WorldcrunchBertrand 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.
PRESSURE MOUNTING ON ASSAD AHEAD OF GENEVA 2 CLASHES CONTINUE IN KIEV Violent clashes continued in Kiev for the second night in a row, with pro-EU protesters torching vehicles and throwing Molotov cocktails at riot police, who replied with plastic bullets and stones, Ria Novosti reports. The protest movement, which started in November, was recently […]
BLOOMBERG (USA), LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch The U.S.-based businesses of the iconic video-game-maker Atari have filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. An Atari 2600 console – Wikimedia Late Sunday, Atari said it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to free the company from its French parent […]
XINHUA (China), LIANHE ZAOBAO (Singapore), CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY (Taiwan) BEIJING – China’s new leaders have adopted new measures to cut back on government perks and outright corruption, but there’s at least one sector of society that is not pleased: the catering industry. On Dec 4, the newly elected Politburo Standing Committee adopted eight measures to […]
UN INVITES IRAN TO GENEVA 2, SYRIAN OPPOSITION THREATENS BOYCOTT SERIES OF BAGHDAD EXPLOSIONS KILL DOZENS At least 24 people died and another 58 were injured in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad after it was hit by half a dozen explosions, Reuters reports. YANUKOVYCH TO NEGOTIATE WITH PRO-EU OPPOSITIONUkraine President Viktor Yanukovych has agreed to […]
-Essay- BEIJING – Recently, a fire killed seven children in a private orphanage in the Eastern Chinese town of Lankao. The woman who runs the Henan province orphanage, Yuan Lihai, called “Loving Mother” by locals, became a controversial figure overnight, even though she has cared for more than 100 abandoned children over the past 20 […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The German Police has launched a special investigation codenamed “Tunnel” in the search for the perpetrators of a spectacular break-in at a Berlin bank. According to Die Welt, the thieves dug 100-foot long tunnel from a neighboring underground garage into the safety deposit box vault of the Volksbank in […]
GENEVA – Reto Stöcklin can boast owning the world’s largest collection of venom. He has 1,200 samples in a freezer. A biochemist by training, he’s also a “serial entrepreneur.” The five start-ups he has created are all linked to his famous library of samples taken from snakes, fish, insects and venomous shellfish. Founded in 1995, […]
SYRIAN OBSERVATORY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (UK), AL ARABIYA (UAE) Worldcrunch Reports emerged Thursday that pro-Assad forces killed more than 100 people earlier this week, including women and children, on farmland on the outskirts of Syria’s central city of Homs. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), forces loyal to President Bashar al […]
BEIJING – A new study published by the National Academy of Economic Strategy (NAES) finds a global energy market that is in the midst of major changes. China, in this context, is facing both opportunities and challenges; in particular, there are concerns about China’s energy security brought on by shifts in the sector in North […]
French sex symbol turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot is shining a light on Baby and Nepal, two former circus elephants infected with tuberculosis, now facing euthanasia.
Japan has just crossed perhaps the most vivid line in the demographic divide. Still, there are other surprises about what may ensure future economic growth across Asia.
EL WATAN NEWS, REUTERS ARABIC, AL AHRAM (Egypt) Worldcrunch CAIRO – The death toll has risen to 20 in a train crash near Egypt’s capital, the second deadly rail accident in two months. The crash in the city of Giza late Monday has also left more than 170 injured, Reuters reports. On November 17 in […]
OVER 200 DROWN IN SOUTH SUDAN FERRY ACCIDENT Between 200 and 300 people are believed to have drowned in a ferry accident on the White Nile river, AFP reports an army spokesman as saying. The civilians were trying to flee from the town of Malakal where there is intense fighting, but the boat was overcrowded. […]
CNN (USA), LE FIGARO (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch U.S. troops lent “limited technical support” in France’s bloody and failed bid in Somalia to rescue Dennis Allex, a French intelligence agent who’d been held hostage by al-Qaeda linked terrorists since 2009. President Barack Obama detailed the U.S. military involvement in the Friday night mission in a letter […]
BANGKOK “SHUTDOWN”Anti-government demonstrators in Bangkok are blocking the main access points to Thailand’s capital as they try to shut down the city to increase pressure on the government and on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign. It comes just a few weeks ahead of a general election, The Bangkok Post reports. According to Reuters, 10,000 […]
-Editorial- BEIJING – The ambulance was stuck behind a sea of cars. Even though its blue lights were flashing and its siren was blaring, no cars gave way. Instead they squeezed by skillfully, one after the other. The video, which captures perfectly how difficult it is for an ambulance to drive through the streets of […]
MUNICH – To many, “i” was just a letter of the alphabet – until it was used by a then unknown computer company to skyrocket to the global position Apple holds today. And now BMW is hoping to go far on “i” too, investing billions in the i3 electric car due to come onto the […]
ISTANBUL – Early-term abortions are still legal in Turkey, though Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his own opposition clear last year, calling abortion “murder.” There was also at least one case of a woman who had an abortion after the 10th week facing three years in jail, in a country with an increasingly pious […]
PARIS – To infinity … and beyond! Within the next decade, if all goes according to plan, we Earthlings will have two crucial instruments at our disposal to probe the outer reaches of the universe. Doing so, will allow us to go back in time to the very birth of the universe, 13.7 billion years […]
LE PARISIEN, EUROPE 1, FRANCE INFO (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Three Kurdish women activists, including a founding member of the militant group PKK, have been found dead inside a Kurdish cultural center in Paris, each with gunshot wounds. The bodies of the women were found early on Thursday inside the information center of the Kurdish […]
