LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) CANNES – Alongside all the beauty on display, the 2012 Cannes film festival is also revealing an ugly side: first, reports of sea dumping off the scenic French coastline, then the notable lack of women directors, and now anger growing about celebrities demanding payment for press interviews. Canadian motion picture production […]
Author: Worldcrunch
A U.S. drone fires two missiles at a compound in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants in an attack that comes as Washington is running out of patience with Islamabad’s refusal to reopen supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan
A series of drownings in the Garonne river has traumatized the French city of Bordeaux. First believed to be the work of a “serial pusher,” it has become clear that the cause of this spate of accidental deaths is binge drinking.
Op-Ed: Elections can be both democratic in appearance, and anti-revolutionary in substance. Egypt’s post-Mubarak presidential election does mark a moment of transition, though it is likely to be followed by a not-so-subtle return to the past.
Researchers in the northern state of Pará want to use the Internet to track the thousands of plant and animal species in the Brazilian rain forest. It’s part of an even more ambitious global project.
In the small French-Swiss border town of Viry, a new “ecodistrict” is being built from scratch. With environmentally friendly homes, the town is aiming to attract a rich population from neighboring Geneva – to the detriment of locals, wh
The Turkish Parliament is weighing whether to revise a clause in its Workplace Safety Law that could lead to the dismissal of employees who attend work after having consumed alcohol.
The conflict in Syria has already cost some 10,000 people their lives, according to U.N. estimates. Rebel fighters must rely on outside help to combat the Assad regime, which means money from Gulf states and fighters with jihadist objectives.
EL COMERCIO (Ecuador) QUITO – Why will there never be a coup d”état in the United States? “Because it doesn’t have an American embassy,” Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told Wikileak’s founder Julian Assange in an interview broadcast Tuesday on Russia Today. The left-wing leader credited the joke to his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales. “I really […]
EUROPE 1 (France) PARIS – Sport can been a good way to escape the grind of prison life. Last week, that was quite literally the case for one inmate in France who used a basketball game to make his getaway. But what made last Friday’s daring escape all the more galling for authorities was that […]
Private company Space X successfully launched its unmanned Falcon 9 rocket into space early Tuesday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, U.S.A. Though not quite Apollo 11, it is space flight history. Here’s what you should know. 1. SpaceX is the first private company to successfully launch a vessel to the […]
American artist Jeff Koons wows again in a new exhibit at the Beyeler Foundation outside Basel, Switzerland. Divided into three parts – the new, banality and celebration – the show is unapologetically trite but wholly seductive.
“Straighten up…!” Philips has developed a computer that advises its users on how they are sitting in front of the screen. It will also tell you when it’s time to take a break.
Russian President Vladimir Putin names seven former cabinet ministers as aides, in a move expected to weaken Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s new government and shift power to the Kremlin.
An unmanned rocket owned by privately held Space Exploration Technologies blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a mission designed to be the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.
A Malaysian court has charged opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and two of his allies with breaking various laws during a massive street rally to demand electoral fairness last month.
AL JAZEERA (Qatar) KABUL/KRASNOKAMENSK – When asked if he thought Vladimir Putin might change now that he’s returned to the Kremlin, jailed former Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky replies: “No.” But he also offers a caveat. Commenting just two weeks after Putin was sworn in for a third presidential term (after an interim as Prime Minister), […]
Op-Ed: The trial of accused corrupt businessman Lai, who’d been extradited from Canada, leaves some in China more than a bit unsatisfied — life sentence notwithstanding.
YANGCHENG EVENING NEWS (China) GUANGZHOU – Eleven anonymous multi-millionaire Chinese entrepreneurs, all multi-millionaires, have posted ads in ten cities in a new public search for wives. The chance to marry one of the men, each with a net worth of at least 100 million RMB ($15 million), found no shortage of eager applicants, reports the […]
Department stores executives are realizing that only a smart digital strategy can guarantee a future for them. The necessity of ‘omni-channel’ retailing progressively became obvious for these city-center venerable institutions.
