SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (China), BBC NEWS (UK), Worldcrunch BEIJING – One day after formally appointing Xi Jinping as the country’s new president for the next 10 years, China leaders have named Li Keqiang for a five-year term as premier, the last leg of a well-oiled generational transition of power. Although Xi and Li hail […]
Category: Geopolitics
XINHUA (China), ABC (Australia) Worldcrunch BEIJING – China’s annual parliamentary session formally appointed Xi Jinping as the country’s president for the next ten years on Thursday. The vote at the annual National People’s Congress only drew one “no” vote and three abstentions amongst nearly 3,000 delegates, reports ABC. The NPC is largely considered a “rubber […]
KERRY AND LAVROV MEET IN LONDONU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are meeting today at the American ambassador’s residence in London, two days before the Crimean vote on whether to join the Russian Federation, The Washington Post reports. PLANE SEARCH EXTENDED TO INDIAN OCEANThe search for Malaysian Airlines flight […]
In a state hospital after growing ill in jail, the Ukranian opposition leader denounces the “cannibalistic” tactics of those who have condemned her — and vows to fight on.
KOREA TIMES, CHOSUN ILBO, YONHAP (South Korea) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – A “large number” of soldiers are deserting the North Korean ranks due to the growing tensions with its southern neighbor, US sanctions and insufficient food supplies, according to a South Korean official source. The number of deserters stationed in the frontlines has multiplied by seven […]
TELESUR (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS – Venezuela has launched an inquiry to determine if late President Hugo Chavez’s cancer was caused by “foreign enemies.” Acting President Nicolas Maduro told teleSUR that Venezuelan officials were convinced that “Chavez was poisoned by dark forces that wanted to be rid of him.” “He had an illness, a cancer that […]
STANLEY – In the first message from the British government of the Falkland Islands after the referendum on the archipelago’s future, Gavin Short, chairman of the Falklands eight-member legislative assembly, did not mince his words. “President Fernandez de Kirchner – we have sent you a message: we have absolutely no desire to be ruled by […]
UKRAINE CREATES NATIONAL GUARDThe Ukrainian Parliament voted overwhelmingly to create a 60,000-strong National Guard, Interfax reports. According to AFP, the new force will mostly include volunteers from Maidan’s self-defense groups and will be in charge of interior and border security. MISSING PLANE COULD HAVE FLOWN FOR HOURS“We will not give up on any suspected clue,” […]
WAR OF WORDS CONTINUES OVER CRIMEA Western and Ukrainian leaders stepped up what is still just a war of words over Crimea, four days away from the referendum that could see the disputed region secede from Ukraine. The President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso said the G7 and the EU would urge Russia […]
BUENOS AIRES HERALD, CLARIN, LA RED, PAGINA 12 (Argentina) Worldcrunch BUENOS AIRES – Residents of the Falkland Islands voted en masse in favor of remaining a British territory. Thirty-one years after the UK and Argentina went to war over the remote South-Atlantic archipelago, the referendum asked: “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their […]
Worldcrunch In elections, there are winners and there are losers. But what happens when the winner cannot actually claim victory? How can the loser manage to hold all the cards? Both Italy and Israel are famous for getting stuck in just these sorts of Byzantine deadlocks, and coincidentally both Mediterranean democracies are swimming in it […]
LE MONDE (France) ANNA (Georgia) WORLDCRUNCH The Abkhazian Network News Agency (ANNA), based in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia, and not recognized internationally, regularly posts Internet footage circulated by the Syrian army meant to glorify Bashar Al-Assad. Le Monde has posted a recent ANNA sequence filmed from loyalists tanks that show the city of […]