HÜRRIYET (Turkey), THE GUARDIAN (UK), REUTERS, FRANCE 24 Worldcrunch ISTANBUL– The Syrian government has announced it would free 2,130 civilian prisoners on Wednesday, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranians held by Syrian rebels. Iranian state TV confirmed that the 48 hostages, captured by the Free Syrian Army back in August, had been freed. […]
LE POINT, LE PROGRÈS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – It’s been an eventful couple of days for French actor Gérard Depardieu. Or is it Belgian actor Gérard Depardieu? Wait, you said Russian? In case you’re having trouble keeping up with Gégé’s moves, here’s a quick overview of what’s happened the past three days in the life […]
“FRIENDS OF SYRIA” TO MEET IN PARIS ON SUNDAY Foreign Ministers of the group of 11 countries dubbed “Friends of Syria,” including the U.S., UK and France, will meet with the opposition group Syrian National Coalition on Sunday in Paris, AFP quotes an official source as saying. On the battleground, opposition fighters are still fighting […]
BBC NEWS (UK), PAKTRIBUNE (Pakistan), REUTERS Worldcrunch ISLAMABAD – At least seven militants have been killed in two U.S. drone attacks close to the town of Mir Ali in northwestern Pakistan, a region along the Afghan border that is a key stronghold of the Taliban. According to the news service Paktribune, unmanned aircraft fired three […]
BEIJING – At least 8,572 premature deaths occurred in four major Chinese cities in 2012 due to the high levels of fine particle pollution. This was the conclusion of a joint study called PM2.5: Measuring The Human Health And Economic Impacts On China’s Largest Cities carried out by Greenpeace and Peking University. Apart from the […]
SOUTH SUDAN CEASEFIRE TALKS BEGINGovernment and rebel representatives of South Sudan have both confirmed the beginning of ceasefire talks in neighboring Ethiopia, almost a month after the alleged coup attempt from soldiers loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Read more from Al Arabiya. STATE OF EMERGENCY IN N.Y. AS COLD CONTINUESNew York Gov. Andrew […]
IRAQ’S PM URGES FALLUJAH TO ‘EXPEL’ AL-QAEDA Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on “the people of Fallujah and its tribes to expel the terrorists” so that “their areas are not subjected to the danger of armed clashes,” the BBC reports state television channel Iraqiya as saying. Last week, al-Qaeda-linked fighters took control of Fallujah […]
Tuesday’s fiscal agreement defuses the fiscal cliff by deferring most tax hikes and pushing back the sequester. A deal has been made, a financial crash avoided, and near-term growth prospects look rosier. Markets have cheered news of the agreement. Is such cheer warranted? That depends on what happens next. By itself, the package raises little […]
CEASEFIRE NEGOTIATIONS OPEN IN SOUTH SUDAN Representatives of South Sudan’s government have started negotiating a ceasefire with opposition forces in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, three weeks after the outbreak of violence in the world’s youngest nation, AFP reports. ISRAEL SUCCESSFULLY TESTS MISSILE SHIELD SYSTEM Israel carried out a successful test of its future […]
HÜRRIYET (Turkey) Worldcrunch ISTANBUL – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on his nation’s families to have at least three children, Turkey’s daily Hurriyet reports. Erdogan used a speech to declare that the strength of a nation lies within its families, which must be fortified with more children. “One or two children means […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), FORBES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, CNN (USA) Worldcrunch Al Jazeera Media Network has announced that it has acquired Current TV, a U.S. cable channel created seven years ago by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. We are excited to announce a new U.S.-based news channel and the acquisition of @current TV. aje.me/S5JWw5 […]
BEIJING – The official announcement came from Zhang Ping, head of China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission: the government would “speed up household registration reform” as part of its drive for urbanization of the rural population. Dubbed hukou, the household registration system dates back to the Mao era, and prevents […]
ANTARCTIC SHIP RESCUE An operation to rescue the passengers of the Russian ship Akademik Shokalsky was launched this morning, as a Chinese helicopter attempts to ferry tourists and scientists to an Australian ice-breaker, Russia Today reports. The Shokalksky has been trapped in ice since Christmas eve and several evacuation attempts had failed due to poor […]
Yes it’s that time of the year again! Readers’ Picks These are the articles that got your attention (and clicks) in 2012. 1. Catholic Church Makes A Fortune in the German Porn Business DIE WELT Weltbild, one of Germany’s largest publishing companies, happens to be owned and operated by the Catholic Church. But that has […]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, opera performers could take any role they wanted. Sopranos were kings, countertenors their lovers; although, in an old theater tradition that went back to the Greeks, wet nurses were always played by men, and the character was re-written if no male could be found to play it. Only in […]
CAIRO – Some of the most widely circulated images and clips in the past year and a half have been taken using smartphones, leading a well-known activist to write on Facebook in late November that: “An effective use of a smart phone can sometimes replace the need for a Kalashnikov.” His comment came around the […]
-Essay- BERLIN – It would have been better if she had dark circles under her eyes. Maybe a little bit of flab around the middle. At the very least a stain on her blouse – anything. Instead, in her first public appearance since the birth of her son, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was as slim […]
REUTERS, FOXNEWS, CNN, AP (USA) Worldcrunch SALT LAKE CITY – Gun-rights advocates in Utah have offered six hours of training in handling concealed weapons for teachers, in the wake of the mass shooting that killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. On Thursday, about 200 Utah teachers […]
In 2011, Sony accumulated losses of $5.6 billion, Sharp lost $4.7 billion, and Panasonic $9.6 billion. The momentum of similar huge losses at these firms has continued through 2012. All these enterprises that used to be so much admired by the Chinese are plunging, one by one, into historic lows. Of course the ups and […]
Chinese firms setting up shop on the African continent must do their homework on more than just strictly business conditions.