Without competition in the television industry, as there is for telecommunications and banking, Chinese broadcasters have little to offer viewers and a limited revenue model for themselves.
Author: Patrick Randall
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Global Charts #3
It’s Friday — time to check out some of the songs topping charts around the world: Portugal: Anselmo Ralph – “Unica Mulher” Venezuela: Enrique Iglesias feat. Descemer Bueno and Gente de Zona – “Bailando” Mozambique: Taylor Swift – “Shake It Off” Israel: Sia – “Chandelier” Sri Lanka: Troye Sivan – “The Fault In Our Stars” […]
Muslim Seleka and Christian anti-Balaka militiamen have squared off for the Central African Republic’s so-called blood diamonds. Some call the wartorn nation a ‘gemocracy’.
Photo: Bosley Facebook page BALTIMORE — Soul and funk are two of the few music genres that have never really gone out of fashion. Which may partly explain why the Baltimore-based band Bosley, by combining both styles with talent, was just elected best band of their city in this month’s issue of Baltimore Magazine. Bosley […]
Parents and health experts in had voiced outrage that the American fast-food giant was behind a program to teach German students about good nutrition.
-OpEd- BERLIN — American Foreign Policy magazine’s home page is a little bit like a quotation board for security policy strategies. Here you see not only how various players evaluate the world’s conflicts but also how much support there is for their point of view, because the number of times the article has been shared […]
The country’s proposed reforms don’t consider the two elephants in the room, an expert warns: below-mimimum-wage teacher salaries and goals for graduates.
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Global Charts #2
It’s Friday! Time to check out some of the songs topping charts around the world: Greece: Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off” Bahamas: Ariana Grande feat. Iggy Azalea, “Problem” Botswana: John Legend, “All Of Me” Bahrain: MAGIC!, “Rude” Taiwan: G.E.M., “Like You” Source: Hot Music Charts
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Lauryn Hill Releases Tribute To Ferguson
American singer Lauryn Hill has released a recorded version on Soundcloud of her track “Black Rage,” which she had only played live for the past two years. The former Fugees frontwoman dedicated the song to the residents of Missouri, where tension is still high after African-American teenager Michael Brown was killed by a police officer […]
COMRAT — In Comrat, the capital of the autonomous Gagauzia region in southern Moldova, time has stopped. Mud houses and damaged roads, some of which have never been touched by asphalt, make this town of 26,000 residents feel like something from the 19th century. To get closer to what resembles an urban atmosphere, visitors must […]
TEL AVIV — A summer of fighting in Gaza has reignited a wave of global protests against Israel. Companies operating in Israel — such as maritime cargo giant Zim and major food producers — are finding themselves under attack. But they are fighting back. “The move to a sweeping boycott of anything Israeli, the violence […]
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New Guitar Center Prompts Worst Jam Ever
What happens when you mix a bunch of wannabe rock stars, a brand new music shop with probably the world’s best instruments and amps, and a lack of music cabins or headphones? The hilarious video below. It was taken at the new Guitar Center in New York’s Times Square that opened earlier in August, and […]
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Global Charts #1
It’s Friday! Time to check out some of the songs currently topping the charts around the world: Finland: Cheek, “Äärirajoille” Colombia: Calvin Harris, “Summer” Burkina Faso: Floby, “My Lady” Lebanon: Maroon 5, “Maps” Russia: Lilly Wood & the Prick & Robin Schulz, “Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit)” Source: Hot Music Charts
Top executives and even ordinary folks use the skills of the French company Net Dating Assistant to pose for them online and woo would-be lovers.
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Duke The Dog Elected Mayor Of Minnesota Town
CORMORANT — A 7-year-old dog named Duke has been elected honorary mayor of the small town of Cormorant, Minn. Winning just 12 votes, he is said to have won by a “landslide.” Local residents hope the furry pol, who will officially be sworn in Saturday, will continue guarding the town, making the community safer and […]
A Thai psychedelic band called Khun Narin Electric Phin Band is set to release its first album Aug. 26, on Innovative Leisure records. But who are the people behind this obscure name? Not much is actually known about the musicians apart from what’s told on the band’s record cover. And this story is a special […]
Berlin-based American musician Anton Newcombe posted a demo of his band the Brian Jonestown Massacre performing a cover of the French composer William Sheller“s “Philadelphia Story” Tuesday. Although he explains that on Twitter singing in French is difficult and that he plans to have a woman perform it for the recording, we at Paris-based Worldcrunch […]
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Melbourne’s Musical Commutes
Inspired by the Black Cab Sessions in London and the Take-Away shows in Paris, the Australian project Tram Sessions puts bands on Melbourne trams for the pleasure of commuters. Since 2010, the small team, equipped with cameras and recording devices, brings various musicians and bands such as Vance Joy or Passenger onto public transportation to […]
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — It was almost as a spectator earlier this week that the United States welcomed Egypt’s announcement of a 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza between the Israeli army and Hamas, which has since ended. The clearest sign yet of how Washington has begun to lose control over events came Aug. 1 when U.S. President […]
A reporter follows international doctors into the heart of the West Africa where Ebola is spreading, from Gueckedou (Guinea), Kailahun (Sierra Leone) and Foya (Liberia).
