WorldcrunchAP, BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch A Moscow appeals court has freed Yekaterina Samutsevich, one of the convicted women from the punk band Pussy Riot, but upheld two-year jail terms for the other two. The judge ruled that Yekaterina Samutsevich’s sentence should be suspended because she was thrown out of Moscow’s main cathedral by guards before […]
LE POINT (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former leader of France’s Socialist Party and ex-head of the International Monetary Fund, has spent the past year trying to return the focus of attention to his economic acumen. But no doubt, his first interview since September 2011, set to be published in French weekly […]
Worldcrunch LONDON – Lady Gaga, fresh from a public presentation of her new perfume Fame at London’s Harrods, paid WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a five-hour visit at the nearby Ecuadorian embassy, where the famous whisteblower has been granted asylum since June. The meeting between the undisputed Queen of Twitter — Lady Gaga has recently reached […]
TAP (Tunisia), RT (Russia), AFRIK.COM Worldcrunch TUNIS – Tunisia’s Ministry of Women and Family Affairs has filed a complaint against Kaws Kouzah (“Rainbow”), an Arabic-language children’s magazine that published disturbingly detailed instructions of how to make a Molotov cocktail, Tunisia’s news agency TAP reports. The article, published under the “Knowledge Garden” section of the #302 […]
NEW DELHI – Who will be able to decontaminate Bhopal? During the night of December 3, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant exploded in the north Indian city of Bhopal, releasing toxic gases that killed between 15,000 and 30,000 people. Nearly 28 years after one of the worst industrial catastrophes in history, toxic chemicals abandoned […]
RIO DE JANEIRO – The area surrounding the house of Eomar Freitas, 36, looks like a war zone after air strikes. The shopkeeper’s home neighborhood is Rio’s Favela do Metrô, a slum tucked between Radio Oeste Avenue and the metro, next to the Maracanã station. Located just 500 meters from the Maracanã stadium, where the […]
MING PAO, THE STANDARD (Hong Kong), LIBERTY TIMES (Taiwan), EPOCH TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – Is Hong Kong nostalgic for British colonial times? Hundreds of people turned up in front of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong earlier this week to mark China’s National Day. They were waving red-white-and-blue […]
MARRAKESH – In the French Quarter of Gueliz, past the trendy Café de la Poste, you need only walk down the street to see the soliciting for yourself. In this very European neighborhood, where youths gather around the McDonald’s, it is more visible than in the infamous Djemaa El-Fna Square, in Marrakesh’s old town. Here, […]
MOSCOW – Rattled by a horrific traffic accident in Moscow, Russian authorities have finally turned their attention to strengthening the country’s laws against drunk driving. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Russia needed to implement a stricter penalty for drunk driving and called it the biggest issue in Russia. On September 22, a man was driving […]
The former East Germany is still considered to be a hotbed of neo-Nazism. Still, the movement to oppose the extremists is growing even stronger – to the point that leaders in the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) know that when they stage their public gatherings and marches more opponents will be in attendance […]
LE SOIR-LES ECHOS, MAP (Morocco), COURRIER DE L’ATLAS (France), BBC AFRIQUE Worldcrunch SMIR – A Dutch boat that provides abortions to women on the high seas has reached the edge of Morocco’s territorial waters, and was being blocked Thursday from further progress toward the North African shore by a warship, according to the AFP. The […]
GENEVA – Marie-Gisèle Sandoz lives by herself, and has no children or siblings. When the retiree decided it was time to make a will, it didn’t take long to decide who would be the benificiaries: three-quarters of her assets will go to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. “Ecology has always been an interest of […]
RUSSIA TODAY (Russia), BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, FOREIGN POLICY (USA), GLOBALWEBINDEX, TECH WEEK EUROPE (U.K.), IRISH TIMES (Ireland), DER SPIEGEL (Germany), MAIL AND GUARDIAN (South Africa) Worldcrunch PARIS – Facebook reached one billion users today. Now that one out of seven people on earth log on, the ubiquitous site has changed habits and affected lives worldwide. Here’s […]
