Worldcrunch
SAO PAULO – Even though it’s getting ready to host the World Cup next year and the Summer Olympic Games in 2016, Brazil still has no specific law for fighting terrorism. But specialists, who ask not to be identified, say that the country’s neutral position in recent international conflicts does not assure that it is […]
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 […]
EFE; CLARIN (Argentina); LA TERCERA (Chile); EL UNIVERSAL, TELESUR (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS – Campaigns have officially closed in Venezuela ahead of Sunday’s election showdown between the heir to Hugo Chavez’s legacy, Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Just five months after reelecting Chavez, the country is being called back to the polls following the […]
STANLEY, FALKLAND ISLANDS – In nearby Argentina, President Cristina Kirchner and her ministers offered not a single word after the death this week of Margaret Thatcher. Absolute silence was the strictest order of the day in the halls of government in Buenos Aires. Still, some veterans from the 1982 war did react, including the head […]
BEIJING – On April 6, China’s new Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed the North Korean situation on the phone with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Wang made China’s stance quite clear: it will not allow “troublemaking” at its doorsteps. This is the toughest talk to date from the Chinese government, and its intention is clear: to […]
UKRAINE’S PM TO PUSH FOR MORE REGIONAL POWERUkraine’s Interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk pledged to grant regions with more powers, adding that the Parliament should adopt a law allowing local referendums, AP reports. This came as he travelled to the eastern city of Donetsk as an ultimatum for pro-Russian protesters to leave occupied government buildings […]
MOSCOW – Last week President Vladimir Putin put into place the mechanisms to audit all of Russia’s government employees, who have until July 1 to rid themselves of any overseas property, stocks or bank accounts. Based on an Executive Order he signed last week, Putin’s administration – not an independent auditor or other part of […]
While U Slept UKRAINE OFFERS AMNESTY TO PRO-RUSSIAN SEPARATISTS Ukraine’s Interim President Olexandr Turchynov offered amnesty to the pro-Russian militants occupying government buildings in eastern cities, provided they surrender their weapons and end their siege, AFP reports. This comes amid yesterday’s ultimatum issued by the country’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and as the standoff […]
IRNA (Iran), AP, BBC Worldcrunch TEHRAN – By midday Wednesday more than 80 aftershocks had been registered in southwestern Iran following a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 37 people and injured 850. Twelve villages were completely destroyed by the quake, forcing thousands of terrified residents to spend the night in the open, according […]
The onus is on Washington and Beijing to forge a new, much deeper diplomatic bond to stop the Korean Peninsula and Japan-China conflicts from sliding into open war.
SOFIA – While Cyprus was in the middle of a financial crisis, the court of Limassol, the island’s second largest city, made a ruling that largely went unnoticed. Yet it was a judicial first. On March 28, the Cyprus court condemned a 24-year-old Swedish-Lebanese man, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, to four years in prison for helping […]
AFP, REUTERS, AL JAZEERA Worldcrunch TEHRAN – Iran unveiled on Tuesday a new uranium production facility and two extraction mines, a few days after talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program ended in a deadlock, reports AFP. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Iran now controlled the entire chain of nuclear energy production — and […]
UKRAINE’S ULTIMATUM TO PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS Ukraine’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said that the situation in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are still occupying state buildings, will be “resolved in 48 hours,” threatening “the minority who want conflict” with a “forceful answer”, the BBC reports. “There are two options — political and negotiations, and […]
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.
KCNA (North Korea), YONHAP (South Korea), BBC NEWS (UK), REUTERS, AFP Worldcrunch North Korea has warned foreigners to evacuate South Korea to avoid being dragged into a “thermo-nuclear war” – the latest in a series of provocative declarations that led Japan to deploy Patriot missiles in Tokyo on Tuesday. Here’s a look back at the […]
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AP, REUTERS, B92 (Serbia), RT (Russia) Worldcrunch VELIKA IVANCA – A man shot and killed thirteen relatives and neighbors on Tuesday morning in a town 50 kilometers south of Belgrade. The gunman then tried unsuccessfully to kill himself and his wife, police report. According to RT, the killings began when the man shot his son […]
Worldcrunch Margaret Thatcher, baroness of Kesteven, died on Monday, from a stroke at the age of 87. The iconic leader of the Conservative Party, Thatcher served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 up to her resignation in 1990. The Soviet Press gave her the nickname the “Iron Lady” for her toughness, and […]
“COUNTERTERRORISM” UNDERWAY IN EAST UKRAINE The Ukrainian police arrested 70 pro-Russian protesters who were occupying government buildings in the eastern city of Kharkiv as part of what acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described as “a counterterrorism operation,” Ria Novosti reports. According to Reuters, the standoff continues in Luhansk and Donetsk. VERBATIM“I was besotted,” Oscar Pistorius […]
Authorities worry for the safety of the mostly young sign-ups, but also the risk that they return home radicalized — and set on striking targets in Europe.
