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Author: Worldcrunch
COLÓN ISLAND — As the world continues to bury itself in plastic bottles, a few pioneers are coming up with clever ways to put all that refuse to good use. One of those people is Canadian innovator Robert Bezeau, who decided after a visit to Panama to build an entire plastic-bottle village — presumably the […]
“Ambush,” reads Friday’s front page of The Dallas Morning News, after rooftop snipers reportedly shot 11 police officers during an otherwise peacefull protest against recent police killings of African-Americans in other U.S. cities. By early Friday, five of the officers shot were reported to have died, with one civilian also wounded in the shooting clearly […]
LAUSANNE — Imagine a brain the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen. Now imagine that this brain can spontaneously generate an electric charge, just like a human brain could. Well, imagine no more because this tiny human brain replica, a so-called mini-brain, actually exists. Over the past five years, techniques to manufacture these […]
SPOTLIGHT: A PUTIN THINK TANK IN BERLIN Far from both the Transatlantic chattering about Brexit, and the simmering war in Ukraine, a new “Research Institute” was quietly christened in the capital of Germany last week. The “Dialogue of Civilizations” think tank moved its headquarters from Vienna to central Berlin, which German historian Karl Schlögel writes […]
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China’s Grand Soccer Ambitions
The last time China made a World Cup appearance in 2002, the team lost all three group matches and went out without a single goal. While Chinese fans are mad about soccer, their own national team rarely gives them reason to rejoice. But there are grand pl
Dongfang Zaobao (Oriental Morning Post) — July 7, 2016 This Thursday edition of Shanghai-based Dongfang Zaobao features emergency forces at work in the Yangtze River basin, with the headline “Flood emergency! President Xi deploys Disaster Relief Forces.” At least 120 people are dead or missing, and an estimated 16 million people have been affected by […]
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Sad Roadside Attraction
A few tourists were willing to give this man a couple of rupees to be allowed to approach and touch his chained baby elephant.
The latest in the perilous liaisons between pro-Russian Germans and Vladimir Putin is taking the propaganda war on the West to a whole new level with a think tank relocated to Berlin.
Panamanian holding a drone — Photo: UN Food and Agriculture Organization Members of Panama’s 12 indigenous nations are embracing a cutting-edge technology — drones — in an effort to protect their ancestral lands. Roughly 7.4 million hectares of rainforest cover more than half of Panamanian territory, but it is rapidly disappearing, some estimate by as […]
SPOTLIGHT: UK IRAQ WAR REPORT BASHES BLAIR After seven long years, the Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the Iraq war was released this morning. As anticipated, the report, which was initially supposed to be concluded in 2011, is very critical of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and of how he led Britain into the […]
Le Canard enchaîné first ever and latest front pages France’s legendary satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné is celebrating its century-long existence, and the Internet is not about to write its obituary. “The Chained Duck” — canard is both French for “duck” and the slang for “newspaper,” — was first published on July 5, 1916. On […]
To understand why design is important, take a look at Silicon Valley. Forty-two design firms in the U.S. technology hub have been bought up since 2004. About half these acquisitions were made this past year alone. The 25 startups that got the most venture capital financing were founded by designers. Google snapped up the two-person […]
Regular shelling from all sides has made it too dangerous for students to go to school in the Syrian city of Aleppo, so a group of volunteer teachers decided to open their own.
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Bloody Ramadan, China Floods, Final Hu
SPOTLIGHT: A DEADLY END TO A DEADLY RAMADAN The latest terror news bulletin flashed from one of Islam’s holiest sites, the Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in the city of Medina. Two days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan, the mosque was struck yesterday by a suicide bomber, killing four security guards and wounding […]
BEKAA — It’s a typical wine tasting at the Château Marsyas in the beautiful Bekaa region of Lebanon. We are trying a French Cabernet after tasting a Merlot and Shiraz. Bottles and glasses are scattered on a wooden table in the heart of the winery, which houses a dozen stainless steel vats and hundreds of […]
Extra, July 5th The Tuesday edition of Brazilian newspaper Extra features a picture of policemen, occupying a portion Rio de Janeiro’s international airport Tom Jobim to protest unpaid salaries as security fears rise a month before the Summer Olympics are set to open. “It is horrible,” reads the front-page headline, a quote from Rio Mayor […]
Humans are being degraded to the status of objects of an algorithm-based evaluation to be sold on the market. This exploitative form of “hypercapitalism” must quickly be reversed.
