Here are the songs topping the charts from some music hot spots around world. First, our pick of the week from Varazdin, Croatia Croatian Tambura band: Mejaši
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Author: Daniel Shadmy
SHANGLIN – Zhen Minxin keeps repeating that he is “lucky.” On this warm morning of mid-June, his return back home is being celebrated, with the slices of watermelon laid out on the table and cigarette butts scattered on the floor as sure signs of the festivities. Zhen’s own cigarettes are Gold Seal, a brand unknown […]
Liu Zhijun, China’s former Railway Minister, has received a “suspended” death penalty. He may get a reprieve. But one writer says it’s time for a vengeful China to abolish executions altogether.
It’s an attitude, a way of life — but have no doubts, these women riders are very much aware of the dangers.
Though Israeli leaders were pleasantly surprised by some aspects of Mohammed Morsi’s reign, they are not sorry to see him go. For one thing, it’s a big blow to Hamas.
DJERBA – Otto Dix in Tunisia? Sounds like a mistake, a geographical accident, as if somebody or something got on the wrong plane. Not so. There really are some 100 works — sketches, drawings, oils — by famed German New Objectivity artist Otto Dix (1891-1969) on exhibit on the holiday island of Djerba. On the […]
PARIS – The revelations of the controversial U.S. domestic surveillance program PRISM have provoked massive indignation through much of Europe, but France has been rather quiet. There are two simple explanations: Paris was already aware — and does exactly the same. Le Monde has confirmed that the “Direction Générale de la Securité Extérieure” (DGSE, the […]
CAIRO – Several million demonstrators add up to a considerable force that no elected leader can ignore. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have a lot more people demonstrating against them than ever took the streets against former president Hosni Mubarak. And still, given the off-with-their-heads rhetoric on both sides, the latest protests […]
In the province of the Bas-Congo, southwest of Kinshasa, “prophecies” blame innocents for the misfortune of their loved ones.
On the Moroccan beaches, near Tangier or Casablanca, the dunes have disappeared – leaving a lunar landscape. They were not destroyed by storms, but stolen night after night by squads of trucks – to build vacation homes for the tourists who come for the coast’s warm waters and soft sands. For many years now the […]
KASSERINE – Sitting on his doorstep, squinting under his straw hat, the shepherd looks closely at the military tank that crosses his land with a deafening rumble. “For now, we let them, but if it goes on, we, the people, we will revolt and stop this joke by all available means,” says Ridha Messaoudi. Early […]
BAGHDAD — On Fridays, you can get a taste of just how special Mutanabbi Street used to be. For a couple of hours once a week, this neighborhood in the Iraqi capital returns to its former glory when everybody who is anybody in the Baghdad’s art and culture scene is out on the famous “book […]
Recycling is slow going in Poland, and you can see the results all of the streets and sidewalks. What does it all say about the Polish character?
Around this time of the year, high school students across the world file into stuff classrooms for their final exams. Some are nationwide tests, others are the sadistic work of your local mathematics teacher. Despite all of the pre-test stress, things tend to run smoothly in the end. But not always… Empty class room in […]
Google+, the social network of the American web giant is, in fact, a lot more than a social network. Larry Page, the web giant’s CEO, describes it as “the social backbone” of a company whose ambition is simple, if not the least bit modest: to control the Internet. “If Google+ was just a social network, […]
-Essay- PARIS – From the Turkish protests in Istanbul to the French anti gay-marriage protests, and from euthanasia rights to fledgling forms of participatory democracy, it is difficult to ignore the growing aspirations of Europeans toward autonomy and freedom of choice. This new individualization dynamic is silently revolutionizing European values. Individualization is the the power […]
JINAN – How to “surf” anonymously on the Web, in a country – China – where cybercafés ask for proof of ID before you are allowed to log onto the Internet? In order to circumvent this requirement, Mr Guo, owner of a cybercafé in Jinan city, northeastern Chinese Shandong Province, had found a perfect solution: […]
ADDIS ABABA – On June 3, Egyptian politicians were caught in a televised diplomatic gaffe, which could have cost them dearly. Invited by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to a debate on the $4.2 billion hydroelectric dam that Ethiopia is about to start building across the Blue Nile, one of the two major tributaries of the […]
SAHARONIM – Last summer, Israel passed an amendment to the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law, which allows refugees to be held for a minimum of three years without detention without a trial or charges being brought against them. According to the law, refugees from “enemy states” can be held in indefinite detention, even if they […]
BERLIN – At the end of Oranienstrasse in the Berlin borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Gürkan runs a tailor shop. The 41-year-old conservative Muslim, of Turkish origins, is all for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan“s taking a hard-line stance against demonstrators in Turkey, who began their protests over development plans in central Istanbul’s Gezi park. “He has […]
Ever since 2002, when the first batch of students graduated after national expansion of university enrollment, the difficulty for educated young people to find employment has become a hot topic each summer. The total number of graduates has grown every year. With 6.99 million fresh graduates this year, the number is hitting another record high. […]
TEHERAN – In the middle of the election campaign, Washington has found a way to remind Iranians that the next president they will elect will have to pull the country out of an unprecedented economic crisis. The crisis, of course, is largely the result of the tough sanctions imposed by Western countries in response to […]
In modern China, some go to great lengths to look or sound like they hail from the West. One of the quickest, and quirkiest, ways to do this is to give yourself an English name. Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, had some fun with this phenomenon in a piece for the The […]
Several women inmates from China’s infamous Masanjia reeducation-through-labor camp have decided to come forward to recount the torture they sustained.