YONHAP (South Korea), CNN, (USA), REUTERS Worldcrunch SEOUL – South Korea has backtracked from an earlier statement that said there was evidence North Korea was preparing for its fourth nuclear test. South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Monday denied earlier suggestions by South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that a nuclear arms test was imminent in […]
ESPRESSO (Italy); BBC, THE GUARDIAN, THE INDEPENDENT (UK) Worldcrunch LONDON – Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is back making worldwide waves, publishing 1.7 million United States government records, covering diplomatic and intelligence reports on virtually every country in the world on Monday morning. The vast collection spans from the beginning of 1973 to the end of 1976, […]
RANGOON –Two years after the official end of the Burmese military regime, some citizens are skeptical, whilst others remain deeply critical of the current government. Some people fear the reforms will keep running into many obstacles. Still, there is one point everyone agrees on: the clearest sign that the democratization process is happening is that […]
PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS SEIZE BUILDINGS IN EASTERN UKRAINEPro-Russian protesters seized government buildings last night in the East Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk, following rallies to demand independence referendums there, Reuters reports. FRANCE AND RWANDA ARGUE GENOCIDE Rwanda is launching commemorations today in Kigali to mark the 20th anniversary of genocide there, which lasted 100 […]
-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 […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, FIRST POST (India), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch MUMBAI – As many as 40 people were killed, including 11 children, in the collapse of a building illegally under construction near Mumbai, police said Friday. Dozens of people were injured in the disaster late Thursday night, The Hindustan Times reported, as authorities continued searching for others […]
EL OBSERVADOR (Uruguay), LA NACION (Argentina) Worldcrunch MONTEVIDEO – Latin American diplomacy is buzzing after Uruguayan President José Mujica — apparently unaware that his microphone was still on — made nasty comments about his Argentinian counterpart, and her late husband. At the end of an online broadcast about relations between Uruguay and surrounding countries, Mujica […]
After the death of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is set for the second presidential election in less than six months. Chavez’s handpicked successor Nicolas Maduro faces challenger Henrique Capriles.
LAVROV HITS BACK AT UKRAINE ACCUSATIONSRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the fact that Ukraine ignored “independent ” expert assessments in its investigation of the deaths of more than 100 protesters and police officers in the last days of Kiev’s Maidan standoff Voice of Russia reports. Lavrov also said that a leaked conversation between EU […]
AFP, CLARIN, LA CAPITAL, LA NACION, TERRA ARGENTINA (Argentina) Worldcrunch LA PLATA – At least 56 people were killed and 3,000 evacuated after flash floods hit the coast of Argentina, prompting President Cristina Kirchner to declare three days of national mourning. Around 40cm of rain fell on La Plata in a short period late Tuesday […]
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 […]
UKRAINE RIOT POLICE SUSPECTED OF ‘MASS MURDER’Twelve members of Ukraine’s now disbanded Berkut riot police have been arrested on suspicion of “mass murder” during Kiev’s Independence Square protests in late February, where over 100 people were killed, Reuters quotes a spokesman for the general prosecutor as saying. But RT reminds readers that both protesters and […]
YONHAP (South Korea), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch PYONYANG – North Korea blocked South Korean workers from accessing a jointly operated industrial park on Wednesday. North Korea banned South Korean workers from crossing the border to work at the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex, only allowing about 800 South Koreans who stayed overnight at the border town to […]
YNET, HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST (Israel) IRISH TIMES (Ireland) Worldcrunch GAZA – Israel launched an airstrike on Gaza early on Wednesday morning, reports Ynet, its first attack in months. Israeli warplanes struck two targets in the Gaza strip, in the first attack since November, when an informal ceasefire was signed between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel. Ynet […]
UKRAINE READY TO NEGOTIATE WITH RUSSIAUkrainian Interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk told investors at a conference this morning that the government “would like to hold negotiations on Ukrainian-Russian relations and we think that our foreign ministers should meet as soon as possible,” Voice of Russia reports. He named bilateral trade and energy as topics that […]
KNCA (North Korea), YONHAP (South Korea), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SEOUL – North Korea announced plans on Tuesday to restart a nuclear reactor it had agreed to shut down more than five years ago. Authorities quoted by North Korea’s KCNA news agency said the country had plans to re-open and refurbish all its nuclear facilities, […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – It’s a thorny question that has plagued governments for years: What exactly constitutes a bribe? It is particularly relevant in Russia, where corruption is so rampant that even well-meaning business people must grease the wheels in such a way that their counterparts in the West would scoff at. Russia’s Supreme […]
AP, BBC, THE IRRAWADDY (Burma); REUTERS Worldcrunch RANGOON – Thirteen children were killed in a fire at an Islamic building housing orphans in Burma’s biggest city early Tuesday morning. Sectarian violence has shaken Burma, also known as Myanmar, during the past week and the authorities were quick to blame the blaze on an accidental electrical […]
UKRAINE OKs HOSTING JOINT DRILLS WITH NATOThe Ukrainian Parliament approved this morning a decision from acting President Oleksandr Turchynov to hold joint military drills with NATO countries later this year, Interfax reports. The decision, described by acting Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval as “a good opportunity” to develop Ukraine’s armed forces, is likely to anger Moscow, […]
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 […]