MOSCOW – When word first came out in 2011 that Hugo Chavez was suffering from a serious illness, a Russian military source predicted the consequences of the end of the Chavez era: not only could Moscow lose contracts already signed, but it might also never get paid for weapons it has already delivered to Caracas. […]
CRIMEA APPROVES DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE The Crimean Parliament overwhelmingly approved a declaration on independence, a technical step necessary to hold next Sunday’s referendum, Itar-Tass reports. According to the news agency, the document says that if Crimeans vote to integrate the Russian Federation, they will first become an independent Republic. MALAYSIA DOWNPLAYS TERRORISM POSSIBILITY The Malaysian […]
ALL AFRICA, THE EAST AFRICAN, (Kenya), AFP WORLDCRUNCH NAIROBI – Malik Obama, the 54-year-old half-brother of U.S President Barack Obama, failed miserably in his effort to get elected as county governor in Kenya reports All Africa. Malik Obama shares a father with the most powerful man in the world but it didn’t seem to help […]
THE HINDU, THE TIMES OF INDIA (India), BBC NEWS (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch NEW DELHI – Ram Singh, a bus driver on trial for the gang-rape and murder of a young woman last December, committed suicide in a high-security cell at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail – but his lawyer and family suspect he was murdered. The […]
JAPAN TIMES, ASAHI SHIMBUN (Japan) AFP Worldcrunch TOKYO – On Monday, Japan honored the victims of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that killed nearly 19,000 people two years ago. At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck northeast Japan, triggering a tsunami with 30-meter high waves that wiped out entire […]
UK-GERMANY THREATEN RUSSIA WITH MORE SANCTIONSBritish Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have reached common ground on the issue of the Crimean referendum, scheduled for next Sunday, by saying that Russia faced further consequences if it attempted to legitimize the vote, The Guardian reports. CALIFORNIA HIT BY EARTHQUAKEA magnitude 6.9 earthquake off […]
NO COMMENT TV Worldcrunch CARACAS – A parade of world leaders, including Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joined ordinary Venezuelans Friday at the state funeral of Hugo Chavez, who died this week at the age of 58 after a long battle with cancer. The ceremony was led by an emotional Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who declared: “Mission […]
CARACAS – When Hugo Chávez took office for the first time in February 1999, Venezuela was on the edge of an economic abyss due to the ravages caused by almost 40 years of corruption from traditional political parties. The reach of poverty touched almost 80 percent of the population. This ticking social time bomb was […]
FRANCE 24, THE GUARDIAN (UK), AFP Worldcrunch RANGOON – In a milestone for the fledgling Burmese transition away from its longtime military autocracy, the first party conference for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy’s (NLD) opened Friday. After decades of oppression under strict military dictatorship, leaders of the longtime opposition, are set to […]
A French war correspondent’s new book recounts the horrors of the Libyan dictator’s rape and torture of women, which was yet another way to subjugate the population.
EL NACIONAL, VENEZOLANA DE TELEVISION, EL CARABOBEÑO (Venezuela), DIARIO POPULAR (ARGENTINA) Worldcrunch CARACAS – Venezuelans have been lining up over the past 24 hours around the Venezuelan Military Academy in the capital to say their last goodbyes to the late President Hugo Chávez. Meanwhile, Chief of the Presidential Guard in Venezuela, General José Ornella offered […]
Palestinians are victims not only of Israeli power politics, but of linguistic deception.