PARIS — The two French visitors just couldn’t get over it. “Why were you wrong again?” the elderly English lady asked them with a severe, inquisitive tone. The woman, Queen Elizabeth II, should have had other things on her mind. It was April 21, 2026, after all, her 100th birthday, and the whole planet seemed […]
The Monday edition of Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star features photos of the suspected attackers of the Gulshan café siege in the capital Dhaka that killed 22 people, including 17 foreigners. In this second day of a two-day national mourning in Bangladesh, the newspaper published the photos of the suspected attackers that have were first […]
The secretive Freemasons usually recruit through word-of-mouth, which is why a recent Facebook ad, seeking applicants for a São Paulo branch, is such a source of curiosity.
One expert warns of a new “wolf pack” tactics for sowing terror with small, coordinated attacks like those seen this past week in Istanbul and Dhaka.
An artist duo from Zurich is using sex-talk avatars to pose some burning questions about the future of human-computer relationships.
In Russia, the garage can be a facility for virtually anything from spare parts to smoked fish, from vodka to paving stones. A recent study tracked the expansion of the country’s unofficial business realm, which recalls the dynamics of Soviet time
In Geneva and other Swiss cities, people are cautiously optimistic that Britain’s EU-exit vote could spur investment, boost real estate and maybe even help local universities.
ISTANBUL — When it was time to make a victory speech, all the cities of the Muslim world were being cited, “Not just Turkey, but also Baghdad, Islamabad, Kabul, Beirut, Sarajevo, and Skopje won today,” declared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after being elected the Republic of Turkey“s 12th president back in August 2014. “Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, […]
-Essay- There must be an infinity of good stories to tell about the bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah. At its starting point, the streets are well kept, like in a first-world country, and the white stone buildings standardized. At sunset, they give the Israeli city a golden yellow hue. When you reach Ramallah, the dusty […]
SPOTLIGHT: MIXED GREEN FEELINGS Even as we’ve been consumed by a news cycle that includes wars, elections and the biggest European reorder after World War II, our planet is quietly waiting for some attention. Nature reveals that pledges taken by countries during the Paris COP21 climate summit may need a big boost “to maintain a […]
LIMA — The Peruvian capital has no shortage of vultures flying overhead. For the past year they have also been enlisted to help find, and perhaps eventually clear, some of Lima’s worst illegal trash heaps. How is it done? The city and scientists have been using 10 vultures strapped with GPS and GoPro cameras to […]
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Delhi Grind
India’s capital, New Delhi, has long been known for its over-the-top traffic jams and erratic drivers — here’s how it looked 22 years ago.
-Analysis- The “caliphate” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not last. His self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS), announced two years ago, is on the defensive. It will vanish as quickly as the morning mist on the Euphrates River. But what about jihadism, Islamist terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Syria — all factors that feed this Middle […]
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Is Sugar The New Tobacco?
LAUSANNE — The question has been debated for many years, but is now gaining more attention than ever: Has sugar become the new tobacco? Are there parallels, in other words, between current attempts to curb the use of addictive industrial glucose and the strict regulations applied to the cigarette industry starting in the late 1990s? […]
Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 30th The Philippine Daily Inquirer issue Thursday features an epic montage of Rodrigo “Rudy” Duterte with the headline “Have no fear, Rudy is here.” The controversial 71 year-old former prosecutor and Davao City mayor was sworn in Thursday as the 16th President of the Philippines, succeeding Benigno Aquino III. Taking the […]
Germany and Britain have always competed for top European talents. Now, Europe’s best and brightest may see the UK as too complicated. One of many potential positive side effects of Brexit.
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — Colombia’s Caribbean coastal cities have people with less depression, bipolar mood swings, schizophrenia and other mental health conditions than elsewhere in the country, according to a recent national mental health poll. Is that surprising? A few days after I arrived in the Caribbean, I was invited to a barbecue in one of […]
SPOTLIGHT: AIRPORT TERROR, BRUSSELS TO ISTANBUL After a week of Brexit uncertainty and anxiety, outright horror has returned to the top of the news. The wail of sirens and scenes of panic are back on our screens after last night’s terrorist attack at Istanbul’s airport killed dozens of people. Yet it is not too much […]
A decade ago, the “Polish plumber” became the symbol of British fears of immigrants coming in poorer Europe Union countries. After the UK’s referendum to pull out of the EU, uncertainty reigns for all.
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Snake Charmer — Video Quote Of The Day
BERLIN — Shahak Shapira is the Israeli-born son of a Holocaust survivor and Munich Olympic victim. But he’s also a proud Berliner, even though he’s been beaten up and insulted by neo-Nazis. Now he’s published a book that is more or less serious. How I Became the Most German Jew in the World is a […]
Things may be looking up for the South American giant, provided it can weather the unpredictable Dilma Rousseff impeachment process.