Worldcrunch The world’s most famous secret agent is turning 50 – the James Bond film franchise is marking five decades since the October 5, 1962 release of Dr. No, the first movie of the series produced by London’s Eon studio. Twenty-two movies and countless shaken-not-stirred martinis later, moviegoers are trying to sum up — and […]
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (Germany) Worldcrunch Halfway into the 2012 edition, incidents of sexual abuse at Munich’s Oktoberfest are on the rise as compared to last year, Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reports One woman was raped behind a beer tent. “One rape is a rape too many,” says a report covering the first half of Oktoberfest by […]
MONTEVIDEO – Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica placed his country in the global drug-policy spotlight when he presented a bill earlier this year seeking to decriminalize marijuana. Many observers – including Nobel Prize winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru – pointed to the move as an example of what countries can do to prevent […]
ROME – It was a disquieting statement from the former butler of Pope Benedict XVI, as he took the stand in a Vatican court hearing his case. Paolo Gabriele, who lived for six years in the papal apartment, explained the motives that had led him to photocopy the Pope’s private papers: “Over time, I developed […]
One million CVs. That is how many resumes L’Oréal receives, year in, year out, in the 130 countries where the cosmetic giant has offices. From “job dating” on social networks to the avatars on Second Life, there have been various attempts to kill off the CV, but it keeps on being reinvented. Trends have come […]
GOMA – The stories here in eastern Congo are terrifying: large numbers of apes have begun attacking villagers. The main cause is the six-month-old war in the region, which forces the primates to leave their territory, and makes them see humans as a threat. The stories from Tongo, a village 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) north […]
LUANDA – The curtain will soon be rung down for the last time at the Elinga Theater in Angola’s capital, Luanda. The theater, where many rebellious artists got their start, holds an important place in Angolan culture. But it will soon be destroyed, its pink walls reduced to rubble by bulldozers. Like so many old […]
BEIJING – It took five long years for You Lian to understand that fine words are more important than good food and the capacity to hold your drink. He can still recall the first dinner party he attended at his old state-owned enterprise. Not only did he not understand the polite words one is supposed […]
At the very mention of the words “male jewelry,” scary images come to mind: super loaded pizzeria owner, rings gleaming on fat fingers, shirt open down to here, gold chain nestling in a dense forest of dark chest hair. But you could also imagine a turbo-tanned pimp on Hamburg’s red-light district, or German reality-show star […]
SYFIA (Democratic Republic of Congo) Worldcrunch MBANDAKA – For centuries, Maria, Luke and Matthew sufficed for those among the faithful eager to give their newborns a biblical name. For something a bit more original, others could always turn to Jacob, Jeremiah or Jonah — not to mention Amaziah, Basemath and Zebedee. But now in the […]
METRO (Sweden), SPIEGEL ONLINE (Germany) STOCKHOLM – Need more space in the room? IKEA may have found a new solution. Sweden’s free newspaper Metro noticed that women had been airbrushed out of the Saudi edition of the Swedish home furnishings store’s 2013 catalogue. Sweden’s Minister for Trade Ewa Björling told Metro: “You cannot erase women […]
DIE WELT, FRANKFURTHER RUNDSCHAU (Germany) The new book of poems, Eintagsfliegen (Ephemera), by German Nobel prize winner Günter Grass, 84, is already causing controversy. Reviewers who received advance copies describe “touching texts about aging and death,” and call the collection “a declaration of love to Germany.” But the poem called A Hero In Our Time […]
YANGZHI RIVER DAILY, CHINA DAILY (China) , EPOCH TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch (BEIJING) – The Chinese Communist Party has recently come up with a new bright idea on how to curb rampant corruption among China’s officialdom: training courses on how to identify conspicuous consumption. By organizing “appraisal lessons of luxury goods and artifacts,” the cadres of […]
KIGALI – There are preachers everywhere in the Rwandan capital. From minibuses to markets, from hospitals to the streets, all day, they try to get people to join their church. Early September, at the Nyabugogo market in Kigali, market-goers were surprised to see the Sainte-Famille parish priest. He had come to the market with worshippers […]
