Worldcrunch
PARIS — Will the yuan dethrone the dollar one day? The Chinese currency may have just moved a step further in that direction with the October 10 signature between the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China (the country’s central bank) for the establishment of a “currency swap” mechanism. The terms of the […]
Tuesday, October 21, 2014 NEW ISIS OFFENSIVE IN KOBANI ISIS fighters have launched an assault “on all fronts” in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. The offensive came hours after U.S. airplanes dropped ammunition and medical aid to besieged Kurdish fighters. It also came […]
TUNIS – At a recent Ghana vs. Egypt World Cup qualifying match, Ghanaian soccer fans wore yellow t-shirts and held signs featuring a dark black hand holding up four fingers. The clear attempt to taunt the Egyptian fans is the latest appearance of what has become an increasingly important symbol of the sharp divisions in […]
The Brazilian indigenous Guarani nation has had their land taken away and way of life threatened – now a new study shows the suicide rate is 34 times higher than the national average.
Monday, October 20, 2014 TURKEY TO LET IRAQI KURDS FIGHT IN KOBANI Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the country would let Iraqi Kurds cross its border and join Syrian Kurds fighting against ISIS in the city of Kobani, the BBC reports. The announcement came after U.S. aircraft dropped ammunition, small arms and medical supplies […]
The news of the week reviewed by the words that stuck: from Iran to Russia, French party leader Marine Le Pen to U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham, see what was said around the world and why it matters.
LAMPEDUSA — Yesterday, they buried those remaining of the 385 victims from the Oct. 3 shipwreck off Lampedusa. There were no flowers. No gravestones. None of the ceremony that so many had promised. That first day, as the death toll mounted, various political leaders, including Prime Minister Enrico Letta, had called for some kind of […]
MOSCOW — The timing of the Geneva 2 conference about the future of Syria’s chemical weapons has changed once again. According to our sources, it is probably not going to be mid-November — as Russia and the U.S. had first indicated — but rather at the end of that month, or maybe even in December. […]
From Greece to France to Austria, political parties espousing anti-immigrant, anti-euro policies are making gains across Europe.
In the northern city of Raqqa, the condemned — some civilians, some soldiers, shabiha or alleged Assad collaborators — are brought blindfolded and handcuffed to the city square to be shot in the head in public. Once celebrated as one of Syria’s first fully liberated cities, Raqqa, now under the control of the al-Qaida backed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has become infamous for brutal public executions and other fear tactics carried out by extremists. The executions are carried out swiftly and without legal counsel. Asyad al-Mousa, a 34-year-old lawyer, is dedicated to documenting the mounting number […]
Friday, October 17, 2014 EBOLA: A CZAR, LOW DONATIONS, MORE TROOPSUnited Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched an urgent donations appeal in the fight against the Ebola virus. This came after it emerged that despite receiving pledges of about $20 million from various governments, the UN Trust fund had received only $100,000 from Colombia, The […]
IWAKI — Our meeting with one of the “liquidators” of Fukushima’s power plant takes place in a discreet location, out of sight. Talking to journalists is risky, and the man’s nervous employers could use it as a pretext to fire him. “It’s the same thing for workplace accidents — there’s a collective solidarity,” he says. […]
Kiev doesn’t want to risk its ties with Moscow, but can’t afford to pass up economic opportunities in Europe. And where does that leave jailed opposition chief Yulia Tymoshenko?
The tragedy earlier this month off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, which left more than 300 dead, is a cruel reminder of the treacherous journey across the sea to Italy’s southern coastlines made by so many would-be immigrants. But Italy is typically just the entry point for immigrants, a springboard for other European […]
A quick tour around the world of news, by the numbers: from Mad Cow Disease and Brazilian price gouging to U.S. government shutdown costs and a suspect donation by BMW in Germany…
Ankara had bet on Islamist rebels taking down the Assad regime. Now they may have helped create a monster right across the border.
