On This Day – April 14, A Shot of History par Worldcrunch
Category: blog
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Laboratory Tests — Video Quote Of The Day
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Syria Vote, Panama Raid, Bye-Bye Kobe
SYRIAN TALKS, ELECTIONS, CEASEFIRE BREACHES Voting is underway in 12 of Syria’s 14 provinces where government institutions are still functioning, with voters required to choose 250 members of parliament among 3,500 candidates, AP reports. Supporters of President Bashar al-Assad are expected to win the vote, which has been dismissed by Western leaders as a sham. […]
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It Takes Two To Paraty
When my grandson went on his honeymoon in Brazil two years ago, I advised him to go to Paraty, a highly picturesque colonial village south of Rio, with its very colorful harbor and cobblestone streets. He had better weather than I did.
It sounds like the makings of a bad sitcom. In China’s northern Shanxi province, twin sisters married twin brothers, but uncomfortable mix-ups have led them to seek minor surgery to avoid confusing their respective partners, China News reports. According to the newspaper, a matchmaker fixed up the two Zhao brothers with the Yuan sisters over […]
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Popsicle Walls — Video Quote Of The Day
ARE DILMA’S DAYS NUMBERED? Photo: Agencia Estado/Xinhua/ZUMA Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will face what promises to be a dramatic impeachment after a committee in Brazil’s lower house voted in favor of removing her from office last night. Folha de S.Paulo reports that the committee panel vote came after an investigation into accusations that Rousseff had […]
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Paella Epicenter
If you’re eating paella in a restaurant in Valencia, there’s a good chance you’re eating the real deal: The authentic paella valenciana was born there.
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The Mother Of All Parks
Mountains, bison herds, petrified forests, geysers, waterfalls … Yellowstone is one the world’s great national parks. Founded in 1872, it is also widely considered to be the first.
CAMERON RELEASES TAX INFO British Prime Minister David Cameron released information from his 2009-2015 tax returns yesterday in an attempt to defuse controversy about how he profited from his late father’s offshore fund, The Independent reports. The details about the family’s investment company were leaked last week in the so-called Panama Papers. CIA WILL NOT […]
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Tattoo Words — Video Quote Of The Day
BEIJING — China has some 10 million children suffering from dyslexia, with most left to fend for themselves without help from the country’s educational or social aid structures. Chinese magazine Caixin reports this week on a new survey based on 2014 national data that found 11% of Chinese suffer from the disorder, which is caused […]
WORLD LEADERS SWEAT IN PANAMA SPOTLIGHT The global fallout continues, four days after the massive leak of documents linked to a Panama firm specialized in offshore financial operations. So far, there has been just one clear high-profile political casualty: Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who stepped aside on Tuesday — but the heat is […]
El Tiempo, April 8, 2016 “Court says “yes’ to gay marriage in historic decision” reads the Friday front page of Bogota-based daily El Tiempo, a day after Colombia’s highest court ruled to legalize same-sex marriage. Members of the Colombian LGBT community, pictured on the daily’s front page, gathered outside the court in Bogota’s historic center […]
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Algerian Perspective
Constantine, in northern Algeria, was French for about a century, from the middle of the 19th century until 1962 — just seven years before I drove down there with my family. My wife Claudine and daughter Cécile were gazing into the impressive ravine that surrounds the city, with the viaduct over the Rhumel river in […]
HARBIN — Fang Binxing, the architect of China’s internet censorship system, known as the Great Firewall, has run head-on into his own freedom-curbing creation. On a visit to his alma mater, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Fang gave a speech this week entitled “Defining Internet Sphere Security.” But as he began to lay out his […]
PANAMA PAPERS, THE CHINESE CONNECTION The latest revelations to emerge from the Panama Papers focus on the family members of top China Communist Party members, including the brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping, Bo Xilai’s wife and a distant relative of Mao Zedong. According to The Guardian, these relatives are part of China’s “red nobility,” “whose […]
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Ukrainian Magazine Smiles For Longevity
Kiev-based weekly news magazine Krayina asks its readers, “Are you ready to live until you’re 120?” In this week’s edition, the Ukrainian-language publication writes that longevity means additional opportunities — but also new problems: What to make of a couple extra decades? How to live in a family where four or five generations coexist? At […]
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Northern Mailbox
No matter where we went or how long, my wife and I would always take the time to write a couple of postcards to family and friends. And as far as I can tell, there’s no fixed rule for how many days it’d take for them to arrive.
Wednesday’s front page of Icelandic-language daily Fréttablaðið shows Iceland’s embattled Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson being asked questions by journalists in Reykjavik’s Althing, the national parliament, as the future of the ruling coalition is uncertain in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal. Gunnlaugsson had apparently resigned yesterday amid the uproar of the Panama Papers […]
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Long Before The Quake
Exactly seven years ago, a powerful earthquake killed hundreds and devastated parts of L’Aquila, in central Italy. And though the facade of the Santa Maria di Collemaggio remained intact, I feel lucky to have visited the basilica before the disaster: The cupola and several arches collapsed inside.
CRUZ’S BIG WIN OVER TRUMP, SANDERS TOPS CLINTON The Republican party’s improbable presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suddenly looks vulnerable after a stinging double-digit loss to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the Wisconsin primary. The New York Times reports that by early today Cruz had received 48% of the vote to 34% for Trump. Wisconsin also […]
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Kid Math Problem — Video Quote Of The Day
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Post-Panama Probes, Zuma Vote, It’s Nova
COUNTRIES LAUNCH POST-PANAMA PAPERS PROBES After yesterday’s first reports into the massive leak of confidential documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca, known as “the Panama Papers,” several countries have launched investigations into allegations of money laundering and tax fraud, the BBC reports. Among those countries are Australia, Austria, France, Spain, the Netherlands and even Panama. […]
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Charlie Hebdo Cover: “Je Suis Panama”
“Fiscal Terrorism,” the front page of this week’s satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo reads in the wake of the Panama Papers leak, which implicates heads of state and other wealthy notables in a global money laundering and tax avoidance scandal. In parodic reference to last year’s Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, after which “Je suis Charlie” […]
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La Paz Prayer
A couple of streets away from La Paz’s eerie Witches’ Market, complete with llama fetuses, this man praying at the Metropolitan Cathedral was relying on some slightly more conventional beliefs.
PANAMA PAPERS SET OFF GLOBAL REACTION A massive leak of more than 11 million documents has exposed an immense network of offshore shell companies, many of them illegal. The documents — dubbed the “Panama Papers” — were obtained by German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and reveal the involvement of 72 current and former heads of state. […]
GIBRALTAR — There is a troubling side story jutting into the Brexit debate from this tiny British territory at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula. Madrid-based daily El Mundo reports that in Gibraltar — affectionately known as “the Rock” — locals and the government alike are opposed to “Brexit”, a British exit from the […]
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Vanilla Siesta
The secret of the French island of Réunion“s vanilla lies in its drying stage: the beans are laid out in the sun and intermittently put to rest in the shade.