LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France), FACEBOOK Worldcrunch PARIS – On Friday, the Jeu de Paume museum’s Facebook account was blocked for 24 hours, following a decision by Facebook to remove a photograph the Parisian museum posted on its page and which the social network ruled was a violation of its Rights and Responsibilities guidelines. We have […]
Author: Bertrand Hauger
Bertrand Hauger is a graduate of La Sorbonne Nouvelle school of bilingual journalism, and joined Worldcrunch after working briefly as a reporter in a local newspaper in his native eastern France. He now serves as Worldcrunch’s deputy editor-in-chief and director of content.
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Bolshoi Dancer Confesses To Acid Attack
CHANNEL ONE, KOMMERSANT (Russia), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – One of Moscow’s Bolshoi ballet leading soloists has confessed to being the mastermind behind an acid attack that nearly blinded the company’s director, Sergei Filin in January. According to a statement released by the Moscow police, Pavel Dmitrichenko, 28, was arrested together with two accomplices: […]
A visit to the dictator’s birthplace in the former Soviet republic of Georgia where a complicated relationship with the notorious native son plays into current tensions with Russia.
CAN U.S. AND RUSSIA START DIALOGUE ON UKRAINE? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are meeting today in Paris with other world leaders, on the sidelines of a long-planned conference on Lebanon. The encounter will be an attempt “to ease mounting tensions,” according to France24. It comes after Kerry’s […]
CNN (USA), REUTERS, AFP, UN PRESS OFFICE Worldcrunch NEW YORK – The United States and China have struck a tentative deal on a draft UN Security Council sanctions resolution to punish North Korea for the nuclear test it conducted last month. A deal, the details of which have not been revealed so far, was agreed […]
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France), THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch PARIS – Spanish fashion retailer Mango has issued an official apology for advertizing a necklace on its French website as “slave style,” blaming it on a “translation error.” Screenshot of the incriminating ad on Mango’s French website now removed French actresses Aïssa Maïga and Sonia Rolland quickly […]
PUTIN’S MIXED MESSAGES ON UKRAINE Referring to Ukraine as Russia’s “fraternal nation” and characterizing the movement that ousted Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych as a “coup,” Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed reporters during a live press conference this morning and insisted Russia had no plans to go to war with Ukraine, though he did not exclude […]
CNN (USA), THE GUARDIAN (UK), THE VOICE OF RUSSIA (Russia) Worldcrunch ATLANTA – Mississippi doctors say they have cured a two-year-old girl born with HIV after very early treatment with standard drug therapy – the first time such a case has been documented. Dr Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who […]
South of Munich is a clinic that specializes in treating teachers with psychological problems. The causes aren’t always what you think.
LATEST ON UKRAINE The Ukrainian crisis worsened over the weekend after the Russian Parliament approved President Vladimir Putin’s request to send in troops, putting the Ukrainian army on full alert, the BBC reports. According to U.S. officials, Russia now has some 6,000 airborne and ground troops in Crimea, leading them to admit that Moscow was […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – “Tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan famously implored in Berlin in 1987, challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to bring an end to the Cold War. Now, it appears, this was also the much quieter request of a luxury condominium developer. The longest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, stretching 1,316 meters […]
DIE WELT (Germany), THE LOCAL (Sweden) Worldcrunch BERLIN – Among the many questions raised by Europe’s spreading horsemeat scandal is what to do with all the products of questionable provenance. Most major supermarkets have simply dumped out loads of horse-tainted “beef” lasagna, and the like. What a waste! But all’s not lost. A spokeswoman for […]
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What A German Dreams For Italy
(Hint: it won’t ever come true)
SLOVENSKA TISKOVNA AGENCIJA (Slovenia), BBC NEWS (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch LJUBLJANA – The Slovenian parliament has ousted Prime Minister Janez Janša and his conservative government amid corruption allegations and growing discontent over the country’s struggling economy. The country’s National Assembly asked opposition leader and finance expert Alenka Bratušek to form a new government, after Prime Minister […]