ALGIERS – Since the first subway line opened in the end of 2011, it is much appreciated. “It is a lot easier to get to court,” explains Lydia, a young lawyer. She adds that the ticket fare (around 50 cents) is reasonable for the middle class, and the service beats collective taxis or having to […]
BUTIHINDA – Here in the northeastern mining region of Burundi, some green is starting to grow again. Having caused rampant deforestation and drought, mining companies are from now on required to plant trees in the areas they exploit. Along the dusty road leading to Kamaramagambo, we can see several rocky slopes that for the first […]
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NATO, The Existential Question
With major geopolitical changes and severe economic restraints, some wonder if the military alliance is destined for the dustbin of history.
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), LE MONDE, AFP (France), SPA (Saudi- Arabia) Worldcrunch RIYADH – Saudi Arabia’s health ministry has announced that five people have recently died from a new SARS-like virus, and that two more are being treated in an intensive care unit, reports Al Jazeera. The statement, released late Wednesday night, noted that the five […]
TEL AVIV – February 2013. Tel Aviv gets ready to celebrate Purim, a biblical celebration that along the centuries has become a sort of carnival where Israelis drink — as the tradition goes — “until they cannot remember their name.” There are long lines in front of costumes shops. Riff Cohen, will get as drunk […]
CAIXIN, XINHUA, PEOPLE’S DAILY (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – More than 4,000 aftershocks have been recorded since the earthquake that struck Sichuan Province, in the southwest of China, last Saturday. The death keeps rising, with dozens still missing reports Xinhua. More than 11,470 people were injured in the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. While the relief effort continues […]
GLZ.CO.IL , YNET (Israel) Worldcrunch TEL AVIV – Ten animal-rights activists have been arrested in connection with a bizarre form of shock protest in the name of protecting animals from slaughter: dumping bloodied heads of dead animals into city fountains, according to glz.co.il. Over the last few months, slaughtered cow, goat, fish and sheep heads […]
XINJIANG.GOV, TIANSHAN.NET, XINHUA (China), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch BACHU – Twenty-one people, including police officers and community workers, were killed in violent clashes in the ethnically-divided Kashgar region in the western Chinese Xinjiang Province, reported local officials on Wednesday. The incident occured on Tuesday after three community workers found “suspicious individuals and knives in the home […]
PARIS – In the last years of his life, French novelist Marcel Proust mostly fed himself with café au lait. Made by the two best roasters in Paris, Proust’s coffee came from freshly ground beans that were extracted drop by drop according to an unchangeable ritual. Sometimes the verdict would be without mercy: “Celeste, how […]
Families of the Turkish citizens killed three years ago in the raid of the Mavi Marmara say that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology means nothing to them.
SICHUAN RIBAO, CHINADAILY, XINHUA, GLOBAL TIMES (China) Worldcrunch LU SHAN – The death toll from this weekend’s earthquake in central China climbed to 188 on Monday, with thousands injured and forced from their homes, reports Xinhua. The quake’s epicenter was registered in Lushan County in the southwest of Sichuan Province at around 8 a.m. local […]
GENEVA – Depression is usually associated, in our minds, with women. Yet of course men suffer from it too, and often it comes with an extra stigma even in our modern society. Genevan psychiatrist Theodore Hovaguimian talks about it in his new book, La Depression Masculine (Male Depression). This breakthrough book helps break a taboo […]
MINSK – At the age of nine he has already met a pope and a few presidents. He likes guns and carries around a gold-plated pistol he was given by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Wearing his mini-uniform, he attends military parades and takes part in high-level meetings. Meet Kolya, the youngest son of Belarusian […]
After the most serious terror attack on US soil since 9/11, some believe the culprits will turn out looking more like Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik than Osama Bin Laden.