BBC, REUTERS, AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch TOKYO – The Japanese nuclear agency upgraded the severity level of a toxic leak at the Fukushima nuclear power plant from 1 to 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (0 to 7). The raising of the toxic level Wednesday marks the first time Japan has issued such a warning […]
Month: August 2013
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Homes Are Us: The World According To Ikea
In seven decades, Ikea has spread to 41 countries, shaping the globe’s domestic habits. But looking closer at the Swedish standard also shows national cultural differences holding strong.
VERONA — One honeymoon. 90,000 kilometers. 321 days. Two rules: 1) never take an airplane, and 2) never pay more than 15 euros for a meal for two. Elisa Bocca, a 32-year-old interpreter, and Alessandro Bocca, a 37-year-old photographer, are the Italian stars of this global honeymoon. They travelled through the United States, Mexico, South […]
The problem all along, this Turkish writer argues, has been the Egyptian Army. And its takedown of the Muslim Brotherhood will only breed extremist terrorists.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 TERRORISTS CLAIM EXECUTION OF U.S. JOURNALIST The jihadist terror group ISIS has claimed to have killed James Foley, an American journalist captured in Syria two years ago. A video the group posted online, but later removed, purported to show the man being beheaded, The Washington Post reports. U.S. intelligence is said […]
GUARDIAN (UK), BBC, WASHINGTON POST, RUSSIA TODAY Worldcrunch LONDON — Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has accused the British government of raiding the newspaper’s London offices last month to destroy hard drives and computers in a attempt to prevent further reporting on the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. “A little over two months […]
Dachau politicians have been looking for a way to deal with the Nazi heritage of their German city. That eventually led them to the Polish town of Auschwitz. Notes from a difficult journey.
BBC, AL JAZEERA Benazir Bhutto (rhyme reverie)
AL JAZEERA, REUTERS, BBC Worldcrunch CAIRO – Egyptian authorities escalated their crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by arresting Mohamed Badie, the Islamist organization’s top leader, state media reported on Tuesday. The 70-year-old was detained at a residential apartment in Nasr City in northeast Cairo “after information came to the security apparatus locating his place of […]
If fast food is a symbol of the world’s Western domination, then their franchises are like lone scouts inspecting the area before the rest of the army arrives. To satisfy their traveling Western customers or to gain new ones, the biggest fast-food chains have, sometimes unintentionally, set up shop in some of the most remote, […]
The intricate connection between state power and academic authority is fertile ground for corruption in research and education. Here is one recipe to clean up the campus in China.
TEL AVIV — The school year is starting soon, and with it comes another not-so-small burden on families around Israel: pre-school and pre-elementary education can cost up to one-third of a person’s gross salary, even in upper-income cities and towns. Indeed, child care expenses for young families was a central point of contention during the […]
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A Visit To The “Greek Guantanamo”
Greece has been repeatedly criticized for its treatment of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. One its harshest detention centers in the city of Corinth, south of Athens.
Aug. 19, 2014 ISIS THREATENS AMERICANS In an online video message, ISIS terrorists threaten to attack Americans “in any place” in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against them in Iraq, The Independent reports. In the gruesome video, a statement reads, “We will drown all of you in blood.” This comes as Kurdish Peshmergas and Iraqi troops […]
BBC, Al Jazeera Worldcrunch CAIRO – At least 24 Egyptian police officers were killed Monday morning in an ambush attack in the Sinai peninsula, as the open conflict between state authorities and Islamists opponents deepens further following the deadliest week in recent memory. According to Al Jazeera, two police minibuses were driving through a village […]
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Speeding Train Kills 37 In India
BBC, PARDA PHASH (India), INDIA TIMES Worldcrunch PATNA — At least 37 Hindu pilgrims were killed after being hit by a train as they tried to cross tracks at a train station in the Northeastern Indian state of Bihar. The accident, which left another dozen injured, sparked furor among locals and other pilgrims who assaulted […]
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Pistorius’s Murder Trial Set For March
BBC, REUTERS Worldcrunch PRETORIA – South African “blade runner” Oscar Pistorius was officially indicted Monday on charges of murdering his girlfriend, with the trial set to begin in March 2014. The March 3 start date has been agreed by all parties during the hearing at Pretoria magistrates’ court Monday, the BBC reports. The 26-year-old star […]
As the number of people renouncing American citizenship has shot up across the world, binationals in Switzerland have led the way in turning in their blue passport. But it’s not just about the banks.
