Worldcrunch SINGPAO.COM (China) ZHEJIANG – Earlier this week, a nursing student used her blog to post some photos she’d taken in a neo-natal ward in Zhejiang Province. The young woman had made paper cut-outs of blue eyebrows and pig ears and noses, and attached them to two sleeping babies. She then picked up each child […]
Category: Society
Are iron-fisted bans on tobacco the best way to reduce smoking? Or will it end up replacing regulated tobacco by counterfeit, dangerous, organized-crime produced cigarettes?
Worldcrunch BBC NEWS (United-Kingdom), RMC (France), LA STAMPA (Italy) Although the 14th European Soccer Championship is only just kicking off in the Ukraine and Poland, it has been the topic of headlines for many weeks now. The two countries hosting the competition are at the center of multiple controversies: *There is a culture of hooliganism […]
As Euro 2012 kicks off in Ukraine and Poland under a cloud of controversy, a female protestor in Brazil is already planning for the World Cup in two years — joining forces with feminist group Femen from Ukraine, which has a unique way of making themselve
LES NOUVELLES NEWS (France) PARIS – The women’s semifinals were held Thursday at Roland Garros, an opportunity for some of the world’s best female athletes to shine. Yet the French Open organizers decided to turn centre court’s signature clay surface… pink! Sinking deeper in old clichés, the tennis officials set up a special “women’s village” […]
President Fernando Lugo has recognized his second child from his days as a supposedly celibate Catholic man of the cloth. Other paternity suits from various women are outstanding. Some estimates of the number of offspring might make a rock star blush.
ANT1 (Greece) ATHENS – Only weeks after the neo-Nazi Greek party Golden Dawn entered Parliament, one of its deputies physically attacked two left-wing women rivals during a TV show on ANT1. Ilias Kasidiaris, Golden Dawn’s spokesman, exploded when Rena Dourou, from the far-left party, referred to Kasidiaris’ current trial for armed robbery. Kasidiaris stood up […]
A painting of black President Jacob Zuma, in full frontal nudity, by a white artist creates a racial controversy that reminds South Africa the wounds of the Apartheid are not even close to be healed.
LE SOIR (Belgium) MONS – Rock stars aren’t the only ones with groupies – bow-tied prime ministers have some too. During local celebrations last Friday, Belgium Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was targeted by just such a super-fan. While the professorial PM was posing with Socialist Party supporters, a young woman pounced on him and […]
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The 42 Rejections Of Gisele
Worldcrunch TERRA (Brazil) RIO DE JANEIRO – Does anyone have any doubts about Gisele’s beauty? Well apparently, before rising to supermodel status, Brazil’s Gisele Bündchen was rejected 42 straight times when trying to get an international runway job in London, the website of the Brazilian magazine Terra reported. “I turned to myself and asked ‘am […]
Op-Ed: Moroccan author and political scientist offers a subtle thesis: sexual repression is a gateway to corruption and political repression.
Hibiscus flowers, palm trees- the loud colorful shirts sported by Magnum PI are making an unlikely comeback on catwalks and in Europe’s most fashionable stores.
THE STRAITS TIMES / CHANNEL NEWS ASIA (Singapore) SINGAPORE – “Since January, there have been nine fatalities, compared to four cases in 2011 and eight in 2012,” reports the Straits Times. Is the newspaper talking about car accidents or bird flu? No, that’s the number of maids that have died from falling out of a […]
More than a quarter million people have already signed a petition asking for the show to apologize for the way it bullies its contestants.
A women’s right to an abortion is rapidly vanishing in Turkey, as Prime Minister Erdogan recently called it “murder.”
LE PARISIEN, LE MONDE (France) NICE – In the French Riviera city of Nice, couples must now marry in silence. Or at least, not so noisily. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi pushed through a controversial decree last week forbidding married couples to celebrate their wedding too loudly within the walls of the city. Since June 1, […]
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, tobacco powder is a common cure for colds, headaches and many other ailments.
Authorities in Shenzen, China are offering a slew of free services such as shoe shining and haircuts. But this is not most citizens’ idea of urgent public reform.
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Madonna v. Marine Le Pen
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) TEL AVIV – Madonna has danced herself right into the center of French politics. And the show may not be over yet. During the first stop of her “MDNA” tour in Israel last week, the American pop star melded images of right-wing French leader Marine Le Pen with Nazi imagery. During […]
Feng Shui is making a come back in China – and its experts are more than happy to cash in on the boom.
As cities in Rwanda are urbanizing and gentrifying, the poor are forced to move to the countryside, where land prices are rising nearly as fast.
