A Spanish pianist faces seven years of prison…for practicing; Italian thieves clean up; An Argentine doctor’s zealous anti-abortion move; and more from the week in global crime.
Category: Society
Police are monitoring traffic from a small wooden gatehouse in eastern Vientiane, on the outskirts of the Laotian capital. It was here nearly one year ago, opposite the Indian embassy, that 62-year-old Sombath Somphone mysteriously disappeared. The rural development promoter and farmers’ rights activist hasn’t been heard from since. On Dec. 15, 2012, Somphone was […]
BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have recently introduced a “Ten Thousand Talents Support Program,” a nationwide project for selecting outstanding talent in all areas of scientific and technological innovation. Among those, 100 people would be identified as potential Nobel Prize winners. Similar programs, equally generous and costly, have been put in place before. But regrettably, […]
Orange diamonds, Francis Bacons, Twitter shares and Chinese singles help us see the world in numbers over the past seven (7) days…
The ceremony was a favorite annual inter-faith event of then Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who went on to become Pope Francis.
NANJING — War crimes should never be forgotten, no matter how misleading may be their names. Asia’s history includes “comfort stations,” places used during World War II by Japanese forces to provide sexual services to their soldiers, often by imprisoned women from other countries. A recent controversy in this eastern Chinese city, infamous for the […]
RABAT — At the mouth of the Bou Regreg River in Morocco, the small blue boats go from one shore to the other. The tireless rowers have assured the exchange of goods between Rabat and Salé, a commuter town on the other side of the river. “We wanted to preserve the boats, because they are […]
What does “sustainability” really mean? A forward-looking French architect offers his reflections as part of Worldcrunch Impact: Smarter Cities.
HAMBURG — When Natalie Leroy talks about this German city’s water, her voice changes. It’s as if it was bubbling directly from the holy spring in Lourdes, not from one of the thousands of faucets in Hamburg. “It’s just water…” you might want to tell her, but then you would be getting it totally wrong. […]
SANA’A — Antar Al-Aldharij pins his opponent down on the mat without using a dagger or a rifle. Yemen“s national judo champion, who trains every afternoon in a gym just outside of the capital, Sana’a, just needs the strength of his arms and bare hands. Al-Aldharij and his teamates share the small room of just […]
-Op-Ed- BOGOTA — The urge to wander the streets and feel the adrenaline rush that comes when painting on a public wall or bridge is condemned in our society, which has demonized this colorful art form and freedom of expression. This is a fundamental right — to communicate through letters and images painted on surfaces […]
Poor women come to this Indian clinic to rent their bellies to wealthy couples from around the world. A practical solution to modern problems or the worst kind of social engineering?
-Op-Ed- ISTANBUL — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the following to parliamentary representatives at his party’s gathering last week at Kizilcahamam: “A university student girl is staying at the same house with a male student. There is no supervision for that. This is against our conservative democratic nature. Some kind of supervision must […]
When it comes to offering comfort and counseling to parents dealing with their Internet-era teenagers, the French government is shelling out major cash.
HOMS — I still remember April 18, 2011, when it seemed all of Homs turned out for the funeral of 12 people. Tens of thousands of men and youths exited the grand mosque of Homs, the coffins held aloft amid the multitudes. The procession headed to al-Kateeb cemetery, one of the most revered burial grounds for Muslims in the city. Twenty years ago, Homs residents were forbidden from burying their dead in al-Kateeb cemetery; it was running out of space and the final few places were reserved for only the most prominent sheikhs. They would be the lucky few accorded […]
HONG KONG — While migrating to Hong Kong has become trendy for certain Chinese middle-class families, a wavelet of Hong Kong’s own middle class seems to be moving off the wealthy island. According to data from Hong Kong’s Security Bureau, some 3,900 people emigrated in the first half of this year. Though this is still […]
BEIJING — The Chinese capital likes to dazzle visitors with the biggest and best projects in the world. Consider, for example, the Olympic Park built for the 2008 games. It is spread over nearly 12 square kilometers, intersected by a canal that, seen from above, resembles a dragon. The park is an exhibition of the […]
Babs tried and failed, so did the peeps working for Beyonce and even French President Francois Hollande. Once online, information beats to the sound of its own drum.
