Worldcrunch
BASEL — Niklaus Blumer is an architect by training, and his partner Pascal Wirth is an economist. These two men from the Swiss city of Basel are the unlikely creators of Idilio Origins, a brand that specializes in pure, designated-origin Grand Cru chocolate. They tell of prospecting in Latin America in search of a cacao […]
KEFLAVIK — The first thing that strikes you on landing at Keflavik International Airport is the weather. It’s raining. The clouds hang so low that it looks like you could reach out and touch them. Welcome to Iceland. A land mass covering 103,000 square kilometers, Iceland is a little larger than Hungary, but at 330,000 […]
BENI — On a recent Friday, soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) were spending the morning helping civilians clean the road that leads to the new cemetery of this northeastern Congolese city. Here, AK-47s have been replaced by hoes, spades and rakes. Colonel Tito Bizuri, who is in charge […]
Take a tour of what the world’s been saying this week.
PARIS – The United States woke up Tuesday to a rather expected, but nonetheless stunning government shutdown after Congress failed to agree on a new budget by the midnight deadline in a political standoff over Republican attempts to reverse President Obama’s landmark health care reform. The government is forced to put an end to non-essential […]
YUTZ — Use a digital tablet in gym class? You might smile, but in room A101 of the Jean-Mermoz Junior High in northeastern France, the visitor today is Luc Di Pol, whose job title for the regional education authority is digital supervisor for physical education. Here in the mostly rural French department of Moselle, Di […]
01.10.2014 BRITAIN BEGINS AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS Britain’s Royal Air Force has joined the anti-ISIS coalition, launching its first airstrikes last night against the jihadist group in Iraq, before U.S.-led forces targeted fighters in villages near the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, not far from the Turkish border. Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby warned yesterday […]
-Op-Ed- Last week finally saw the epilogue of the eventful Bo Xilai affair. The former high-ranking official of the single-party state, both a member of the Chinese Community Party (CCP) Politburo and the most powerful figure of the Chongqing municipality, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in the Shandong province. But this legal […]
GENEVA — A musician and PhD in bioacoustics, Bernie Krause is on a mission to create a systematic organisation of the landscape of sound signatures. He sums it up this way: While a picture is worth a thousand words, a soundscape is worth a thousand pictures. “There was a time when I considered natural soundscapes […]
BEIJING — In October, a tour group of 20 of China’s top tycoons will be paying a different kind of luxury visit to America. The tour is organized by Gopher Asset, an asset management firm, and the aim is for these Chinese super-rich to investigate how Single Family Offices (SFOs) operate in the United States. […]
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldrunch’s pick of the week is the British pop band Pulp. Its frontman Jarvis Cocker turned 50 this month, so we thought we’d celebrate his birthday by listening to Pulp’s legendary single “Common People”, which was released in May […]
-Analysis- NAIROBI – A dozen or more attackers stormed the shopping center, throwing grenades and shooting adults and children alike. They came to kill on a massive scale and with spectacular cruelty, setting up an agonizingly drawn-out hostage situation. What took place in the Nairobi shopping center was not only an attack on Kenya, but […]
PARIS — Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it seems that we are passing through an unprecedented layer of thick fog. We see one country suddenly accelerating while its neighbor suffers a “sudden stop.” But this isn’t the first time. The world was consumed by the same sort of uncertainty five years after […]
BERLIN – Germany has voted for stability and consensus. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s position has been confirmed with a convincing result. She has been entrusted with power for another four years, and will continue to lead the country with her cautious, considered politics. Strategy and long-term success form the yardstick for her short-term tactics. It is […]
– Editorial- PARIS – Should the three massacres perpetrated this past weekend in Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria be approached separately? The incidents would appear to be unrelated, but all is not so simple. In Nairobi, it took nearly three days to finally end the Westgate siege after al-Shabab, a Somali terrorist group, began their attack […]
The mainstream Syrian political opposition failed for nearly two years to draw in the Kurdish National Council (KNC), a muddled coalition of 16 Syrian Kurdish political parties. In what was hailed as a breakthrough, the KNC finally decided to join the Syrian National Coalition (NC) last month. Yet the decision will have little practical impact on Arab-Kurdish relations in Syria. Its impact will primarily play out abroad, giving both the KNC and the NC a boost in international credibility, rather than inside Syria. The NC was eager for the Kurdish bloc to join its ranks in order to address a […]
LIMA — Why are more and more Mashco-Piro native Indians who have always lived in deep isolation in the Amazon jungle being spotted around inhabited areas? This question is worrying Peru as never-before-seen photographs of the tribe emerged in August. “We usually get a glimpse of them once a year, but their appearances have been […]
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch’s pick of the week is a live performance of Nirvana playing “Scentless Apprentice,” which features on the band’s third and final studio album, In Utero. The footage, originally recorded in 1993, is being released amongst other never-before-seen performances […]