Bernd Ruffing, 38, lives with a large group of people, but they’re all men, and they’re all old. His mother is appalled by the situation. But the soon-to-be monk is sure he’s doing the right thing in the right place.
ROMANDIE.COM, LE TEMPS (Switzerland) BERN – Switzerland seems to know its priorities. While economic storm clouds continue to gather over Europe, lawmakers in the landlocked country were busy this week negotiating what to do about marine mammals. The western world is undergoing one of its worst crises ever, but Switzerland “is taking all the time […]
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Hugo Chávez, Latin America’s Twitter King
MILENIO (Mexico) Latin America’s longest serving leader, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is also the region’s most popular head of state – at least as far as Twitter is concerned. The ailing president recently became the first of the 12 Latin American leaders with active Twitter accounts to pass the 3 million followers mark, Milenio reports. […]
The growing political movement for Internet freedom, the Pirate Party, has shocked many with recent electoral success in Germany. The next objective is establishing a beachhead in France in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.
You can be live to 122, AND smoke, drink and devour chocolate. You can also do all those things and die young. Researchers try to unlock the secret to hyper-longevity.
ECONOMIC OBSERVER/SHANGHAI ONLINE NEWS (China) Song Wenchao has become an unlikely hero in China. The 50-year-old man lives in the only remaining house on a building site in Hunan Province. All the others have been torn down by the Changsha City Government. Song’s home is still standing — but only because he refuses to leave. […]
TAGES-ANZEIGER (Switzerland) ZURICH – Sparks are set to fly as groups on both sides of the right-to-die debate prepare to descend on Zurich – with just one street to divide them. The Swiss city is known throughout the world as being something of a mecca for the practice of assisted suicide and what’s been dubbed, […]
Some Swiss are questioning the parallel lifestyle of rich and highly skilled migrants, some of whom come for tax breaks. The foreign residents are often set apart, for good, in their choice of schools. Can this be remedied?
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Why Tobacco Companies Love French Films
LE PARISIEN and LES ECHOS (France) A public health advocacy group called the French League Against Cancer is taking advantage of World No Tobacco Day – today – to sound the alarm about “hidden advertising” for cigarettes. Tobacco advertising was outlawed in France in 1991. And yet cigarette manufacturers are still finding a way to […]
LA POLITICA ITALIANA and ZENIT (Italy) ROME – For the first time in its over 150-year history, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official daily newspaper, is publishing a supplement specifically for women. The four-page insert is called “Women, Church, World” and is written “by and for” Catholic women, La Politica Italiana reports. In an interview with […]
How would you like it if in your company, deceased employees were automatically replaced by family members, even if they didn’t have the training?
LE JOUR (Cameroon) NKOL-METET – When class is over in Nkolya II School, in the small Cameroonian village of Nkol-Metet, children get to work. As in many Cameroonian schools, children, sometimes as young as six years old, do personal tasks for their teachers — like carrying firewood to their teachers’ houses at the end of […]
As a consequence of the bad economy and high real estate prices, more and more couples continue to share the same home, even after they divorce.
TELSUR (Venezuela) CARACAS – Venezuelan authorities have vowed to submit a formal request for the repatriation of a 30-ton rock that currently sits in the downtown Tiergarten park in Berlin, Germany. The 12-cubic-meter “Kueka” stone used to belong to an indigenous tribe in Venezuela called the Pemón, which consider it to be sacred. Kueka translates […]
BOXUN.COM (United States) Now disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, at the center of a scandal shaking China’s ruling elite, is alleged to have paid large sums of money to have sex with celebrated Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, according to Boxun.com, a U.S.-based Chinese website. Boxun, which had previously broken news about Bo’s demise and been […]
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The Zuckerberg Private Honeymoon Paradox
Why The Facebook Founder’s Anonymous Roman Getaway With His New Bride Is Barely Worth A Tweet.
Space is so tight at one Brazilian university that some classes are now being held at a nearby kindergarten. The adult students have started to protest, saying it’s hard to concentrate amid the din of shrieking five-year-olds.
Three Moroccan ferries, seized in order to pay their company’s debts, have been forced to anchor in the French coastal city of Sète for more than five months. Some 200 crew members are living in worsening conditions, with no way out.
EL TIEMPO (Colombia) BOGOTA – Nearly 25 years after being axed by DC Comics, “Snowflame,” a cocaine-snorting comic book villain (who also happens to be Colombian), is back – and still ruffling feathers. DC Comics artists Steve Englehart and Joe Stanton created Snowflame in 1988. “Cocaine is my God – and I am the human […]