SÃO PAULO — When Jorginho wakes up in the morning, he has a breakfast of fruits and yogurt to get his bowels moving. Then he takes an anxiolytic to ease the worries of a stressful day ahead in the big city. Around the corner is Bino, who has a weekly session of acupuncture on his […]
One writer discovers that a New York once suicidal for cyclists has given way to a city of bike lanes and cheap public access to this environmentally friendly mode of transportation.
Since the army’s assault on Muslim Brotherhood began, Egypt’s non-Muslim minority, the Copts, have been killed and their churches and buildings burned by radicals in the Brotherhood.
Though the country spends less per pupil than many other developed nations, students here consistently test better than nearly all their global counterparts. Here’s why.
CAIRO — In the wake of the deadly army crackdown on supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, La Stampa spoke with Egyptians of different backgrounds and viewpoints. Here is what four of them had to say: Alfred fears Islamists want Egypt to be the next Syria “Every time I try to stop my hatred […]
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Magazines, Mapped! Week Of August 16-22
What has the world been reading this week? Check out our selection of covers from top magazines around the world…
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch’s pick of the week is Wu-Tang Clan’s “Tearz,” a nod to the hip-hop group’s flagship debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which came out 20 years ago. “Tearz” is a sample of 60s soul singer Wendy Rene […]
With talks on in Havana to end the decades-old civil war in Colombia, a push is on to force negotiators to meet face-to-face with victims of the violence.
BERLIN – Denise from Sossenheim does it. “Mmm…,” it says under the picture of ochre-yellow lentil soup. David from Berlin does it too. On his Facebook page he shows what looks like the pizza he ordered for lunch with the words “Super Pizza” written underneath the image. For many young people, photographing their food and […]
WASHINGTON POST Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency (NSA) has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents the Washington Post obtained from Edward Snowden. The Post reports that most […]
Mohammed VI pardoned a Spanish pedophile, before reversing himself. The case raised questions about the monarchy, but also exposes Morocco’s inability to confront the plague of sex abuse.
BBC, AL JAZEERA, NEW YORK TIMES Worldcrunch BEIRUT – A previously unknown Sunni group has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s car-bomb explosion in a southern Beirut neighborhood, one of Lebanon’s bloodiest attacks in recent memory and the clearest sign to date that the conflict in neighboring Syria is crossing the border. As the death toll climbed […]
AL JAZEEARA (Quatar), BBC Woldcrunch CAIRO — Supporters of deposed Egypt President Mohamed Morsi asked their fellow citizens to join them in a nationwide “Friday of Anger” to protest the Egyptian security forces massacre that killed at least 638 people Wednesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. and other countries have urged their citizens to leave the country. […]
BEIJING — Economists rack their brains studying the nature of business. In the simplest terms, the essence of business is to make money. But in today’s China, as elsewhere, particular political, economic and social factors make a difference — and a wide range of uniquely Chinese money-making mechanisms have been developed. What Wang Lin, the […]
Take a tour of what the world has been saying this week…
For most vacationers this summer, it was a choice of beach, countryside or cultural capitals. Of course the world is also full of places where most people would never consider spending a holiday. But leave it to the tourism industry to cash in on the strange and creepy too. Take a look. “Sailing stones” in […]
The liberal arm of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood movement is unlikely to survive the army’s bloody attack on supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi.
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Warts And All: In Defense Of Frogs
Considered the ugliest of them all, frogs are far more helpful to the environment than cuddly kittens or charming princes. It’s time to start showing some serious amphibian amour!
–Op-Ed– MUNICH — We Germans have always struggled with the euro crisis. We talk about it a lot, muse about what would happen if the euro zone split up, bitch about those nasty countries frittering our money away. But there’s one thing we don’t do: suffer from the economic crisis. On the contrary. Even if […]
AP, BBC, InterAksyon (Phillipines) Worldcrunch Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli shocked the tennis world by announcing her retirement just 40 days after winning her first-ever Grand Slam in London. The 28-year-old French player made the announcement from a media conference in Cincinnati after losing to Romania’s Simona Halep at the Southern and Western Open. “I just […]
Aug. 15, 2014 EU MINISTERS DISCUSS ARMING KURDSEuropean Union foreign ministers are in Brussels today for an emergency meeting about whether to arm Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against ISIS, which the U.S. and France are already doing, the BBC reports. A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that the UK would “favorably […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), THE GUARDIAN (UK), BBC Worldcrunch CAIRO — The day after more than 500 people were massacred as Egypt’s security forces swept through Cairo streets with weapons, tear gas and bulldozers to disperse protesters, supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi are calling for new demonstrations. Despite the interim government declaring a state of […]