A Polish army officer got himself deported to Auschwitz to document war crimes in the concentration camp. Now for the first time, Germans can read this vivid account.
Category: Society
GENEVA – The other day, someone posted a photo of a Coca-Cola bottle named Jonas on my Facebook wall. I was honored, though I couldn’t quite say why: was it because of the object itself, even though until then, I had been mostly annoyed by the new global marketing campaign where Coca-Cola replaced its logo […]
LE MONDE Worldcrunch PARIS – It seems France’s love affair with taxing its citizens has reached a new high: the French Treasury sought full income tax payments from a 37-year-old convicted drug dealer for the sum he’d earned selling cannabis. According to Le Monde, two weeks before Farid, a former drug-dealer, got out of prison […]
SAUDI GAZETTE, BBC, LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch RIYADH – For the first time in Saudi Arabia, a new law has been passed that prohibits all forms of physical and sexual abuse, a measure hailed by human rights groups as a breakthrough in protecting women and children. Sources at the Ministry of Social Affairs told the […]
GUIPAVAS — In the Jacques Brel retirement home in Brittany’s town of Guipavas, Marcelle Plougoum looks at Jean-Noël Michel tenderly. They first met in a medical center for senior citizens, and have loved each other for three years in this modern residential community surrounded by gardens. “We stay together all the time,” Marcelle explains. “Being […]
Exactly 40 years after a hostage situation in a Stockholm bank, the now 72-year-old ex-convict recalls the bond formed with his captives. The psychiatrist who coined the term helps explain.
USA TODAY, HUFFINGTON POST Worldcrunch WASHINGTON — Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. President Barack Obama will speak on the same steps of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial during the “Let Freedom Ring and Call to Action” commemoration. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton will also speak after […]
Israeli authorities granted some one million visas to vacationers from the West Bank to cross the border during the recent Ramadan holiday. Some had never set foot in Israel before.
Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea cash in thanks to rigorous health standards and smart labeling.
BRASILIA — “I threw on a helmet and rode the motorcycle through the streets of Brasilia,” a content Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff recently, and casually, told the country’s Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lobão, who listened in disbelief. The minister said that he was shocked at first, just like the reporter to whom he […]
ANSA (Italy) Worldcunch PARIS – Italian-born model and movie star Monica Bellucci and her French actor husband Vincent Cassel are breaking up after 18 years together. The news was confirmed by Bellucci’s agent after recent rumors had circulated about their possible separation, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The couple was a long-lasting symbol of […]
Once a simple gold-mining camp, La Rinconada is considered the world’s highest city. But its 30,000 inhabitants live amid ice melt and endless piles debris. Can Peru finally clean it up?
Two weeks ahead of the naming of the 2020 Olympics location, as officials in Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo do last-minute bidding, protests rise in each city against the effects of hosting the Games.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch’s pick of the week is The Clash’s “Bankrobber.” The band’s frontman, Joe Strummer, who died in December 2002, would have been 61 this week. The song chronicles the life of the narrator’s father, who “loved to steal your […]
A school located in a remote stretch of the Amazon teaches indigenous children, many of whom come to learn Spanish, under extraordinarily rustic conditions.
These thrills do not come cheap…
By 2034, there will be 400 million people in China over age 60. And now, it seems, the state has finally decided to open up the business of caring for the elderly. What that means.
TIMES OF INDIA, BBC Worldcrunch MUMBAI — Police in India have arrested one man and are searching for four others after an Indian photojournalist was gang-raped in Mumbai Thursday. According to the Times of India, the man arrested has confessed to his involvement in the crime and has provided information to identify the four others. […]
BERLIN — There are a record number of asylum seekers pinning their hopes on Germany this year, and refugees from Russia by far represent the largest group. Of those, some 90% are from the North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has characterized the situation as “unsettling.” Germany has more asylum requests than […]
– Op-Ed – SANTIAGO — Recent findings from the World Bank and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) confirm that the middle class is now the majority in South America — and it will continue to grow. Without wading into the quagmire of defining “middle class,” a dicey topic with many nuances and interpretations, it […]
LE TEMPS (Switzerland) Worldcrunch BASEL – The nuclear accident of Fukushima is already leading to a surge in the number of cases of thyroid cancer, according to research being presented this week in Switzerland by Japanese scientist Toshihide Tsuda. The Swiss daily Le Temps reports that Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at the University of […]
To dodge fines in China for violating the one-child policy and give the advantages of an American passport, many Chinese women are flying to the U.S. to give birth. But there are risks involved.
Don’t call it a *pound* – Berlin’s Hohenschönhausen houses a huge number of formerly stray dogs, cats and other species in luxe-like quarters and remarkably attentive individual care.
Categories
It Takes Two Dudes To Tango
Or dudettes. For the first time, the annual Tango World Cup features several same-sex couples – three teams of men and one pair of women.
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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.
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.
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 […]
Categories
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.
Categories
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.
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.
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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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!
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 […]
Buyer beware: both prestigious boarding schools and summer tours have major drawbacks.