Categories
Society

After The Exodus – Forgotten Greek Minority Reclaims Stake Of Turkish Island

By allowing a Greek elementary school to be opened the for first time in 49 years on Gökçeada — formerly Imbros — Turkey has raised hope among a nearly vanished Greek community.

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Society

A Media-Savvy, Modern Jesse James Is On The Run In France

Son of immigrants, Redoine Faïd, 40, dealt drugs on the outskirts of Paris before turning to armed robbery. After repenting on French TV, a daring prison break has added to his legend.

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Future

Want To Avoid Dating Your Cousin? Iceland Has An App For That

NEWS OF ICELAND (Iceland) Worldcrunch REYKJAVIK – Iceland is an island in the far north of Europe, just south of the Arctic Circle, known for musical talents Bjork and Sigur Ros and popular crime writer Arnaldur Indridason. Not much else. Aside maybe for the fact that everyone in Iceland is related. Yes, everyone in Iceland […]

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Society

New Zealand First Asia-Pacific Country To Legalize Gay Marriage

TVNZ, NZ HERALD, FAIRFAX NZ NEWS, 3 NEWS (New Zealand) Worldcrunch WELLINGTON – New Zealand has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage. Parliament voted 77-44 late Wednesday to amend the 1955 Marriage Act to describe marriage as a union of two people regardless of their sex, sexuality or how […]

Categories
Food / Travel

Can A Tech Wizard From Idaho Save Mozambique’s Garden Of Eden?

Gregory Carr has an American entrepreneur’s vision for saving African wildlife.

Categories
Food / Travel

Ancient Thermal Springs All The Rage In Budapest Party Scene

BUDAPEST – Over 70 million liters of mineral-rich healing waters bubble out of Budapest’s 118 thermal springs every day. That’s a claim no other big city on the planet can make. The baths are as old as the city itself. The Romans were well aware of the beneficial effects of the warm springs, and the […]

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In The News

Why Chinese Officials Are Prescribing Herbal Tea To Ward Off Deadly Bird Flu

This supposed “wonder drug” is rolled out anytime authorities fear a health crisis can spark a national panic. But are placebos a good approach to government policy?

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Eyes on the U.S.

Boston Marathon Bombing: 50 Front Pages From The US And The World

Worldcrunch The world is in shock after Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings, which claimed the lives of three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injured more than 140. Read the full coverage on the Boston Globe, including a moving editorial here. More front pages from the U.S. and the world: USA CANADA UK BELGIUM BRAZIL ARGENTINA […]

Categories
Economy

How Crocodile Dundee Lost $34 Million In The Jungles Of Offshore Tax Havens

SONNTAGS ZEITUNG (Germany), LE MATIN (Switzerland), SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) Worldcrunch GENEVA – You might remember Australian actor Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee movie, the 1986 comedy about a crocodile hunter from the deep Aussie bush who falls in love with an American journalist and follows her to the urban jungles of New York City. […]

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Geopolitics

Snipers And Sewage: Why Oil-Rich Basra Is A Symbol Of What’s Wrong With Today’s Iraq

Ten years after Saddam’s fall, Iraq’s richest city is rife with courruption and can’t even clean up after itself.

Categories
The Next Pope

Poland’s Church Struggles To Follow Pope Francis’ Message Of Humility — And Poverty

Some members of the hierarchy of the Polish Catholic Church seem to have troubled practicing what the new pontiff preaches.

Categories
In The News

China’s New First Lady Quickly Becomes Style Icon For A Nation

More Michelle Obama or Carla Bruni? Peng Liyuan is breaking new ground in Chinese political life. It’s also another chance for retailers to practice the fine art of imitation.

Categories
Economy

Can You Teach Starving Artists How To Make A Living?

New programs in Germany share business and entrepreneurial know-how with the dreamer demographic.