THE INDIA TIMES, HINDUSTAN TIMES (India), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch CALCUTTA – At least 19 people have been killed and over a dozen critically injured in a fire that broke out early on Wednesday morning at an illegal market in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta. It took three hours to contain the blaze, but […]
UKRAINE’S NEW GOVERNMENT PRESENTED TO MAIDANThe new Ukraine government will be presented to the protesters of Kiev’s Independence Square tonight, Radio Liberty reports. A member of Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR party announced that the union government would include some of the protesters. HEZBOLLAH VOWS TO RETALIATE AFTER ISRAELI AIR STRIKELebanese militant group Hezbollah said in a […]
BBC NEWS (UK), AL-MASRY AL-YOUM (Egypt), AP Worldcrunch CAIRO – A hot air balloon caught fire and exploded as it was flying over the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor on Tuesday, killing at least 18 tourists. The casualties included French, British, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, a security official told AP. The […]
BEIJING – Over the past three years, a growing number of high-ranking officials in China have committed suicide, according to data from the Legal Weekly journal. In just the last two months alone, three officials — Qi Xiaolin, Deputy Secretary of Guangzhou’s Municipal Public Security Bureau, Zhang Wanxiong, Vice-President of Liangzhou Court of Justice in […]
Worldcrunch Maybe it was inevitable that Europe’s worst false-advertising scandal in memory would wind up hoofing through the front door of the Old Continent’s best-marketed, most clean-scrubbed, low-cost brand of home furnishings and other you-can-count-on-us modern life supplies. Yes, that’s right: horsemeat in IKEA’s scrumptiously affordable Swedish meatballs. Outrage is bound to follow, but those […]
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Watch Beckham Bend It In Paris
Worldcrunch PARIS – David Beckham has finally made his much anticipated debut in Paris, almost one month after signing for Paris Saint-Germain. Here’s Becks warming up before Sunday’s kick-off. Although he only played for the last 14 minutes of Sunday night’s game, Becks was finally given a chance to get his much-advertized bottom off the […]
FORMATION OF UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT DELAYEDUkraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchynov has delayed the formation of a unity government, initially planned for today, until Thursday, Itar-Tass reports. The Parliament also voted to give Turchynov the power to sign laws until the early presidential election, planned for May 25. ISLAMISTS KILL DOZENS OF NIGERIAN SCHOOL PUPILSIslamist fighters from […]
TALLINN – It’s 4 p.m., and night is already falling on Tallinn. The wind is freezing. Covered in snow, the old Soviet military barracks located on the outskirts of Estonia’s capital city look like the set of a Cold War movie. Uniformed soldiers occasionally cross the courtyard. You almost expect James Bond to suddenly come […]
THE KOREA TIMES, THE KOREA HERALD (South Korea), REUTERS Worldcrunch SEOUL – Park Geun-hye was sworn in on Monday as South Korea’s first female president ; she began her five-year term by urging an increasingly hostile North Korea to drop its nuclear ambitions. “North Korea’s recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and […]
YANUKOVYCH WANTED FOR “MASS MURDER”A police warrant has been issued for ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose current whereabouts are unknown, the acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced this morning. Yanukovych, who was last seen at his residence in Crimea, is wanted for “mass murder of civilians,” after last week’s riots in Kiev in which […]
DIE WELT (Germany), AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLOGY (USA) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The main ingredient in beer is yeast, which is a complex microorganism – a microbe from the fungi kingdom. To make beer, you need microbes, fermentation and bacteria. While this may seem like too much information, here’s the cool truth: beer is actually good […]
SYRIAN OBSERVATORY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, BBC NEWS (UK), AP Worldcrunch DAMASCUS – A series of bombings in Syria’s capital Thursday has killed at least 31 people, among them children and civilians. A car bomb struck the heavy-populated central Damascus district of Mazraa, near the headquarters of Syria’s ruling Baath party and the Russian Embassy. I […]
FRANCE 24 (France), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS Worldcrunch TUNIS – Tunisia’s political turmoil continued on Wednesday following Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali’s resignation, after he failed to appoint a non-partisan cabinet of technocrats. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki is meeting Wednesday with Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the country’s leading party Ennahda to ask him to nominate a […]
Horsemeat in our pure processed delights! Are we innocent victims or willing suckers of the consumer marketing machine?