Thursday, October 16, 2014 ISIS RETREATING FROM PARTS OF KOBANI ISIS fighters were retreating this morning from parts they previously occupied in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, on Turkey’s border, a Kurdish official told AFP, explaining that the terrorists now “control less than 20%.” The same official told German news agency DPA that they […]
Following fast on the heels of President Xi Jinping’s recent trip to Indonesia and Malaysia, China’s Premier Li Keqiang also showed up in Southeast Asia, attending the East Asia leaders’ meeting before bilateral visits to Brunei, Thailand and Vietnam. It is rare in China’s diplomatic history that its president and premier visit the same region […]
GENEVA — The resumption of talks this week on Iran’s nuclear program will provide a clear opportunity to verify Hassan Rouhani’s true intentions. During his charm offensive at the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September, the new Iranian President, a moderate religious figure, surprised many by meeting with French President François Hollande, […]
Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014 U.S. AND RUSSIA TO TEAM UP AGAINST ISIS The United States and Russia have agreed to share more intelligence on ISIS, as part of a renewed cooperation on global security and counter-terrorism efforts, Secretary of State John Kerry said after he met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Paris […]
Balloons, Ben Franklin, Banksy share center stage in our photographic wrap of the past seven days…
Peace is a process, never a single event. Negotiations for peace are always far more complicated than the public understands, and the results are not always miraculous. Even so, the majority of modern conflicts — 80%, according to the School for the Culture of Peace in Barcelona — eventually end after negotiations. The school’s reports […]
Al-Mouadamiyah’s ordeal is not over yet. After being one of the targets of the Aug. 21 chemical attack, this stronghold of the Syrian rebellion, located in the southwestern suburbs of Damascus, is now facing such a severe siege that its inhabitants are starting to starve to death. According to local sources, nine people have already […]
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 KURDS RECAPTURE STRATEGIC KOBANI SITE Kurdish fighters battling ISIS jihadists in Kobani, Syria, near the Turkish border, announced this morning that they regained control of the strategically crucial Tall Shair hilltop following air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition. ISIS captured it more than 10 days ago. According to the Syrian Observatory […]
Monday, October 13, 2014 TURKEY AGREES TO SHARE BASES Turkey has agreed to allow the U.S.-led coalition to use its military bases as part of the campaign to fight the ISIS terrorist group, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told NBC in an interview Sunday. Rice said the White House welcomed this “new commitment,” as […]
Edward Snowden’s father spoke up this week, so did Bashar Al-Assad. Meanwhile in Washington…
VATICAN CITY — There’s a joke going around St. Peter’s Square: Next thing you know, to comply with his ecclesiastical vows of poverty, the pope is going to put the Vatican up for sale! That day hasn’t yet arrived, but the idea speaks as much to Pope Francis’ unpredictability as to his now famous acts […]
One native of Sierra Leone, who arrived in Italy via the now notorious island of Lampedusa, is trying to find peace in a Roman slum.
NOBEL WINNERS: MALALA AND SATYARTHIMalala Yousafzai, the now-17-year-old Pakistani activist shot by the Taliban on her way to school in 2012, has won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel committee announced this morning. “Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right […]
OSLO – “This year’s nominations come from all over the world … well-known names, well-known presidents and prime ministers and also lesser well-known names…” Norwegian Nobel Committee’s non-voting secretary Geir Lundestad acknowledged the controversy sparked by recent numbers, as he announced the number (not names) of nominations for the Peace Prize, which will be awarded […]
FRIEDLAND — “Germany is a country where rules matter,” declares Martin Steinberg. The pastor in this central German city is standing before a group of people who’ve just fled a country where the only rule that mattered was that of survival. “Here the most aggressive driver with the biggest car doesn’t automatically have the right […]
BISHKEK — Russia has reached a deal with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to provide military aid to the two Central Asian nations. Though the details are still being hammered out, Moscow appears to have netted a deal with potentially major geopolitical implications. “We have agreed with our colleagues regarding the delivery of weapons, […]
DHARAMSALA — After the Dalai Lama relinquished political power in 2011, increasing attention has turned to the head of Tibet’s government-in-exile Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay, in the hope of breaking a decades-long standoff with Beijing. And yet the situation remains grim, with some 120 Tibetans having set themselves ablaze over the past four years to […]
SILAH — The men entered by the window of Silah’s police station. There were maybe 60 of them, their unmasked faces easy to recognize since they all live in the small town. “Average citizens, aged between 18 and 45,” one policeman says. That mid-August day, these “average citizens” set about sacking the station, taking radio […]
ISIS CONTROLS ONE-THIRD OF KOBANIDespite airstrikes targeting ISIS fighters in and around the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, the jihadist group has seized more than one-third of the city, Reuters quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying. While Turkey’s inaction as the battle unfolds on its border has been heavily criticized, Turkish Foreign […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2014 AIR STRIKES PUSH ISIS BACK ISIS fighters have withdrawn from areas they had earlier seized in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani after a series of strikes from the U.S.-led coalition, Kurdish officials in the town have said, echoing previous a previous report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. But […]
BUENOS AIRES – The announcement came this weekend that Argentine President Cristina Kirchner will be recuperating for at least the next month from a brain condition brought on by a head injury in August. While the news is shaking up the nation, it is also putting a veil across a potential political crisis for Argentina. […]
BELGRADE – Clean shaven, impeccably dressed in a dark suit and tie, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is back in business. On Sept. 17, France’s former Finance Minister and disgraced head of the International Monetary Fund officially accepted a post as economic adviser to the Serbian government. DSK’s hosts in Belgrade had a hard time hiding how proud […]
ISIS ADVANCES INTO KOBANIISIS fighters advanced into the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani overnight after a three-week siege and amid intense street fighting with the Kurds, and are now occupying southwestern neighborhoods, Reuters reports. Karwan Zebari, a representative of the Kurdish regional government, told the BBC that the town could fall into ISIS hands unless […]
-Editorial- Ten months after taking over the presidency of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto has found himself at a critical moment. His ambitious project to reform practically all Mexican institutions is meeting opposition from the right and the left, at a time when his popularity is beginning to wane. The right opposes his proposal to increase […]