Worldcrunch
ISIS TARGETS SYRIA’S MUSLIM MINORITIES Despite losing ground across much of Syria, ISIS remains a dangerous threat in the western part of the country under the Syrian government’s control. A series of explosions in the cities of Homs and in the capital Damascus yesterday killed at least 140 people and wounded dozens more. ISIS claimed […]
The Sun, Feb 22, 2016 After obtaining concessions from Brussels in order to stay in the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron faces major internal blowback as popular London Mayor and Tory party ally Boris Johnson announced he would campaign in favor of the so-called “Brexit.” A day after Cameron called the June 23 […]
These gaunt, alien-like musicians overlook Reykjavik, near the iconic Perlan observatory, giving an eerie feel to an already otherwordly landscape.
CHIRIACO — A devastating oil spill in the Peruvian Amazon is spreading weeks after it began on January 25th. Lima-based daily El Comercio reports that the spill has affected two Peruvian provinces in the Amazon region, polluting farmland, rivers and forests. Some 3,000 barrels of oil burst from a pipeline began running through protection barriers […]
U.S. AIRSTRIKES TARGET ISIS IN LIBYA A predawn U.S. airstrike targeted an ISIS camp in Libya, killing at least 30 members of the terrorist outfit, The New York Times reports. The operation, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, targeted senior Tunisian operative Noureddine Chouchane who is linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last […]
It is not the first time Lech Walesa, Poland’s revered first president of the post-Communist era, has been accused of being a spy for the old regime, having been cleared by a court in 2000. But new accusations yesterday that the now 72-year-old was a paid informant for the Communist authorities in the 1970s, before […]
The fishermen“s wives of yore used to wear seven colorful petticoats; some say to represent the seven waves in a set, others say to keep warm while awaiting their husbands’ return. In the late 1950s, these women working at Nazaré“s seafood market already considered it folklore, as they found it doubtlessly easier to carry their […]
Spanish newspapers are digging into a spiraling investigation of alleged money laundering in Spain by a state-run Chinese bank that is world’s largest financial institutional. “The Chinese Bank Is A Tool For Extracting Millions From Spain,” reads Thursday’s front page of Spanish daily ABC. More than 100 Spanish police officers raided the Industrial and Commercial […]
TURKISH TROOPS HIT AGAIN IN DEADLY ATTACK Photo: Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua/ZUMA A Turkish military convoy in southern Turkey was targeted by a roadside bomb this morning, an attack that killed at least six soldiers and wounded another, Hürriyet reports. It came just hours after a car bomb in Ankara also targeted military personnel yesterday, killing 28 […]
Critics have lambasted the cover of Polish newsweekly wSIECI (The Network), which depicts a screaming white woman wrapped in the European Union flag being pulled at and fondled by six dark and hairy arms. “The Islamic Rape Of Europe” reads the cover line. In the lead article of the widely read magazine, writer Aleksandra Rybinska […]
In the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, tourists can no longer take photographs or roam under the 3rd-century Arch of Triumph. The terrorists of the Islamic State blew it up in October last year using dynamite.
MEDELLIN — Colombian meteorologists blame weather phenomenon El Niño for unprecedented weather changes, bringing both extreme drought and rapid evaporation of water to the South American country. Water supplier Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has announced that citizens in the Colombian city must reduce their water consumption by 10% if local water supplies are to […]
PARIS — A report says the use of an anti-mosquito pesticide in drinking water could be the cause of the mass outbreak of microcephaly cases in newborns Latin America, and not the Zika virus, as the Brazilian government and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been saying. French weekly magazine Paris Match cites a report […]
NEW AID TO REACH BESIEGED SYRIAN TOWNS The Syrian government has granted aid convoys access to seven besieged towns, the United Nations announced today after talks in Damascus. The aid is due to arrive “within days,” Al Jazeera reports. The areas concerned are Deir ez-Zor, an eastern city under siege by ISIS, Foah and Kefraya, […]
On the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, this man was using a bamboo ladder to harvest sap from a tree, which would then be processed into sugar at the local refinery.
“WAR CRIMES” ON SYRIAN HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS France and Turkey have denounced the bombing of five hospitals and two schools in Syria, labeling them as war crimes, the BBC reports. At least 50 people were killed by yesterday’s strikes in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces, the UN has said. Different warring parties are blaming one another. […]
SALTILLO — An alleged “illegal singing” case last week this city in northern Mexico might have wound up as a light source of laughter in the pages of a local newspaper. But when police in Saltillo tried to arrest a man for singing as he walked on the street, telling him he had no permit […]
Although it’s close to Petra, one of humanity’s architectural wonders, this pyramid in Wadi Rum was actually carved by Mother Nature.
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LEIDEN — Over the years, several journalists have dug into the corporate structure of Swedish furniture giant IKEA and the business dealings of founder and CEO Ingmar Kamprad. But the probes have turned up little dirt. But now, the European Parliament’s Green Party group say they have managed to map out IKEA’s complex revenue scheme […]
PRE-CEASEFIRE, SYRIA FIGHTING ESCALATES Fighting has intensified in Syria just days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced that an agreed ceasefire would begin by the end of this week. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital 70 […]
“If War Comes Tomorrow,” read this week’s edition of Moscow-based magazine The New Times, quoting the title of a famous 1938 Russian propaganda movie on a very Soviet-looking cover, as it wonders what the consequences a new “big war” would be for Russia. The weekly magazine focuses on the dangers of what it calls “the […]
Not only is the Great Stupa, in the ancient Sri Lankan capital of Anuradhapura, considered an architectural marvel, but it is one of the holliest places for Buddhists, as the shrine is believed to contain relics of Buddha.
Gotland is Sweden’s largest island, home to some 57,000 people and a popular tourist destination during the short Swedish summers for its many beaches and hiking trails. During the Cold War, the island also served as a key military base in Sweden’s defense against the Soviet threat, which loomed just 80 miles away to the […]
HOW FAR CAN SYRIAN TRUCE REACH? Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, announced this morning that they had agreed on the rapid delivery of desperately needed aid to besieged Syrian cities. Talking to reporters in Munich, the two top diplomats expanded on yesterday’s announcement of what amounts to an extremely […]
La Prensa, Feb. 12, 2016 “Welcome!” reads Friday’s front page of Mexico City-based daily La Prensa, greeting Pope Francis as he’s set for an afternoon arrival in Mexico for his first visit as pontiff. Ahead of his five-day trip, which includes a visit to a prison in the crime-riddled city of Ciudad Juarez, the Pope […]
“Trump Tells All,” reads the cover of this week’s edition of French right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, which nabbed an exclusive interview with real estate mogul and 2016 Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “If I’d been at the Bataclan or one of the cafés, I would have opened fire,” Trump told the French magazine, when asked […]
A lot of history happened in this room, the United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York. When I went there, the Big Five and the 10 other members had just voted on resolutions about arms embargo in Rwanda, sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro and humanitarian aid in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
RUSSIA PROPOSES SYRIA CEASEFIRE Russia has proposed a ceasefire in Syria starting March 1, but U.S. officials responded that it should start immediately, AP reports. Washington officials belief that Moscow, which has been aiding Syrian government troops with airstrikes, is buying itself time to “crush moderate rebel groups,” AP reports. The proposal is expected to […]