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Geopolitics

North Korea Warns Japan That Tokyo Will Be Its First Target

YONYAP (South Korea), JAPAN TIMES, THE DIPLOMAT (Japan) Worldcrunch TOKYO – North Korea warned Japan on Friday that Tokyo would be its first target of a nuclear strike if it continued to maintain its hostile stance, reports Yonyap news agency. North Korea criticized Tokyo’s standing orders to destroy any missile heading toward Japan, threatening that […]

Categories
Future

Autism From The Inside – Living With My Brain In Overdrive

BERLIN – The traffic on this German road moves along in a neat pattern, changed only when a car makes a right. When it does, Markus Behrendt turns to look out the window. He may only have seen the turning car – a change in pattern – out of the corner of his eye, but […]

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Society

The Muslim Women Who Won’t Be “Liberated” By Femen

MUNICH -The opposite of good is well-intentioned. And the present conflict between Femen activists and Muslim feminists demonstrates how a “well-intentioned” action can fail so miserably. Femen activists are supposed to be the good guys – the ones who stand for freedom and emancipation. To spread their message they protest topless – naked but not […]

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In The News

China’s Online Masses Dare Officials To Swim In Polluted Rivers

BEIJING – Last month, President Xi Jinping told the mayor of Suzhou, who had outlined a plan to make improvements on the water quality of the city’s lakes, that for China’s netizens, the best measure of acceptable water quality would be to see whether the mayor dared to jump in and swim. In February, a […]

Categories
Food / Travel

Another Gandhi? Retired French Garbage Man Turns Heads In India

LA DEPECHE DU MIDI, LE FIGARO (France) Worldcrunch TOULOUSE – Three months ago, Jeannot Marciniak, a 70-year-old retired garbage collector from this city in southwest France, packed his bags for India, a country he’d long dreamed of discovering, reports Le Figaro. While sitting on a bench in Pondicherry, in southern India, a man came up […]

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Geopolitics

Maduro Speaks: An Exclusive Interview With Hugo Chavez’s Heir Apparent

As Sunday’s election looms, Folha de S. Paulo sits down with, and gets a ride from Nicolas Maduro, the fiery former bus driver and heir apparent to Hugo Chavez.

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Geopolitics

Farewell Margaret Thatcher: 46 Front Pages From UK, And The World

Worldcrunch UK AUSTRALIA ARGENTINA AUSTRIA BELGIUM CANADA CHINA FRANCE GERMANY SINGAPORE ITALY JAPAN SWEDEN SWITZERLAND SPAIN USA PORTUGAL

Categories
Society

Are China’s Colleges Too Easy? Universities Lament Low Dropout Rate

BEIJING – Last month Shandong University announced that 97 of its students wouldn’t be granted their diplomas due to “poor academic performance after frequent warnings.” Ninety-seven is a drop in the bucket next to the school’s 43,000 undergraduates; and even of those 97, all but 16 have been given a reprieve allowing them to graduate […]

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In The News

The Only Way To End China’s Pollution Disaster Is To Slow Down The Economy

Look at the numbers, both environmental and economic, and the solution is clear: slower growth.

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Geopolitics

Humanitarian Assistance To Syria? Poles Say They Have Their Own Problems

-Essay- WARSAW – When a group of Polish intellectuals, priests and politicians signed a petition for Polish humanitarian assistance to Syria, all hell broke loose on the Internet. The Polska Akcja Humanitarna (Polish Humanitarian Aid) petition — signed by former presidents Lech Walesa and Aleksander Kwasniewski; former Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Archbishop of Krakow […]

Categories
Society

Le Eco-Grazing! Paris Uses Sheep To Mow Park Lawns

FRANCE 3 BRETAGNE, LE TELEGRAMME (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – From Ernest Hemingway to Carla Bruni, the French capital has seen its fair share of notable visitors over the years. But this week saw a surprising arrival from the provinces: four black woolly sheep brought in from Ouessant Island, a remote island to the west of […]

Categories
Ideas

Kim Jong-Un’s Sabre-Rattling And The First Lesson Of The Cold War

Nuclear arms are more shield than weapon, so long as no one is suicidal.

Categories
Geopolitics

In Televised Address, French President Denies Covering For Disgraced Budget Minister

LE MONDE, FRANCE 24, JEROME-CAHUZAC.COM, LIBERATION, L’HUMANITE, LA VOIX DU NORD (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – French President Francois Hollande appeared in a brief televised address broadcast on Wednesday, after his former Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac admitted he was guilty of tax fraud. In the pre-recorded broadcast, Hollande said Cahuzac had “fooled the highest authorities of […]

Categories
The Next Pope

The Vatican’s Most Dashing Man, But Can Don Giorgio Stay Among Its Most Powerful?

He was Benedict XVI’s right-hand man, and now runs daily operations for Francis, but it’s still not clear where German-born Georg Ganswein fits into other power struggles in Rome.

Categories
Society

Will Woman-Only Transport Solve Egypt’s Sexual Harassment Problem?

