Worldcrunch
BARCELONA – Bas van Abel brought a novel idea to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The 35-year-old Dutch entrepreneur is currently at work, with ten others, on the first “FairTrade” smartphone – a phone that will contain no gold mined in war zones, will not be assembled in a soulless Chinese factory, and will […]
MEXICO CITY – My neighborhood dealer was a low-class guy. We went to the same public school, but he was few years younger than me. He was never very bright nor did he excel in anything; he spent his afternoons standing outside his house or at the street corner, without bothering anyone, and with no […]
PARIS – Their vintage facades date back from a time when apartments didn’t have bathrooms. For many people, washing up meant a sink and cold water. The whole family went to these public baths, regularly or for special occasions. But as time passed, these public baths were transformed into nightclubs, shops – or simply demolished. […]
HAMBURG – For Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck, whose family has run this city’s zoo for over 100 years, there are challenges both inside and outside the gates of any such “animal park.” Inside this zoo, as for every zoo around the world, the biggest challenge is to keep the animals from getting bored. Hering-Hagenbeck explains that animals […]
BUENOS AIRES – A new exhibition at Buenos Aires” Palais de Glace museum delves into the colorful and high-flying world of Lucha Libre – the freestyle wrestling so popular in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. In Lucha Libre, the good guys are called “tecnicos” (technicians) while the bad guys – who wear even more […]
BERLIN – There are more and more healthy food snobs in our society – and I’m probably one of the worst. It all began when I was sick and a friend showed up with a green smoothie, telling me that drinking it would bring “pure light” into my body. I got better right away, and […]
The new edition of the DSM, modern psychiatry’s bible for mental disorders, gives a medical diagnosis for what others just call bratty behavior. How parents can recognize the difference.
EL UNIVERSAL, MILENIO (Mexico) Worldcrunch TOLUCA – Forbes magazine named her the “most powerful woman in Mexico” in 2012, but now Elba Esther Gordillo, 68, is under arrest for embezzling more than $156 million dollars from the country’s main teachers union. Esther Gordillo, former head of Mexico’s long-ruling PRI party and longtime teachers union chief, […]
GRANMA (CUBA), LA NACIÓN (COSTA RICA), SBS (AUSTRALIA Worldcrunch HAVANA – Cuban President Raúl Castro’s reelection for a second term Sunday was no surprise. But Cuba is still absorbing the unexpected announcement that it would be Castro’s final five-year mandate, and his naming of a much younger government minister to be his No. 2, and […]
Not many years ago, the concept of “neuromarketing” was presented as a revolutionary discipline. Introduced as the newest buzz word along such topics as neuroscience, emotions, sensory, unconscious, subliminal, neuromarketing was presented as the key to understanding consumer behavior. Those most passionate about the subject promised companies that it could even help them read their […]
TELAM, EFE (ARGENTINA) Worldcrunch MONTEVIDEO – Uruguay introduced a bill last November to regulate production and sale of cannabis. Under the proposed legislation, Uruguayans over 18 will be able to purchase pot in state-approved distribution centers. Time to light up? Well, not exactly. While the country is waiting for Congress to pass the bill, the […]
And why it’s not as bad as you think.
LANDQUART – He stirs his spaghetti with one hand, holding a cigarette in the other. Mohamed* has drops of sweat beading on his forehead despite the near-freezing temperatures. “It’s really tough here,” he says in his broken English. “Last week, there was a knife fight between the Afghan and the Nigerian. They were drinking, shouting. […]
LIMA – You’ve seen highway billboards advertising some rest-stop or hotel: “Oasis, Next Exit.” Now in Peru, there’s a billboard that actually is itself something of an oasis. The Technology and Engineering University of Peru has installed a billboard panel along the Panamericana Sur (PanAmerican highway) highway that generates 96 liters of drinkable water a […]
MONTEVIDEO – Racism and racist expressions are often ingrained in society. In Uruguay, they are also written in the dictionary. Last month, Vice-Minister of Culture and Education Oscar Gomez urged the Uruguayan Academy of Letters to remove racist and offensive expressions from the Dictionary of Uruguayan Spanish. It is part of a campaign launched on […]
EL UNIVERSAL (Mexico) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – Linguistic experts have identified as many as 364 different dialects in modern Mexico, with at least 100 people speaking each linguistic variation. But this wealth of language diversity risks disappearing. Javier López Sánchez, director of the National Indigenous Languages Institute in Mexico (INALI), says that currently 64 dialects […]
-Analysis- SANTIAGO – While Argentina and Venezuela have had to devalue their currency as a result of rampant spending and foreign exchange shortages, the rest of Latin America faces exactly the opposite problem. Local currencies have appreciated against the dollar, which has had three negative effects. It is bad for exports; economies have become less […]
LA NACION, CLARIN (Argentina) Worldcrunch VIÑA DEL MAR – The Chilean government has called an investigation to identify and sanction marines caught on tape chanting “Argentines I will kill, Bolivians I will shoot, Peruvians I will cut their throats.” About 30 marine cadets from the Naval Polytechnic Academy were filmed chanting their offensive song as […]
SATKHIRA – In the district of Padmapukur, a few dozen kilometers from the Bay of Bengal, tin shacks balance delicately on scraps of land coming out of the sea, like makeshift boats lost in the middle of the ocean. Only children, women, old people and the severly handicapped still live in the homes scattered along […]
AYUTLA – In the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero, residents of about 15 municipalities have decided to form a “community police” to confront the drug cartels. “The state,” says one farmer matter-of-factly, “has abandoned us.” A commander of the group, who goes by the moniker G1, is talking in the parking lot of the Aurrera […]
EL UNIVERSO, EL COMERCIO, LA HORA (Ecuador) Worldcrunch QUITO – Incumbent Rafael Correa has been reelected to a second term as President of Ecuador, handily defeating his opponents with more than 56% of the vote to avoid the need for a runoff. By early Monday, with more than 11 million ballots cast, the National Electoral […]
CLARIN (Argentina), EL PAIS (Spain) Worldcrunch BARCELONA – This so-called Robin-Hood pursuit, which appeared to come to a head in March 2009, is back on again. It was four years ago that the then 32-year-old Catalan man, Enric Durán Giralt, was sentenced to prison by a Barcelona judge for stealing from banks — and giving […]
The popular President is leading ahead of Sunday’s vote. But in the long-term, economists say Ecuador must diversify — and dump the dollar as official currency.
