Ukrainian Parliament approved this morning a decision from acting President Oleksandr Turchynov to hold joint military drills with NATO countries later this year, Interfax reports. The decision, described by acting Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval as “a good opportunity” to develop Ukraine’s armed forces, is likely to anger Moscow, […]
BEIJING – On March 9 and 10, many Chinese families were disappointed. It was on those two days that American private high schools announced their admission results for foreign students. For those who have just been through the one to two year enrolment process that includes cramming for tests, sending application forms and recommendation letters, […]
Welcome to the international day of distrust for everything and everyone you know. As we are coming to discover, April Fool’s Day was both made for the Internet — and made for the Internet to eventually destroy. Here are some of this year’s early entries: 1) Google Nose Pick your smell, get your nose against […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, ECONOMIC TIMES (India) NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch NEW DELHI — In a landmark decision on Monday, India’s Supreme Court rejected a application by pharmaceutical giant Novartis for a major cancer drug patent, a ruling that could clear the way for cheaper generic versions of medicines to continue to be distributed around the […]