Worldcrunch
Monday, August 25, 2014 ISIS SEIZES SYRIAN ARMY BASE The terrorist group ISIS has gained control of a Syrian army air base near Raqqa, in the country’s north, after days of intense fighting during which at least 346 ISIS fighters and more than 170 Syrian troops were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human […]
RAMNICU SARAT — The door closes, hinges grating like a desperate man’s lament. Only a single sunbeam manages to make its way through the bars of the prison cell. A few minutes in this long, heavy silence and one can imagine the daily life of a prisoner, locked up inside a two-square-meter cell. In eastern […]
DAMASCUS – A boy, who appears to be sitting in some sort of makeshift hospital, describes how his entire family was killed early Wednesday morning on an attack in their home in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. Below the video (courtesy of c.m.o algota) is a transcript of the child’s account: “First thing, my grandfather […]
LE FIGARO (France), BBC Worldcrunch PARIS – Specially-trained Syrian rebel fighters, alongside US, Israeli and Jordanian forces, have crossed the border into Syria as an unprecedented assault begins against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, French daily Le Figaro reports Friday. The newspaper cites military sources saying the operation began last week in the southern Syrian region of […]
REUTERS, BBC, RUSSIA TODAY, AFP Worldcrunch BEIRUT — Israel’s Air Force bombed a militant target south of Beirut Friday in retaliation for rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon the day before, Reuters reports. “Israel will not tolerate terrorist aggression originating from Lebanese territory,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement. According to […]
After rejections by Austrian and French ski-lift companies, a Swiss competitor was set to supply Pyongyang the means to realize his Alpine fantasy. But then the state stepped in.
BERLIN — There are a record number of asylum seekers pinning their hopes on Germany this year, and refugees from Russia by far represent the largest group. Of those, some 90% are from the North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya. German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has characterized the situation as “unsettling.” Germany has more asylum requests than […]
The images of an apparent chemical attack in Syria mean that the West’s wait-and-see approach is simply no longer viable.
Friday, August 22, 2014 PENTAGON CONSIDERS ANTI-ISIS STRATEGY After a week that saw an escalation in the horror from ISIS, Pentagon officials are trying to develop a strategy to contain and defeat what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described as “an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision.” According to The […]
AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch HARARE — Zimbabwe’s veteran leader Robert Mugabe has been sworn in for a new five-year term in a massive stadium inauguration that was boycotted by his election rival, Al Jazeera reports. Mugabe pledged “to observe, uphold and defend the constitution of Zimbabwe,” extending his 33-year rule. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who insists […]
BBC, LE MONDE (France), RUSSIA TODAY, SANA (Syria) Worldcrunch NEW YORK — Calling this week’s alleged chemical attack in Syria “a serious escalation with grave humanitarian consequences,” United Nations Deputy Chief Jan Eliasson called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday and urged an investigation “as soon as possible,” Russia Today reports. Eliasson […]
New York Times, China Daily, BBC Worldcrunch JINAN — The trial of Bo Xilai, the disgraced former Communist official accused of corruption, bribery and abuse of power, began Thursday morning in the eastern provincial capital of Jinan, according to China Daily. One of the most serious charges against him relates to his wife’s role in […]
Since August 14, when Egyptian security forces moved in to disperse the sit-ins of supporters of former president Mohamed Morsi, the nation has suffered considerably. And while the situation is less cut and dry than some observers make it sound, one thing seems clear: there are two players apparently intent on accelarating a conflict that […]
TWITTER, WIKILEAKS Worldcrunch Bradley Manning, the heroic whistleblower for Wikleaks and devious traitor for the Pentagon, was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison by a U.S. military court in Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning had been convicted last month of 20 charges — including espionage — for handing hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports and […]
Thursday, August 21, 2014 WASHINGTON’S FAILED HOSTAGE RESCUE A secret operation involving “several dozen U.S. commandos” failed earlier this summer to rescue photojournalist James Foley and other American hostages held by Islamist terrorists in northern Syria, The Washington Post reports. An article in The New York Times, meanwhile, explains that the infamous ISIS jihadist group […]
REUTERS, SKY NEWS (UK), SANA (Syria) Worldcrunch DAMASCUS — Two Syrian opposition groups claim that government forces launched rockets with poison gas Wednesday morning in an attack they say killed more than 200 people in a rebel-held area near Damascus, Reuters reports. Syrian officials denied the claims on state television, calling the allegations “completely baseless.” […]
BBC, REUTERS, AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch TOKYO – The Japanese nuclear agency upgraded the severity level of a toxic leak at the Fukushima nuclear power plant from 1 to 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (0 to 7). The raising of the toxic level Wednesday marks the first time Japan has issued such a warning […]
The problem all along, this Turkish writer argues, has been the Egyptian Army. And its takedown of the Muslim Brotherhood will only breed extremist terrorists.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 TERRORISTS CLAIM EXECUTION OF U.S. JOURNALIST The jihadist terror group ISIS has claimed to have killed James Foley, an American journalist captured in Syria two years ago. A video the group posted online, but later removed, purported to show the man being beheaded, The Washington Post reports. U.S. intelligence is said […]
