Worldcrunch
NEW YORK – Chen Guangcheng, the blind self-taught lawyer and one of the best-known Chinese human rights activists, arrived in New York last spring after an incredible escape from his village in the coastal Shandong province. He finally arrived thanks to a last-minute compromise reached between the Chinese authorities and U.S. diplomats who had sheltered […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), FRANCE 24-ARABE (France) Worldcrunch AMMAN – Led by Jordan’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, thousands of protesters marched in the capital on Friday demanding democratic reforms from King Abdullah. Following the Friday prayers, protestors who’d come from across the country descended on the Husseini mosque in downtown Amman, chanting: “Listen Abdullah, our […]
HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST, ISRAEL RADIO (Israel) Worldcrunch EILAT – A U.S. tourist opened fire in an Israeli hotel resort on the Red Sea coast Friday, killing one person. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli counter-terrorism units arrived on the scene after the gunman barricaded himself in the kitchen. Counter-terrorism units subsequently killed him in an […]
CHINA NEWS SERVICE, XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch KUNMING – At least 19 people, including 18 school children, have been buried in a landslide in southwestern China. The landslide struck the village of Zhenhe village in in Yiliang County, Zhaotong City, where two farm houses as well as the Youfangtai Primary School, were caught in its path, […]
BBC PERSIAN, AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch TEHRAN – Iranian riot police clashed with demonstrators and foreign exchange dealers in Tehran on Wednesday, over the plunge in the value of the country’s currency. The Iranian rial lost a third of its value against the dollar in a week. Protests erupted after the arrest of illegal currency […]
MOSCOW – The question of whether or not citizens in Russia have the right to defend themselves if they are being beaten by police was taken up by the Supreme Court in June. The case came just after a large protest on May 6 that was marred by several police beatings. In regulations released soon […]
MEDIAPART (France), CORRIERE DELLA SERA (Italy) DREAM TV (Egypt) Worldcrunch PARIS – The former intelligence chief for Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has alleged that a French secret agent working with the complicity of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi. NTC spy chief Rami el-Obeidi told Paris-based news website Mediapart on […]
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, THE STANDARD (Hong Kong), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch HONG KONG – A large-scale rescue search is still looking for potential survivors after two ferries collided southwest of Hong Kong on Monday night, leaving at least 36 people dead, Hong Kong’s The Standard reports. “All of Hong Kong’s emergency forces are focused […]
BOGOTA – In the middle of July, as the Colombian government was presenting a bundle of measures to reform the health-care industry, 5,000 people congregated in the Plaza de Bolivar in Bogota to hold a “White March.” One block away from the president’s office, the protest was led by a group of women in black, […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) RADIO SVOBODA (Russia) TBILISI – Celebrations continued into Tuesday morning in the capital as the opposition coalition “Georgian Dream” led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, scored a surprise victory in Georgian parliamentary elections. Pro-government forces conceded defeat, saying the opposition obtained 51% of the vote. According to the opposition television channel, the results were […]
EUROSTAT (Luxembourg) Worldcrunch LUXEMBOURG – Unemployment in the euro zone remains at record high levels, with 18.2 million people out of work in the most recent count released Monday by EU statistics agency Eurostat. Compared with August 2011, unemployment rose by 2.1 million in the euro zone. The number of people out of work remained […]
REUTERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES (USA), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch KABUL – A suicide attack Monday killed at least 14 people, including three NATO soldiers and four Afghan police, and wounded dozens in Afghanistan’s volatile eastern Khost province. Six civilians and an Afghan interpreter also died in the attack carried out by a bomber wearing […]
NEW YORK POST (U.S.), BFM (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch As the rhetorical rollercoaster that is the UN General Assembly draws to a close Friday, amidst some of those heartfelt, or sometimes excruciatingly awkward, moments, we have picked our 2012 All-Star Team of top performers. Mahmoud AhmadinejadBy now, we shouldn’t be surprised by the Iranian President’s blatant […]