Some say, in the long run, segregating bus and tram lines will actually make it worse.

Categories
Society

Independent Newspapers Return To Burma For First Time In 50 Years

REUTERS, AP Worldcrunch RANGOON – On Monday, Burmese readers had a choice of daily newspapers for the first time in 50 years, as a state monopoly on newspapers ended. Sixteen publishing licenses were granted by Burmese authorities, but only four privately owned newspapers managed to hit the stands today, reports Reuters. The other newspapers failed […]

Categories
Geopolitics

More Than 20 Bodies Recovered After Landslide Buries Dozens Of Miners In Tibet

CHINA NATIONAL RADIO, XINHUA, CCTV (China), CENTRAL TIBETAN ADMINISTRATION Worldcrunch LHASA – Rescuers have recovered 21 bodies three days after a massive landslide in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region that buried more than 80 mine workers, China National Radio reported on Monday. The landslide occurred three days ago in Maizhokunggar County, about 68 kilometers from the […]

Categories
Geopolitics

The Next Target In Al Qaeda’s African Recruitment Campaign

Across the border from Mali, the former French colony of Mauritania is prime territory for Islamist leaders, as poverty and radical preachers lay the groundwork for Jihad.

Categories
Economy

“Abenomics” – Is Japan Looking Past China To Boost Trade With United States?

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has big economic ambitions for his country — and it may require a slap to its largest regional trading partner.

Categories
Geopolitics

North Korea Threatens “Merciless Nuclear Attack”

KOREA TIMES, YONHAP (South Korea), KCNA, (North Korea), AP, U.S. Military (USA) Worldcrunch SEOUL – Thousands of North Korean students and soldiers turned out for a rally in Pyongyang on Friday to support their leader’s call to arms, adding fuel to rising nuclear-charged tensions with South Korea and the United States, reports the AP. The […]

Categories
Society

Chinese Couples Looking To Duck New Property Taxes Opt For Divorce

BEIJING – To stem surging housing prices and curb speculation, China has recently issued a new policy that enables local governments to impose a 20% tax on profits earned from the sale of a second home. This is a huge hike from the current 1-2% tax. The move immediately triggered panic among the affluent class […]

Categories
Economy

Vultures Circle Over Cyprus – Will Bailout Deal Spell Doom For Island Nation?

NICOSIA – The festival atmosphere on this sunny morning in Nicosia doesn’t match the bad vibes coming out of Brussels. The Faneromeni church in the heart of Cyprus’s capital is decked out with garlands made of hundreds of blue and white Greek flags and Cypriot flags with the shape of the island nation depicted in […]

Categories
Future

Key Ingredient In Cough Syrup Could Help With Down Syndrome

ABC NEWS, HERALD SUN, MONASH UNIVERSITY (Australia) Worldcrunch MELBOURNE – An ingredient used in cough syrup could hold the key to improving memory, language skills and learning in people with Down syndrome. Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, believe BTD-001, an ingredient in cough syrup that was discovered in the 1920s, could help with […]

Categories
Geopolitics

UN Calls For “Restoration Of Order” After Central African Republic Coup

RFI, FRANCE 24 (France), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AAP (Australia), MAIL&GUARDIAN (South Africa) Worldcrunch BANGUI – After rebels in the Central African Republic ousted President François Bozize, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared Monday that he was “deeply concerned by reports of violations of human rights.” Michel Djotodia, the leader of the Seleka rebels, declared himself president […]

Categories
Eyes on the U.S.

How To Shake China From Its Recurring American Dreams

Too many Chinese have taken their pursuit of happiness to the United States, and elsewhere in the West. China must ask itself why are there still so many good reasons for leaving.

Categories
Future

No More Road Kill – Evolution Helped Swallows Avoid Car Crashes

BERLIN – How fast is evolution? Pretty fast, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Tulsa published in the scientific journal Current Biology. An estimated 80 million birds are killed by cars each year. In Europe too, millions of birds die the same way. But over the past 30 years, the […]

Categories
Future

Power Restored After Shutdown Brings New Fears Of Fukushima Disaster

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, TEPCO, KYODO (Japan) Worldcrunch TOKYO – Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) announced on Tuesday that cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant have been partially restored after a power failure had suspended cooling operations at three spent fuel ponds on Monday. Map Saneef/Babbage The shutdown of cooling systems occurred after a power […]

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