OBAMA-PUTIN PHONE CALL, EU SANCTIONSDuring a one-hour phone conversation, President Barack Obama told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he had violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity by sending troops into Crimea, The Daily Telegraph reports. Putin in turn told Obama that the new Kiev government had imposed “absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern […]
GUARDIAN, SYRIAN OBSERVATORY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, JERUSALEM POST Worldcrunch The Philippine Foreign Affairs Ministry on Thursday demanded the immediate release of 21 Filipino U.N. peacekeepers who have been taken captive by Syrian rebels. “The main concern of the Philippine government at this time is to ensure the safety and well-being of our peacekeepers,” Foreign Affairs […]
KCNA (North Korea), AP, REUTERS, CNN Worldcrunch PYONGYANG– With the UN set to vote on imposing sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test, Pyongyang issued perhaps it’s most virulent threat to date, saying it would exercise the right to pre-emptive strikes against Washington. “Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear […]
ROTTERDAM – Governments are well aware of the danger, but consumers have no idea. One out of five freight containers arriving in European ports has been fumigated with extremely dangerous, carcinogenic or neurotoxic gases. It is a vast phenomenon: one million containers filled with imported goods arrive in Europe by ship every week. These toxic […]
RUE89, BVA (FRANCE) Worldcrunch PARIS – In an exclusive interview with right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he was thinking about a political comeback. After his defeat at the last presidential elections, Sarkozy had said he was leaving politics for good. According to Rue 89, the interview will be published […]
BUENOS AIRES – Whatever your view is regarding the Hugo Chávez’ era in Venezuela, it is impossible to ignore two central facts: 1) Chávez was a product of the deep failure of the Venezuelan political system; 2) The deceased president had a strong influence on Latin America, during a historic moment when many countries in […]
CRIMEAN LAWMAKERS VOTE TO JOIN RUSSIA Crimean lawmakers voted unanimously this morning to join the Russian Federation and asked Russia to examine the request. And the region’s Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliev announced a March 16 referendum in which voters will answer two questions: whether they want Crimea to become a Russian territory, and whether […]
BBC (UK), EFE, EL TIEMPO, EL NACIONAL, INFOBAE, INTORNO INTELIGENTE (Venezuela), LA VANGUARDIA (Spain) Worldcrunch CARACAS– Though not unexpected, the death of Hugo Chavez after 14 years in power and a nearly two-year battle with cancer, has left Venezeula without a leader. The government announced Wednesday that the funeral for the 58-year-old President was set […]
Worldcrunch CARACAS – After a long battle with cancer, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday at the age of 58. Both in health and in sickness, whether loved or despised, El Commandante was an iconic figure of our times. Newspapers in Venezuela, elsewhere in Latin America, and around the world are dedicating major coverage […]
Karel Janecek became a billionaire before 40. Now, as President Vaclav Klaus steps down in a cloud after a decade, Janecek is leading the fight for those who want to clean up Czech politics.
CAN U.S. AND RUSSIA START DIALOGUE ON UKRAINE? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are meeting today in Paris with other world leaders, on the sidelines of a long-planned conference on Lebanon. The encounter will be an attempt “to ease mounting tensions,” according to France24. It comes after Kerry’s […]
CNN (USA), REUTERS, AFP, UN PRESS OFFICE Worldcrunch NEW YORK – The United States and China have struck a tentative deal on a draft UN Security Council sanctions resolution to punish North Korea for the nuclear test it conducted last month. A deal, the details of which have not been revealed so far, was agreed […]
EFE, EL PAIS (Spain), EL UNIVERSAL (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS – Hugo Chavez is suffering from another severe respiratory infection said Venezuelan Minister for Communication and Information, Ernesto Villegas, in a video statement. “At the moment the respiratory function is getting worse because of the immunosuppressants. Currently, he has a new, severe infection,” said Villegas. “Right […]
LE MONDE (France), XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch BEIJING – According to Le Monde, the opening of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on March 3, was more like a star-studded film premiere than a political event. The CPPCC is a 2,200-member body that meets annually to debate policy and advise government. It includes politicians, but […]
PUTIN’S MIXED MESSAGES ON UKRAINE Referring to Ukraine as Russia’s “fraternal nation” and characterizing the movement that ousted Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych as a “coup,” Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed reporters during a live press conference this morning and insisted Russia had no plans to go to war with Ukraine, though he did not exclude […]
AFP, BBC (UK), VOICE OF AMERICA (USA) Worldcrunch KARACHI – The death toll has reached at least 45, with 150 wounded from a powerful blast in a mainly Shiite Muslim area of Karachi. There are reports that the explosion was set off by Sunni terrorists, although by midday Monday no group had claimed responsibility for […]