CHINA DAILY, XINHUA (China), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Bo Xilai, who had once been destined for a top position in the Chinese Communist Party ranks, has been expelled from the party and faces corruption charges, reports state newspaper China Daily. The decision was made at a Central Committee meeting on Friday, presided by Chinese […]
BBC NEWS (UK), TIMES OF INDIA (India) Worldcrunch KATHMANDU – A plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed and burned just after takeoff on the outskirts of Nepal’s capital, killing all 19 people on board, including seven British and five Chinese passengers. According to eyewitnesses, the small plane operated by Sita Air crashed into […]
CNN, LA TIMES, ABC NEWS, NY TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch LOS ANGELES – The filmmaker behind the anti-Islamic video that has sparked violence across the globe was arrested on suspicion of violating the terms of his probation, including allegedly lying about his role in the film’s production, reports the Los Angeles Times. Federal Judge Suzanne H. […]
EL PAIS (Spain), CLARIN (Argentina), REUTERS Worldcrunch MADRID – The showdown over Spain’s tottering economy continued Thursday, as embattled Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unveiled a 13-billion euro package of austerity measures. After a six-hour cabinet meeting, Rajoy’s government emerged with details of the budget for 2013, which appeared as a last ditch attempt to avoid […]
HERAT – The withdrawal of Italian soldiers here in Afghanistan has already begun, even if nobody back in Italy knows it yet. For several months now, Italians have stopped being on guard at several bases they used to protect. The smallest, the most inconvenient, or the furthest from the contingent’s center of gravity, have been […]
SANA (Syria), CNN (US), REUTERS (UK), AFP (France) The UN’s refugee agency released new estimates Thursday that say the number of Syrian refugees could reach 700,000 by the end of the year. Reuters reports that UN estimates have almost quadrupled since its last forecast in August reported 185,000 refugees. The new figures were published as […]
REUTERS, (U.S.) DAPD (Germany), NEUE ZURICHER ZEITUNG (Switzerland) NEW YORK – As television images back home showed off Tehran’s latest weaponry, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepared for his final official discourse to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. Tensions are as high as ever over Iran’s nuclear program and Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel, and […]
EL PAIS, LA VANGUARDIA, EL MUNDO (Spain) Worldcrunch MADRID – Protesters called for a new round of demonstrations Wednesday after a day of clashes with riot police on the streets of Madrid. The latest toll from the violence is 35 people arrested and 64 wounded, according to La Vanguardia. The 2 most tweeted Photos of […]
KATHERIMINI (Greece), THE GUARDIAN (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch ATHENS – The three-month old Greek coalition government is facing its first anti-austerity general strike Wednesday, with disruptions bringing the country to a standstill. Greek public sector unions have called a strike that is likely to draw thousands of workers out into the street today to protest against […]
CLARIN (Argentina), PERU 21 (Peru) Worldcrunch A Peruvian man is behind bars for allegedly raping and strangling to death his teenage girlfriend, a reality TV participant whose on-air confessions police say led to her murder. The victim, 18-year-old Ruth Thalía Sayas Sánchez, earned 15,000 Peruvian soles (about $5,800) for her recent appearance on El Valor […]
NAHA – In mid-September, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Ginowan, a town on the main island of the Japanese Okinawa archipelago. But these were not protests against the Chinese navy presence near the Senkaku Islands, (called Diaoyu by the Chinese), whose sovereignty is disputed between Japan and China. The Okinawans were protesting the […]
TEL AVIV – A small synagogue nestles in a dead-end street near the ocean promenade in Tel Aviv. The synagogue, used by Jews from Aleppo, Syria, was crowded last week for prayer services on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. As in the other 10,500 places of worship in Israel, the congregation recited a special […]
Putting the right spin on your words is a science. Obviously, the civil servants who owe a fiduciary duty to the public have an urgent need to master this subject. And it helps to shift the blame on someone else, a child, a spouse, or a convenient foreigner will do. Two weeks ago Yang Dacai, […]
FOLHA DE S.PAULO (Brazil) Worldcrunch DE TERESINA – Federal Police in the northeastern state of Piauí are investigating allegations of a drugs-for-votes ring. Candidates for the city council in the capital Teresina used crack to lure dealers and addicts to vote for them, accuses a prominent lawyer in the region Lúcio Ribeiro, who heads the […]