GUARDIAN (UK), BBC, WASHINGTON POST, RUSSIA TODAY Worldcrunch LONDON — Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has accused the British government of raiding the newspaper’s London offices last month to destroy hard drives and computers in a attempt to prevent further reporting on the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. “A little over two months […]
BBC, AL JAZEERA Benazir Bhutto (rhyme reverie)
AL JAZEERA, REUTERS, BBC Worldcrunch CAIRO – Egyptian authorities escalated their crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by arresting Mohamed Badie, the Islamist organization’s top leader, state media reported on Tuesday. The 70-year-old was detained at a residential apartment in Nasr City in northeast Cairo “after information came to the security apparatus locating his place of […]
Aug. 19, 2014 ISIS THREATENS AMERICANS In an online video message, ISIS terrorists threaten to attack Americans “in any place” in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against them in Iraq, The Independent reports. In the gruesome video, a statement reads, “We will drown all of you in blood.” This comes as Kurdish Peshmergas and Iraqi troops […]
BBC, Al Jazeera Worldcrunch CAIRO – At least 24 Egyptian police officers were killed Monday morning in an ambush attack in the Sinai peninsula, as the open conflict between state authorities and Islamists opponents deepens further following the deadliest week in recent memory. According to Al Jazeera, two police minibuses were driving through a village […]
BBC, PARDA PHASH (India), INDIA TIMES Worldcrunch PATNA — At least 37 Hindu pilgrims were killed after being hit by a train as they tried to cross tracks at a train station in the Northeastern Indian state of Bihar. The accident, which left another dozen injured, sparked furor among locals and other pilgrims who assaulted […]
As the number of people renouncing American citizenship has shot up across the world, binationals in Switzerland have led the way in turning in their blue passport. But it’s not just about the banks.
Since the army’s assault on Muslim Brotherhood began, Egypt’s non-Muslim minority, the Copts, have been killed and their churches and buildings burned by radicals in the Brotherhood.
CAIRO — In the wake of the deadly army crackdown on supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, La Stampa spoke with Egyptians of different backgrounds and viewpoints. Here is what four of them had to say: Alfred fears Islamists want Egypt to be the next Syria “Every time I try to stop my hatred […]
With talks on in Havana to end the decades-old civil war in Colombia, a push is on to force negotiators to meet face-to-face with victims of the violence.
WASHINGTON POST Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency (NSA) has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents the Washington Post obtained from Edward Snowden. The Post reports that most […]
BBC, AL JAZEERA, NEW YORK TIMES Worldcrunch BEIRUT – A previously unknown Sunni group has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s car-bomb explosion in a southern Beirut neighborhood, one of Lebanon’s bloodiest attacks in recent memory and the clearest sign to date that the conflict in neighboring Syria is crossing the border. As the death toll climbed […]
AL JAZEEARA (Quatar), BBC Woldcrunch CAIRO — Supporters of deposed Egypt President Mohamed Morsi asked their fellow citizens to join them in a nationwide “Friday of Anger” to protest the Egyptian security forces massacre that killed at least 638 people Wednesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. and other countries have urged their citizens to leave the country. […]
The liberal arm of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood movement is unlikely to survive the army’s bloody attack on supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi.
–Op-Ed– MUNICH — We Germans have always struggled with the euro crisis. We talk about it a lot, muse about what would happen if the euro zone split up, bitch about those nasty countries frittering our money away. But there’s one thing we don’t do: suffer from the economic crisis. On the contrary. Even if […]
Aug. 15, 2014 EU MINISTERS DISCUSS ARMING KURDSEuropean Union foreign ministers are in Brussels today for an emergency meeting about whether to arm Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against ISIS, which the U.S. and France are already doing, the BBC reports. A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that the UK would “favorably […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), THE GUARDIAN (UK), BBC Worldcrunch CAIRO — The day after more than 500 people were massacred as Egypt’s security forces swept through Cairo streets with weapons, tear gas and bulldozers to disperse protesters, supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi are calling for new demonstrations. Despite the interim government declaring a state of […]
BBC, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH (UK), AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch JERUSALEM – Israel has released 26 Palestinian prisoners hours before the opening of renewed peace talks Wednesday. Eleven of the prisoners released in the West Bank were welcomed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, while the other 15 were met by cheering crowds in Gaza. A total 104 long-term […]
Aug. 14, 2014 UN SIGNALS RED ALERT IN IRAQThe United Nations has declared the situation in Iraq a “Level 3 emergency,” its highest for a humanitarian crisis, as deadly fights between the army and ISIS terrorists killed at least four children west of Baghdad, AP reports. This came as U.S. troops and aid workers arrived […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AFP, REUTERS, RUSSIA TODAY (Russia) Worldcrunch CAIRO — Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in an Egyptian security forces operation meant to disperse protest camps in Cairo’s streets, where supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi were demanding his reinstatement. The exact number of casualties remains unclear, as reports […]
John Kerry has convinced Israeli and Palestinian leaders that the region’s upheaval requires them to at least search for a solution. Whether they find it is another question.