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Making Iran’s Traditional Sounds Universal
Siavash Mozaffari, a professional musician based in San Francisco, plans to travel to Iran to record sounds from the country’s traditional instruments and gather them into a sample digital library. With this project, he aims to make Persian music more accessible to the Western world. On Kickstarter, where his “Sonic Journey Through Iran” project has […]
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Chile’s Chicago Toys Bring Back The ’90s
The four members of Chicago Toys are actually neither from Chicago nor toys. They are from Santiago, Chile, and have recently made their latest tracks free to download. If it weren’t for the Spanish lyrics, the casual listener hearing their reverb-filled guitars, energetic drumming, and dreamy vocals for the first time might think Chicago Toys […]
In his 40s, Ra’ed al Atar has emerged as a key to the future of Hamas, both militarily and economically.
The news, quantified.
The world bid farewell to a Nobel author, several international actors, a guitar hero and the last foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
At Al-Ahram, Egypt’s largest daily, moveable type doesn’t cut it for major historical events such as Arab springs and presidential elections. That’s when they call in the calligrapher.
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Rebuilding Timbuktu’s Destroyed Heritage
Jihadists destroyed 14 of the 16 sacred mausoleums of the “city of 333 saints” two years ago. Local and international efforts are restoring the sites, an encouraging a more tolerant Islam.
Like hip hop in American cities, funk carioca was born in Brazil’s inner cities, and now has arrived in one of Rio’s most prestigious theaters. Yet police remain wary of what’s behind the beats.
In Sri Lanka, take a whiff of that newspaper. Its ink can help shoo away deadly mosquito-borne diseases, one of the more improbable ways to save the printed press in our digital era.
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Introducing Minimalist RnB With ‘Divine’ SZA
Photo: Arangoalejandra New Jersey-based singer SZA released a new song called “Divinity” last week. The seven-and-a-half minute track, made up of minimalist elements of R&B, features a collaboration with the soul and funk singer Jill Scott. SZA is part of the new wave of artists coming to light in what has been labelled as “alt […]
A crafty entrepreneur is bringing the canceled wedding market to Germany, where brides and grooms are embracing new ways to save tons of cash off the leftovers of altar breakups.
It is becoming harder and harder to even imagine an end to the cycle of anger and vengeance.
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Proud Brittany Beats With Ethiopian Flavor
Photo: Brethoniques France’s annual Vieilles Charrues festival is on in the northwestern region of Brittany. The country’s largest music festival, which ends Sunday and is set to host around 200,000, will feature top international headliners such as the Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys. But the Bretons are famously proud of their region (even sometimes […]
-Analysis- CAIRO — The events unfolding in Egypt since July 1, 2013, when General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, has been by all accounts detrimental to the interests of the Palestinians in Gaza and to Hamas, an offspring of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, which has governed the tiny territory since […]
Two guitars, a bass and a set of drums. Brazilian post-rock band HAB might follow the standard rock line-up, but their percussive, minimalist and repetitive music sounds nothing like the usual pop/rock quartet you might hear on the radio. Their eponymous debut album, released earlier this year, features very little effects and only one track […]
In case you missed this last week and forgot (or can’t afford) to book any music festivals this summer, you needn’t worry. The online music platform Music Vault has uploaded five decades of remastered live concerts in more than 13,000 videos on its YouTube channel. Between ten-second extracts, songs and whole concerts in high-definition, is […]
If it weren’t for his name discreetly written on the cover of his new album, you’d think Bror Gunnar Jansson’s Moan Snake Moan might be the lost recordings of a 1920’s American delta bluesman. But no, it’s 2014, Jansson is Swedish, and he’s playing gigs around Europe. With his raw, dark and diabolical blues, the […]
Ever dreamed of quoting a French protest song in the middle of a heated, high-brow debate? The University of Manchester — in a city that has always been forward-thinking, especially when on the music front — now offers a course called “Protest Music in France”. Every week, students will focus on three French artists: songwriter […]
Cover songs can sometimes sound surprisingly better than the original — or at any rate, become significantly more popular. Take Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”, Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along The Watchtower” for example — but there are dozens of other such intelligent covers that have made it to the shelves of musical classics. Over the past few […]
BEIJING — On June 27, after days of uncertainty and rumors, 1,260 Chinese workers who had been trapped in northern Iraq’s war-torn Saladin province were finally evacuated and transferred to Baghdad. Just like the 2011 emergency pullout of Chinese nationals from Libya and the recent evacuation of others in the anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam, this […]