Worldcrunch AFP, UKPA, ABP News (India) GUWAHATI – Floods caused by heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 30 people and displaced nearly one million in India’s northeastern state of Assam. At least 27 Indian districts have been swamped by heavy monsoon rains that began last weekend. The overall flooding situation is worsening as additional […]
Author: Worldcrunch
When a family in Congo suffers an illness or poverty, the blame is often laid on one of the children, who may wind up accused of sorcery. If that happens, other truly horrible things may follow.
A favorite of both fitness nuts and party animals, Red Bull has some reported side-effects. Now people have started mixing energy drinks with alcohol, adding to the potential toxicity. France, one of the last countries to approve its sale, asks if its rea
Op Ed: Elected on a platform that mixed solidarity for the poor and support for Peru’s all-important mining sector, leftist President Ollanta Humala has been criticized for failing on both fronts. How can the former military officer get back on t
Well-known German Doctor Dietrich Gronemeyer is on a mission to rethink the approach for healthy eating. It’s about balance, rather than saying ‘No,’ or ‘You Must.’
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German Court Bans Religious Circumcision
Worldcrunch DER SPIEGEL, FT DEUTSCHLAND (Germany) COLOGNE – A court in Germany’s western city of Cologne has banned the circumcision of young people for religious reasons. The court has deemed that the religious practice, part of both Jewish and Muslim traditions, amounted to bodily harm. Judges did allow that boys who declared they wanted to […]
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The Queen Mother Of The Arab Spring
Tawakkul Karman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in the Yemeni uprising that toppled President Saleh after 33 years in power. But this global face of the Arab Spring still has plenty of work to do in her native land.
Zhou Yinzi moved last year from China to Plainsboro, NJ. Used to dreary classes, she discovered a new world of sexy principals and crushworthy teachers, piercings and booming T-shirts. An exchange student’s love letter — to her teachers, most of
Worldcrunch BBC NEWS (UK), HÜRRIYET (Turkey), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Turkey is deploying troops along its border with Syria, one week after Syria shot down a Turkish jet over the Mediterranean. Turkey’s TRT state television showed footage of columns of military vehicles moving from bases in Iskenderun and Diyarbakir to the border, close to the area […]
Worldcrunch LES INROCKUPTIBLES (France) PARIS – French marijuana activists are stepping up their fight to legalize the drug, opening several “Cannabis Social Clubs’ across the country. Known as a CSC, they are cooperatives of regular marijuana users who grow the plant for their own consumption, explains French magazine Les Inrockuptibles. The goal is to be […]
Worldcrunch THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD, CNET AUCKLAND – The New Zealand High Court ruled on Thursday that the January police raid of Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom’s mansion was illegal. Kim Dotcom, whose given name is Kim Schmitz, is a German national who founded the file-sharing site Megaupload.com. The website was shut down and Kim Dotcom’s […]
Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 50, has been sitting in an Indonesian jail for eight years waiting to be executed for drug trafficking. In a phone interview, he pleads with Brazilian president Dilma Roussef to save him.
Worldcrunch EL UNIVERSAL (Mexico) SAN JOSÉ – The Costa Rican capital is where Los Charros, a Central American drug cartel with links to to one of Mexico’s biggest mafia families, picks up cocaine to transfer through Central America. And Los Charros has found a way to launder money to cover up its trafficking revenue: by […]
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China’s Power Gap
Essay: Why do powerful officials break the rules and earn promotions, while a migrant mother faces bureaucratic traps that don’t allow her child to go to school? Facing up to the question of administrative power is fundamental for China’
LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) ROME – Online homophobia has reached a new low in Italy where a Facebook page circulated this month with the declaration: “Aborting a gay (fetus) is an act of faith.” Rome daily La Repubblica reported that the Italian language Facebook account was opened on June 19 with this false claim: “Thanks to […]
Essay: Swiss supermarket chain Migros plans to introduce a special label for products imported from Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. This attempt at “transparency”instead recalls the ‘J’ that Nazis
Navalny’s home was ransacked by police barely two weeks ago, and he spent 15 days in jail in May. So why did the government support his appointment to the board of Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline?
Worldcrunch REUTERS, AL ARABIYA (Saudi Arabia), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) DAMASCUS – Gunmen attacked the pro-Assad television headquarters in Syria on Wednesday morning, detonating bombs and shooting three employees dead, Reuters reports. The Syrian Minister of Information gave a higher death toll for the attack, saying that seven people were killed and that others were injured […]
Worldcrunch AP, CNN Nora Ephron, the Manhattan-born screenwriter, filmmaker and journalist best known for her romantic comedies (When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle, Julie & Julia…) has died from leukemia in New York, aged 71. Ephron will be remembered as an author who “challenged and thrived in the male-dominated worlds of movies and journalism […]
Worldcrunch 60 MILLIONS DE CONSOMMATEURS, LE MONDE, LE PROGRES (France) PARIS – Ever wondered what’s the secret ingredient that makes sodas taste so delicious? Sugar, sweeteners, additives, caffeine…. alcohol? Yes, you read it: alcohol. French magazine 60 Millions de Consommateurs, the French equivalent of Consumer Reports, compiled a list of ingredients found in 19 of […]
Loggers in the Russian Far East are facing off against conservationists over the fate of forests in wildlife reserves, with the Siberian tiger’s natural habitat hanging in the balance. And for local indigenous peoples, it’s not just an e
EL PERIODICO (Spain), NOTICIAS CARACOL (Colombia) BOGOTA – Colombian police say they have evidence FARC rebels are using teenagers as suicide bombers, reports El Periodico. In a video shot by Colombian police and showed by television station Noticias Caracol, we see an alleged 14-year-old rebel, “loaded with explosives, half-naked and painted green.” She was wounded […]
After 10 years and about two million sentences, the tribunals overseeing genocide prosecutions have finally closed. Many Rwandans feel more relieved than reconciled.