Worldcrunch The Venezuelan government has posted the first photographs of President Hugo Chavez since his cancer surgery more than two months ago in Cuba. In the images you can see Chavez lying down, surrounded by his two daughters, with signs of a tracheal breathing tube. (source: Venezuelan government) There has been much speculation about the […]
From Latin America, an early eye toward the coming Conclave, and the future of the Catholic Church after decades of fiercely conservative leadership.
SÃO PAOLO – Brazilian mining giant Vale has halted work on its $6 billion Rio Colorado project in Argentina’s Mendoza province, until its demands for special breaks in tax and exchange rates are met by the government in Buenos Aires. The Argentinian government had given Vale a Feb. 4 deadline to submit a new timeline […]
DAGENS NYHETER, ABBA THE MUSEUM (Sweden), COURRIER INTERNATIONAL (France) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – Thirty years after the broke up, iconic Swedish pop band ABBA is still making headlines, writes Courrier International. On May 7, a huge ABBA museum will open in on Djurgarden island, in Stockholm. Tickets have already gone on sale, says ABBA The Museum. […]
BERLIN – People who were there said he cried for several minutes at the executive committee meeting on the morning after his defeat. As party members analyzed what had gone wrong in the state election campaign, the governor of the German state of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, burst into tears. Angela Merkel comforted him, and […]
As many as one billion people may not have access to clean drinking water by 2050. Changes are needed, which may also create investment opportunities.
KAYANZA – It seemed like such a small thing when it began nearly a year ago here in northern Burundi: Pygmies would share their unique weaving techniques to the ethnic Hutus and Tutsis of the Kayanza province. But learning to weave carpets, nets, handbags, even tables and chairs…and for free…has earned unexpected waves of good […]
CHICHICASTENANGO – “What happened to the Mayans? Why did they disappear?” asks a tourist, while the minivan enters the winding streets of Chichicastenango, in Guatemala. The guide, Haroldo, smiles, just as every guide should when asked that question, and answers: “Disappear? Look around you, these are the Mayans, they are here.” This is the first […]
-Opinion- CARACAS – The Venezuelan opposition is at a crossroads after two electoral defeats and in front of imminent political change for the country. Instead of weakening him, President Hugo Chavez’s cancer has reinforced his power and pushed his opposition ever deeper into a corner. The opposition did not instigate the political change – they […]
LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – A new French study has found that the risk of diabetes may actually increase more with the consumption of diet or light soft drinks than with sugary ones. Researchers at Inserm, the French biomedical and public health research institution, followed the health and consumption habits of 66,188 women since […]
SWEDEN – Sagas are epic tales full of symbolic details, and the IKEA saga is no exception. The story of the Swedish furniture giant, founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, who is now 86 years old, definitely qualifies as a saga. It combines successes, setbacks and the carefully maintained mythology around the patriarch, who even […]
PARIS – “The melting Arctic is under threat…Let’s take action!” Last July, Greenpeace launched a vast media campaign to “stop Shell from drilling in the Arctic”, as the oil giant was getting ready to open its second Arctic well off Alaska. Greenpeace’s campaign garnered huge support from the general public, but it also reached the […]
EFE, ANIMANATURALIS (MEXICO) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – Hundreds of animal rights activists in Mexico City took to the streets this weekend to call for an end to bullfighting in Mexico, reports EFE. More than 200 activists took their clothes off and poured fake blood on themselves during the demonstration. They planted fake “banderillas” on themselves, […]
After November’s passage of a state referendum that legalizes marijuana, THC University opens its doors in Denver to teach people how to grow pot in their homes.
PARIS – Kevin Kelly is a stimulating iconoclast. How many books are bought but not read? Probably many more than we think. Hence the idea of paying readers who read a book from the beginning to the end. Kevin Kelly thought about patenting his idea, but, since ideas don’t necessarily make a project, he decided […]
TIMES OF INDIA, OUTLOOK (India), BBC (UK). NEW DELHI – Indian President Pranab Mukherjee has approved a new rape law that would provide harsher punishment for rapists, including the death penalty. The BBC reports the brutal gang rape on a 23-year-old woman in December caused an outrage across the country and sparked a debate about […]
GENEVA – He’s back. Adolf Hitler is back, in a book by Timur Vermes – a comedy in which Hitler returns to Berlin in the summer of 2011. The book, which has reached the top of the German bestseller list, is causing much controversy in a country that would rather forget it has been 80 […]