Photo: Kris Krüg Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: The hard rock band Motörhead released their 21st album, Aftershock, last October, 36 years after their 1977 debut album, Motörhead, came to give the British rock “n” roll a raging new life. At the […]
Among only five Latin Americans on Forbes Magazine’s presitigious annual index of the most powerful is El Chapo, a legendary Mexican drug kingpin poisoning the entire region.
Though she knew she would never walk again, it didn’t mean she couldn’t climb.
The teacher is a shopkeeper who volunteers his time to kids who otherwise would be shut out from any education.
Nearly three decades after a bloodbath between guerrillas and the government, prison sentences, judicial expenses, and international prosecutions are costing the country dearly.
IVRY-SUR-SEINE — The Plateau special planning district in this small town south of Paris could almost be mistaken for a regular construction site. Since 2007 the multidisciplinary artist Stefan Shankland has guided the construction of some 1,000 apartments according to an “action research” program launched by the city government and developed over the course of […]
As winter descends on Mongolia’s cold and polluted capital of Ulaanbaatar, toxic coal heating is turning on everywhere. An estimated one resident in 10 dies from the effects of pollution.
A German perspective on the mind-boggling modern art discovery this week in Munich – one more sign that the Nazi past is fading into history.
-OpEd- BEIJING — Chen Yong Zhou, a reporter working for Guangzhou city’s New Express newspaper in the southern city of Guangzhou, was detained recently by police who had arrived all the way from Hunan, 425 miles away. Chen was accused of damaging the reputation and commercial interests of Zoomliom, a Hunan construction machinery and sanitation […]
BUENOS AIRES — The daily arrival of droves of people to work in Argentina’s capital has economic benefits, since these commuters are also consumers who spend their money on goods and services inside the city. But that windfall is more than cancelled out by increased spending on education, health, maintenance of public spaces and other […]
And it’s about to get worse in the country that has granted temporary asylum to Edward Snowden.
Those who suffer from autism are increasingly sought out for their special skills set, particularly in IT. But difficulty with office politics and politesse can place limits.
TURIN — There are journeys even more awful than the perilous crossings in rickety boats made by would-be immigrants trying to reach European shores. In these trips instead – made to Pakistan, Iran, Egypt or certain Eastern European countries – people sell a part of themselves: a journey of transplants, to places where the human […]
NADOR — Papa Africa carefully wraps his only possession, a cooking pot, in a cover. He then climbs up to the top of a tree to hang it. “It’s because of the police. When they come, they burn and break everything,” he explains as he jumps back to the ground. Next stop is the “Tranquilo,” […]
Photo: Adam Kliczek Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch Pick: As a tribute to Lou Reed, who died on October 27, the Parisian contemporary art museum Fondation Cartier released, for the first time, a video of Lou Reed and fellow former Velvet Underground member […]
When Gezi Park protesters held up posters of Kemal Ataturk amid a fog of tear gas, they were searching for stability in a changing world. Reflections on 70 years of the Turkish Republic.
Categories
Redefining Death Through The Ages
Technological advances and ethical questions have forced societies to constantly redraw the thin line between life and death. (Happy Dia de Muertos!)
Often victms of human encroachment, these animals have been left without their mothers. But it is also humans who help teach them they can swing from branches.
Gentlemen, throw away your razors and kiss that soft upper lip good-bye: Movember is here. Every year since time immemorial (OK, 2004), men the world over stop shaving for the month of November to raise awareness about prostate cancer and other men’s health issues — all while looking positively fabulous. Here at Worldcrunch HQ, the […]
As demand for organ transplants skyrockets, a new artificial heart and other sophisticated prostheses are among the medical-tech advancements raising troubling questions.
The sixth Climate Change Vulnerability Index report produced by risk analysis firm Maplecroft has found that climate change “may pose a serious obstacle to sustainable economic growth in the world’s most commercially important cities.” The index ranked the vulnerability of the world’s countries to the impacts of climate change by evaluating their risk of exposure […]
BOGOTA — As negotiations continue to try to bring a definitive end to Colombia’s decades-long civil war, another thorny issue related to the country’s violent past won’t go away: the fate of soldiers accused of crimes. The government’s proposal for a specific military justice code to handle such cases was recently rejected by the Colombian […]