BERLIN – The issue is as old as Christianity: who belongs to a church? Some Catholic scholars in Germany defend the position that it is possible to be Catholic without paying church tax – but the country’s bishops don’t agree, and after months of negotiations they have voted a law that makes further discussion moot […]
While debate continues about controversial new national education reforms, hundreds of children in the southeast province of Hakkari have been locked out of their schools due to a major teacher shortage, the Dogan News Agency (DHA) reported. The 2012-2013 Turkish academic year kicked off on Sep. 17 with the implementation of the new 4+4+4 education […]
ORIENTAL DAILY, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (Hong Kong), LONDON EVENING STANDARD (UK) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – Cecil Chao Sze-Tsung, a Hong Kong real estate tycoon, has offered a $64 million “marriage bounty” to any young man “who can impress my daughter and give her happiness,” reports the China Times. Oriental Daily reported a week ago […]
CLARIN (Argentina) BARCELONA – For his adoring fans, superstar soccer player Lionel Messi can do no wrong – at least when he is on the pitch. But what about when he’s out of uniform? Watch as the Barcelona FC forward mistakes teammate Thiago Alcântara’s car for his own: The incident occurred just after a team […]
JERUSALEM — While it is a community that has lived in the city for centuries, not many have heard of the Dom in Jerusalem. “Few people know that we are the Gypsies of the Middle East,” says Amoun Sleem, director of the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem. The cultural center she runs was founded […]
DIE WELT, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch A 28-year-old woman has been charged with killing five of her own newborn babies over a period of several years, police said Thursday. Die Welt reports that the woman, whose name cannot be disclosed due to German privacy laws, has confessed to killing two of the babies, five years […]
NFL.COM, AP, REUTERS (USA) Worldcrunch After two days of marathon negotiations, the National Football League (NFL) has reached an agreement to end a labor dispute with its regular game referees, ending three weeks of questionable calls that had threatened the integrity of the sport, Reuters reports. Welcome back regular refs; it’s been too long: yhoo.it/PqxvF7 […]
MUNICH – The shelving is pink. The armchairs are pink. The bath salts are of course pink too. The air is heavy with a strawberry scent, and in front of the mirror sits Luisa, 11, having her long blonde hair combed. It must look a little like this at Barbie’s house. Kerstin Kobus, decked out […]
BEIJING – In many countries, being a doctor is regarded as a highly prestigious job. So why are so many Chinese medical students dropping out in the middle of their studies? According to Li Ling, a professor at the National Development Research Institute of Beijing University who is also China’s medical reform expert, “China trains […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – The three things that Russians find the most “immoral” are child abandonment, suicide and homosexuality, reports Kommersant. In a survey by the Levada Center, a non-governmental sociological research center, a majority of Russians polled also found sexual relationships between non-married individuals to be immoral. That is more than double the […]
Many years ago, when Italian military service was still compulsory, the army subjected its new conscripts to a general culture test with various types of questions. One asked: “Who is Leonardo?,” which prompted a surprising range of responses. Someone, it seems, even replied “The pope.” The artist behind the most famous painting in the world, […]
DIE WELT, DER SPIEGEL (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – German politician Julia Schramm, 26, is a member of the national executive committee of the Pirate Party, which has built a strong following for its crusade for Internet freedom and an end to copyright law. But soon after the publication last week of Schramm’s new book called […]
AL MASRY AL YOUM, MASRAWY (Egypt) Worldcrunch CAIRO – Social networks bristled with rage last week when city workers in the capital began painting over graffiti near Tahrir Square, including some iconic images and writings commemorating the 2011 Revolution. Now Cairo’s mayor Osama Kamel has conceded that the clean-up of the walls of Mohamed Mahmoud […]