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China Invests Big In Fellow BRIC Brazil
Worldcrunch FOLHA DE S. PAULO (Brazil) BEIJING – China made its largest investment of early 2012 in fellow BRIC Brazil by acquiring 30% of Petrogal Brasil, a subsidiary of Portuguese company Galp Energia. State-owned Sinopec, or Chinese Petrochemical Company, paid $4.8 billion for the aquisition. Overall, China invested $21.4 billion abroad from January to March, […]
Exclusive: Two weeks ago she sparked an international uproar in her defense with a grisly photo of her dead would-be second child, after a forced abortion for violating China’s one-child policy. Feng is now being hounded by locals, and her husban
20 MINUTEN ONLINE (Switzerland) ZURICH – “Maybe we need another Kristallnacht…this time for mosques.” That tweet was sent from the account of Alexander Müller, a member of the Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP), a right-wing populist party. The Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, is the name given to an infamous night in 1938, when the Nazis […]
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Is This The Man To Clean Up Mexico?
Sunday’s presidential election in Mexico is “a referendum between honesty and corruption,” says leftist underdog candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Worldcrunch THE VERGE (USA), GLOBAL SECURITY MAG (France), PC WELT, ZDNET (Germany) A new generation of bank heist has arrived — no balaclava or bags of banknotes necessary. Security firms McAfee and Guardian Analytics have released a 20-page analysis on a global financial fraud ring entitled “Operation High Roller,” a series of highly-organised cyber bank […]
A portrait of the Artist: arrogant and aloof, ambiguous loony, Mephistophelian charmer, lonely provocateur, clothes designer, baroque musician, and Juventus soccer fan.
Since the beginning of June, ethnic violence has marred the western state of Arakan in Burma, killing more than 80 people and displacing 90,000. The target of this violence: an ethnic minority that has been brutally persecuted for years.
Worldcrunch REUTERS, NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is considering splitting itself into two separate companies, according to a number of news reports. The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, said that the TV and entertainment businesses would be separated from publishing in the proposed division. Australian stock […]
Worldcrunch AL JAZEERA, FRANCE 24, HÜRRIYET (Turkey) BRUSSELS – NATO is holding a special meeting in Brussels on Tuesday at Ankara’s request, after Syria shot down a Turkish warplane last week, an incident which Turkey has branded an “act of aggression.” Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke for the first time about the incident […]
CLARIN (Argentina), LA NACION (Argentina) ABC COLOR (Paraguay) ASUNCION – Paraguay’s neighbors have reacted harshly to what they see as the undemocratic removal of Fernando Lugo from power last Friday. Argentina was the first country to recall its ambassador, and was quickly followed by Venezuela and Ecuador, Clarin reported. Argentine president Cristina Kirchner has called […]
In the Lebanese city of Tripoli, the Sunni Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood and the Alawite Djebel Mohsen neighborhood are at war. On one side supporters of the Syrian revolution, on the other side supporters of the Syrian regime.
WorldcrunchLA PRESSE (Canada) OTTAWA – The Canadian Department Of National Defense spent $50,000 (including tax) on little orange balls. Is this some sort of new stealth weapon developed by the Canadian Army? Guess again. According to documents obtained by La Presse, the Department Of Defense has bought 53,000 anti-stress balls in the past five years. […]
One in three companies in Germany was founded by a non-German. Discriminated against in the job market, immigrants often find that creating their own company is the only way to make it.
Worldcrunch RADIO NDEKE LUKA (Central African Republic), NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) BANGUI – Unidentified rebels attacked and plundered a uranium plant operated by French energy giant Areva in Bakouma in the Central African Republic reports the Nouvel Observateur. According to the Radio Ndeke Luka, Central African Armed Forces (FACA) were unable to contain the assailants, who […]
AP, ICN, EL MUNDO LONDON – In the latest hit for a euro-zone economy, Fitch ratings agency downgraded Cyprus’ sovereign credit grade to junk status, lowering the country’s rating by one notch to BB+ from BBB-, AP reports. “Fitch acknowledges that its estimates of the losses and capital needs of Cypriot banks are subject to […]
A French squash-loving hydrodynamics scientist has finally answered a time-old question: why does hitting the ball near the corners make its trajectory utterly unpredictable?
Worldcrunch LE MONDE (France), E-DIASPORA.FR PARIS – A group of researchers has created the first comprehensive world map of immigrant diasporas, Le Monde reports. Called the “e-Diaspora Atlas’ and published by the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, the website classifies and analyzes the online presence of 28 diasporas: “A migrant site is a […]