MUNICH – A single electoral poster sums up Angela Merkel’s campaign: a collage of 2,100 photos, all taken by anonymous “Angie” fans, displayed on a 2,400 square meter billboard outside Berlin’s central station. Germany’s Future Is In Good Hands, it says. Of Angela Merkel, we only see the two hands, shaped in a triangle, a […]
GENEVA — No need to read Plato’s complete works or learn by heart the words of the Dalai Lama to understand the meaning of happiness. Science may have the answers. At the University Hospital of Geneva (UHG), neurologist Fabienne Picard has been studying for years a very rare phenomenon that scientific literature barely talks about […]
PHOENIX – Eight years ago, as brain researchers Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik were driving down the Las Vegas Strip, the billboards they passed suddenly got them to rethink about the brain’s capacity to process visual information. Until then, the two professors at the prestigious Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona had addressed this question by […]
While You Slept Wednesday, September 17, 2014 LAST DAY OF CAMPAIGNING IN SCOTLAND Pro-independence and pro-union militants are campaigning for the last day in Scotland, with the latest polls ahead of tomorrow’s referendum giving the “No” to independence a slight lead, although more than 8% are still undecided, according to The Daily Mail. Newspapers across […]
-OpEd- PARIS — The Kerry-Lavrov agreement finally ends any illusion of a new “Cold War” that would have featured a showdown in Syria between friends of Washington and allies of Moscow. With the deal inked between American Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, it has become clear that the U.S. […]
-OpEd- BEIJING — Apple released the iPhone 5c and 5s in Beijing last week, marking the first time ever that Apple has chosen the world’s biggest market for a launch. The company seems to hope that the two new smartphones will help the brand here, where it hovers alternately between fifth and sixth place in […]
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch’s pick of the week is a 1963 live version of the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. This Fab Fours’ classic will feature on their “new” album, On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2, which […]
CAIRO — The show had just started. It was one of those debates that the new private Egyptian channels love to produce: Viewers can call in to denounce a terrorist, live on air. In front of his television, Yasser was listening to the host describe an “individual who seriously affects the image of the country.” […]
Since January, more than $540 billion has passed through the tax shelters of the largely unknown island of Labuan. Here’s why the rich are increasingly hiding their money there.
Though Russia’s proposed diplomatic solution casts doubt over a U.S. military strike in Syria, Lebanese fear being caught in the middle if the fire spreads across the entire region.
First, ovens that already know a dish’s cooking parameters? Now, miniature computers that you can swallow like pills? After the Internet of Things, here comes the Internet of Bodies.
China currently has just one-fifth the number of robots as Japan, and just one-third as many as the United States, but as manufacturing there grows, the country is poised for big bot growth.
Bruno Strebel spends his days tracking missing persons, insurance scammers and white-collar criminals. The former cop founded a detective school that teaches others to do the same.
A strange thing has happened on the way to the war in Syria: U.S. public opinion, like in Turkey, has lined up this time alongside Europe’s perennial reflex against intervention.
Here are some of the songs topping the charts from music hot spots around the world. Worldcrunch’s pick of the week is Bob Dylan’s “Pretty Saro”, a single which features on the latest album of his bootleg series Another Self Portrait (1969–1971), released on August 27. The compilation revisits the songs of what is commonly […]
BBC, RUSSIA TODAY, AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch ST. PETERSBURG — The G20 world leaders failed to find common ground Thursday on the U.S. push for military intervention in Syria in the wake of the chemical attack there. The Syrian conflict was the main topic of the summit’s first day, as President Barack Obama tried to […]
AFP, CHINA DAILY, THE ECONOMIC TIMES (India) Worldcrunch SHANGHAI — In a bold push to reform the world’s second-largest economy and open it to cross-border business, China will allow unfettered exchange of its RMB currency in the country’s first free trade zone, according to a draft plan AFP previewed Thursday. The Free Trade Zone is […]
REUTERS, ABC, WALL STREET JOURNAL Worldcrunch TOKYO — Radiation readings near tanks holding toxic waters at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant have jumped to a new high, according to Japan’s nuclear regulator, as the government prepares to step in to help contain leaks. According to Reuters, this new rise in the radiation levels and […]
AP, NEW YORK TIMES, BBC Worldcrunch MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin says he doesn’t rule out his country’s participation in a military operation in Syria if evidence showing that Damascus carried out chemical attacks is “convincing”. He added that the operation must be conducted with U.N. approval. In a rare interview with the Associated […]
LONDON — This is the fourth month that Shen has promptly received the 2,600 pounds ($4,050) from his tenants. The newfound landlord bought a London flat in January, having calculated that even if he doesn’t raise the rent, he’ll be still able to pay off the down payment in just five years. Shen is but […]
President Hollande has the power to strike militarily without parliamentary consent. But democratic and political necessities require it.
Kim Pasche set off from Switzerland to follow in the footsteps of indigenous people. That led him to the wild forests of Canada, where he spends eight months a year living as a hunter-gatherer.