HÜRRIYET, HABER 7 (Turkey) Worldcrunch At least 25 Turkish soldiers were confirmed dead Thursday, after a military depot exploded in the western province of Afyonkarahisar. Terrorism has been ruled out as a cause of the blast, which also left at least eight injured. Veysel Eroglu, the Minister of Forestry and Water, says the explosion Wednesday […]
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.
-Analysis- FRANKFURT – Are Hamas and Hezbollah part of “the global left?” A few years ago, during the discussion following a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, American philosopher Judith Butler claimed they were. And now the remark is coming back to haunt her. The Central Council of Jews in Germany has strongly criticized […]
FRANCE DIPLOMATIE, LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France), THE VOICE OF RUSSIA (Russia) Worldcrunch On August 17, when three members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a penal colony, the verdict sparked outrage around the world: the U. S. State Department asked Russia to “review this case and to […]
HAMBURG – Jan Heusinger’s day was always the same: wake up, shower, have breakfast – and then spend the rest of his hours playing computer games. Four years ago, when he was 14, he’d bought World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game. By 2011, he’d stopped attending school to spend his days as an Orc […]
BEIJING – Conduct a survey anywhere in the world and ask respondents to describe the United States with one word, many will surely choose the word “arrogant.” In their view, this superpower has become synonymous with conceit and a bald sense of superiority. In Lord Acton’s famous words: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Typically, such people […]
The news out of Afghanistan is that the Taliban beheaded 17 men and women who had gathered for a mixed-gender social event with music and dancing. This, of course, is not the first time the excesses of Muslim jihadists have included beheadings. Dozens of headless bodies were found in the Tigris River years ago in […]
REUTERS, AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch The Syrian delegation walked out of the 16th Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, after Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi called Bashar al-Assad’s government an “oppressive regime” in his speech, Al Jazeera reports. Speaking to representatives of more than 120 countries, Morsi said: “Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people […]
CNN, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER (US), REUTERS Worldcrunch Residents in New Orleans are rushing to complete last-minute preparations, bracing themselves for Tropical Storm Isaac, which will begin to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast late Tuesday, as forecasters set to upgrade it to Hurricane status. The Tropical Storm is gaining strength, poised to become a “robust” hurricane […]
-Analysis- PARIS – Whether or not they pose a real threat to the traditional book publishing industry, e-books are indisputably the talk of the town. Still, few in the sector are able to fathom the full extent of the ongoing digital transformation, which is both far-reaching, yet still largely invisible. From booksellers to printers, everybody […]
AFP, REUTERS Worldcrunch Rebels shot down a Syrian combat helicopter while it was bombarding the Damascus neighborhood of Jobar. State television confirmed a chopper crashed near a mosque in the capital, but gave no further details, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed it “was hit while it was being used in […]
TIMES OF INDIA (India), BBC NEWS (UK), PAKISTAN METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT (Pakistan) Worldcrunch At least 50 people have been killed by heavy monsoon rains in northern India and northwestern Pakistan. In northern India, the heaviest downpours in more than 30 years flooded large parts of Jaipur, the capital of the desert state of Rajasthan, killing at […]
Categories
Pot Plot Discovered In French Prison Yard
SUD-OUEST (France) Worldcrunch LA ROCHELLE – About 15 30-inch-tall (80 cm) cannabis plants have been discovered in the courtyard of a prison in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, one of the 10 communes located on the Île de Ré island off La Rochelle in western France. The district attorney of La Rochelle has confirmed that an investigation was underway […]
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, LE PARISIEN (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Highly confidential layouts of the Élysée Palace (the presidential residence), the Interior Ministry and the Paris Police Department have been stolen from a contractor’s car in Paris, the French daily Le Parisien reports. According to Le Nouvel Observateur, a flash drive containing detailed maps of the […]
WTA (United States), SPORT.RBC.RU (Russia) Worldcrunch Top Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova has launched her own brand of candy called Sugarpova. Famed Fifth Avenue retailer Henri Bendel held the New York City launch on Monday, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) reports. Sugarpova’s 12 kinds of sweets will be sold worldwide by IT’SUGAR candy stores, and […]
AMÉRICA ECONOMÌA, THE SANTIAGO TIMES (Chile) Worldcrunch SANTIAGO – A total of 139 people, most of whom were students, were arrested during the eviction of three schools in the center of Santiago, the local Chief of Police Victor Tapia told América Economìa. The three schools (Darío Salas School, Miguel de Cervantes and Confederación Suiza School) […]
TOKYO – Toru Hashimoto, the young and often controversial mayor of Osaka who shot to fame for his attacks on Japan’s central government and bureaucrats, has chosen a new target — but this time, attracting little sympathy from the Japanese youth. Last March, Hashimoto decided to take disciplinary action against government employees who did not […]
LE MONDE, LE PARISIEN (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – On August 15, a controversial “Prayer for France” will be read out at French Catholic churches, reviving a centuries old tradition as the country celebrates the Feast of the Assumption — the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven. The wording of the prayer, which […]
EUROPE 1, BFM TV, LE COURRIER PICARD (France) Worldcrunch AMIENS – Around 100 French youths clashed with police overnight in the city of Amiens, north of Paris. A total of 16 police officers were injured by buckshot and mortar fire during the clashes that lasted for several hours — but no arrests were made. The […]
IRAN DAILY, TEHRAN TIMES (Iran), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS Worldcrunch TEHRAN – Iran has raised the death toll from Saturday’s twin quakes in the north east of the country to 306, a day after calling off the search for survivors and stepping up the relief effort. The official toll, presented by Health Minister Marzieh Vahid […]
BERLIN – Normally in Germany, there’s a waiting list procedure for organ transplants. The Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (German Foundation for Organ Transplantation) coordinates the information about available organs from donors, and these organs are then allocated by the Netherlands-based Eurotransplant to seven central European member countries. In Germany, transplants take place at 50 transplant centers […]
CHINA METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION, CHINA DAILY, XINHUA (China) SHANGHAI – Typhoon Haikui ploughed into China’s eastern coast on Wednesday morning, knocking down buildings, cutting off power, disrupting train and airline services and forcing authorities to relocate millions of people. The winds were at “severe typhoon” strength when Haikui made landfall in the province of Zhejiang, about […]