L’ORIENT LE JOUR (Lebanon) BEIRUT – “Bring Candles & Lebanese Flags only..” pleads the message on Facebook. A group of young Lebanese activists have organized a meeting Monday night on Martyrs Square, in Beirut, under the slogan “Say no to War… we want Peace in Lebanon.” Sunday, two anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim clerics were killed at […]
Compared to some other natural disasters in recent years, the death toll of seven may pale in comparison. But then we hear the individual tales of the earthquake that struck northern Italy, and the sorrow quickly mounts. Here are their stories.
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France’s Little Soccer Team That Could
L’EQUIPE (France) The small city of Montpellier won the French soccer championship for the first time in its history on Sunday. At the top of many sports in the country, the southern city team beat Auxerre, claiming first place ahead its main competitor: the all-powerful PSG, the top team from Paris. To have an idea […]
On the outskirts of Delhi, Gurgaon is archetypal of the new middle class ghettos sprouting all over the country: a disorganized gated community of luxury condos, shopping malls and golf courses, but that’s missing basic infrastructure and public
LE MONDE (France) LILLE – Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal troubles have taken a troubling new turn. The former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and onetime French presidential hopeful has been cited in a new ‘gang rape” investigation, a prosecutor in the northern French city of Lille announced Monday. The preliminary investigation concerns events that […]
A year and a half after the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood is in many ways enjoying a historical triumph. But in Egypt, where it was born, the movement is challenged by a splintering of political Islam — and by its own political err
The euro zone’s lingering economic woes and ends to buying restrictions are making Turkey suddenly look like the place to be – especially for Western European retirees. Vacation homes go for as little as 130,000 euros. Pool included.
Asian markets recover some ground on value hunting after last week’s heavy losses, but investors remain wary over the euro zone despite world leaders calling for Greece to stay in the monetary union.
A French prosecutor has ordered an initial inquiry into claims that ex-IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was involved in “gang rape” in Washington.
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a military parade drill in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, killing at least 38 soldiers and wounding scores of others in what is one of the deadliest attacks in the city in months.
RAI2 (Italy) SANT’AGOSTINO – The magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna has left at least seven dead and dozens wounded. The property damage is also extensive in a region around the historic city of Ferrara. In this video from state broadcaster RAI, we see a portion of the local city […]
DIARIO DEL SUR (Mexico) ARRIAGA – The impoverished Mexican state of Chiapas couldn’t be less hospitable to the many Central American migrants who cross over from Guatemala in search of better opportunities up north. In the border town of Arriaga, criminals prey on the new arrivals, as do coyotes (people smugglers) and even local authorities, […]
Mounting a television screen on a urinal is the latest way for advertisers to reach a “captive” audience — in this case, exclusively male.
Essay: As the “Culture Wars” heat up again in the race for the White House, a Chinese commentator makes some key distinctions between private and public morality. And suggests China take notes.
EL DIARIO NUEVO (Nicaragua) MANAGUA – Is Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega the “Ho Chi Minh of Latin America?” That’s apparently what Surinam’s new ambassador in Nicaragua believes. During a televised swearing in ceremony in Managua this week, the ambassador, Subhas Chandra Mungra, said that Ortega, like the deceased Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, stands out […]
More than 30 people were killed last August when NATO jets bombed the small Libyan town of Majer. NATO says it was a “legitimate” target. Villagers tell a very different story, of innocent victims, and pain made worse by NATO’s
PREMIERE (France) CANNES – Marilyn Monroe will unfortunately be the only woman to be in the spotlight during the Cannes Film Festival this year. Indeed, every single one of the 22 movies competing for the Palme d’Or was directed by a man. As is often the case, women’s only role will be to present the […]
A court in the German city of Detmold is currently trying the case of Arzu Ö, a Kurdish teenager who was murdered last November, presumably by members of her own family. Prosecutors say she “dishonored” her family, followers of the little-known Yazidi rel
LA RAZÓN (Argentina) BUENOS AIRES – An Argentine dog groomer has landed himself in a heap of trouble after accidentally killing one of his canine clients. The dog in question died on Oct. 2, 2010 due to a sedative overdose, La Razón reported. The groomer, identified as Mario Cabibbo, injected the drug prior to trimming […]
LE JOURNAL DU GEEK (France) TOKYO– Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have broken the record for the world’s fastest Wi-Fi. Using a 542GHz wireless connection in the 300GHz-3THz spectrum, they achieved speeds of 3Gpbs, reports Le Journal du Geek. If that’s a little too technical for you, what you need to know is […]