HILLARY’S IN, AND THE WORLD REACTS
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Sunday announcement that she’s running in the 2016 presidential race, her second bid to become the first female U.S. president, drew news coverage from around the world, with one German newspaper even using the English headline, “The Very First Lady.” Via a short video on her campaign website, the former First Lady and ex-Secretary of State made her long-expected candidacy official, seven years after losing the Democratic Party nomination to Barack Obama. Here are some front pages from around the world.
VERBATIM
Photo above: Evandro Inetti/ZUMA
“In the past century, our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th century,’ struck your own Armenian people.” Pope Francis has raised hackles in Turkey after comments he made during a Sunday Mass at Peter’s Basilica, attended by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. Turkey recalled its Vatican envoy after the Pope’s made reference to the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I, the Turkish daily Hürriyet reports. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called the remarks “null and void for the Turkish people and Turkey,” underlining that genocide is a “legal concept” and should not be invoked by religious authorities.
OPPOSITION BOYCOTTS SUDAN “VOTE”
More than 13 million Sudanese are set to vote in general and presidential elections beginning today, though opposition parties are calling the polling a “charade,” Al Jazeera reports. Incumbent President Omar al-Bashir is the world’s first and only sitting president wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Darfur, yet he is expected to hold on to power, extending his 25-year rule over the country. He is being challenged by 14 little-known candidates who have reportedly benefited from little to no media coverage. In the early hours of today’s voting, security forces outnumbered voters in polling stations, The Guardian reports. Election results are expected on April 27.
ON THIS DAY
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Hungary became a republic 166 years ago today. Time now for your 57-second shot of history.
ISIS CLAIMS LIBYAN EMBASSY ATTACKS
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks Sunday and Monday on the South Korean and Moroccan embassies in Tripoli, Libya, AFP reports. A bomb exploded early Monday outside the Moroccan embassy, and just hours earlier, gunmen fired shots at the South Korean embassy, killing two security guards and wounding another person. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, ISIS fighters claimed responsibility for the attacks via Twitter.
MY GRAND-PÈRE’S WORLD
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OPPOSITION DEATH SPARKS GABON VIOLENCE
Violence broke out in Libreville, Gabon, Sunday evening after the announcement that 57-year-old opposition figure André Mba Obame had died in unknown circumstances. Opposition supporters accused the government of being behind his death,France 24 reports. The Benin embassy and several cars were burned, Reuters reports. In 2011, Obame declared himself the presidential election winner, disputing the victory of Ali Bongo. For the past three years, he has rarely been seen in public because of significant health problems.
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
As Le Monde’s Marlène Duretz reports, Cyber crime is skyrocketing and experts are panicking. One billion digital data records were stolen last year, and half of those attacks have been linked to identity theft. And yet, more than half of French Internet users protect their online lives with passwords that are pet names and birthdays. “In 2001, British psychologist Helen Petrie, a specialist of man-machine interaction at City University London, was studying how 1,200 users were creating their passwords,” the journalist writes. “She concluded that our choices are our personality in a nutshell, a sort of ‘21st century Rorschach test.’”
Read the full article, What Your Passwords Say About Your Psychology.
PARIS BIDS FOR 2024 OLYMPICS
The French capital is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, the Council of Paris announced today. The City of Light joins Hamburg, Boston and Rome in the list of cities officially angling for the honor. Durban, Melbourn, Nairobi, Casablanca, Doha and Istanbul are also potential candidates.
FAREWELL
German author and 1999 Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass has died.
‘O LUNA MIA
Here’s the weekly horoscope of Simon, Italy’s most trusted astrologer, directly from the Eternal City.