MANDIANT, NEW YORK TIMES, CNN (USA) Worldcrunch An American cybersecurity firm has linked more than 100 cyber attacks on U.S. companies to to the Chinese government. In a 60-page long document entitled APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units,, the Virginia-based firm Mandiant traced 147 cases of corporate cyber espionage over a six-year period […]
MUNICH – Horsemeat passed off as beef – across Europe, the food scandal continues to make headlines. On the food circuit in Munich, at Kaspar Wörle’s horsemeat butcher shop, it hasn’t caused much of a stir – except for the fact that the phone has been ringing uninterruptedly since the scandal broke. “People want information,” […]
LATEST ON UKRAINE BEIRUT HIT BY DEADLY BLAST At least six people have died and over 100 were left injured after twin explosions hit South Beirut, near the Kuwaiti embassy and the Iranian Cultural Chancellery, Al Arabiya reports. The southern part of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold, has been the target of many attacks […]
In our distracted, over-connected society, diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been the rage for more than a decade. The case for a hard rethink.
MUNICH – It’s all so simple in the 1998 Disney movie Mulan. The heroine disguised as a boy joins the Chinese military to fight the enemy – armies of shadowy, faceless Huns that darken the horizon. Classic good versus evil. Martin Münch says he knows who the bad guys are, and that he’s one of […]
AMSTERDAM – We all know that families today are no longer only made up of Mom and Dad and the kids. This has led the Netherlands to work on legislation that would make it possible to have more than two people as parents. Take Susanne Supheert, 25 – she has four parents. It was more […]
DIE WELT (Germany) AL ARABIYA (U.A.E) Worldcrunch BERLIN – Call it the, “high-five heard “round the world.” The simple sporty gesture, exchanged between German Parliament Member Claudia Roth and Alireza Sheikhattar, the Iranian Ambassador to Germany, has set off a wave of controversy. Through a spokeswoman, Roth, co-chair of Germany’s Green Party, said she reacted […]
LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, CNN, AP (USA) Worldcrunch LOS ANGELES – After a seven-day manhunt that ended in a shootout and a forest standoff, renegade ex-LAPD officer Christopher J. Dorner was apparently killed in a cabin as it burned down around him. San Bernadino County sheriff’s spokeswoman told the AP that charred human […]
SYRIA: EVACUATIONS, SANCTIONS, ARCHEOLOGY THREE-DAY MOURNING AFTER PLANE CRASH IN ALGERIA Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared three days of mourning after yesterday’s plane crash in which at least 77 people died, website Algerie Focus reports. The crash appears to have been caused by bad weather. TWO CRACKS FOUND NEAR RADIOACTIVE WATER TANKS AT FUKUSHIMA Two […]
KCNA (North Korea), REUTERS Worldcrunch North Korea has confirmed it “successfully” conducted a third nuclear test at a northeastern underground test site, in defiance to UN Security Council’s orders to shut down its atomic activity. “It was confirmed that the nuclear test that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect […]
STUTTGART – The man who called himself Ryan Davis was playing a strange game. He moved in Neo-Nazi circles, and at the beginning of the new century he created a German chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the city of Schwäbisch-Hall in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. But for years he also provided […]
Worldcrunch 1. ARGENTINA “Benedict XVI resigns because of waning energy” – Clarin 2. CHINA “Pope announces resignation” – Apple Daily 3. USA New York Times 4. FRANCE “Pope resigns. Benedict XVI doesn’t have “enough energy” to lead the Church. He will be stepping down on Feb. 28.” – Libération 5. ITALY “Pope announces: I will […]