ASTANA – Earlier this month, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev rolled out his new project for cooperation between the East and West — and it lacked neither ambition nor a healthy supply of alphabet-soup acronyms . A person close to President Nazarbayev’s administration said this was the most audacious of Kazakhstan’s recent foreign policy projects, unveiled […]
BANGKOK POST (Thailand), AFP (France), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch HO CHI MINH CITY – The Vietnamese communist party has jailed three bloggers Monday for disseminating anti-government propaganda. The three bloggers belong to the independent media group Free Journalists Club, which sought to outline human rights violations in the southeast Asian country. The renowned dissident blogger, Nguyen […]
BUCHAREST – When he’s not glued to his computer screen, Stefan Cornea watches films on TV. At 18 years of age, this Bucharest high school student is fed up with politics, Romania and life in general. “There’s nothing to do here,” he says in a cynical tone. “It was better before. My parents have told […]
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (Hong Kong), REUTERS, WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA), ASAHI SHIMBUN (Japan) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Wang Lijun, former mayor and head of police in the Sichuan city of Chongqing, was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for corruption and attempting to defect for his role in one of the most damaging political […]
EKANTIPUR (Nepal), AFP (France), CNN (USA) Worldcrunch Rescue workers have resumed their search Monday morning for mountaineers trapped by an avalanche on Mount Manaslu in Nepal. At least 11 people have been confirmed dead, reports Nepal’s Ekantipur news publication, including climbers from France, Spain, Germany and Nepal. AFP reported that Christian Trommsdorff, the vice-president of […]
-Analysis- For a week, Beijing and Tokyo have been challenging each other in the China Sea. They are playing a dangerous game in a high-risk zone. Any day now, an incident could degenerate into an armed confrontation. The U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is currently in Beijing trying to calm the waters. We are way […]
MOSCOW – U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has announced that Washington would close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) offices in Russia. Nuland said that it was the Russian government forcing the closure, a charge the Kremlin denies. “Like all foreign agencies that provide financing to Russian NGOs, USAID needs to follow […]
LE MONDE, AFP, LA LIBÉRATION (France) Worldcrunch France is bracing itself for repercussions after satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad Wednesday. Le Monde reports that a small Syrian organization called Syrian Freedom Association has filed a legal complaint against the French weekly. It accuses Charlie Hebdo of “throwing oil on […]
THE HINDU (India), BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch NEW DEHLI – Opposition parties and trade unions in India have taken part in a daylong strike on Thursday over plans to open the country’s retail sector to global supermarket chains, reports BBC News. This measure announced last week by the government has triggered a […]
KOMMERSANT (Russia) Worldcrunch MOSCOW – The General Prosecutor’s Office has filed a suit to declare the recent anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims,” extremist, which could lead to the blocking of YouTube across all of Russia by November, Kommersant reports. A new law meant to protect children from exposure to information that will “interfere with their […]
LE MONDE, i-TELE (France), RTL (Luxembourg) Worldcrunch PARIS – Riot police have been sent to guard the offices of controversial French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in preparation of their publication of cartoons mocking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad Wednesday. The French weekly yesterday announced it would publish satirical cartoons of the prophet in this week’s edition. The […]
LA JORNADA (Mexico), CNN (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – An explosion followed by a fire at a gas plant in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas has killed at least 26 people, reports La Jornada. Mexico’s state oil company Pemex said the fire broke out at around lunch time Tuesday outside the […]
NEW YORK TIMES (US), O GLOBO (Brazil) Worldcrunch In a country famous for its carnival imbued spirit, it is only appropriate that Brazil’s municipal elections, often a dreary affair elsewhere in the world, are somewhat… colorful, to say the least. Inspired by superheroes, cartoon characters and American presidents, take a look at the candidates screaming […]