As Mexico goes to the polls to elect a new president, a visit to Xalapa, a city that once attracted cultural elites and foreign university students –until the country’s bloody drug war brought it to its knees.
Category: Geopolitics
Samira Ghorbani Danesh, 24, says she fled Iran for fear of repression for being a lesbian. A German court has denied her asylum request, ruling that she can live unbothered back in her native country so long as she hides her homosexuality.
Worldcrunch ICELAND REVIEW, LE FIGARO MADAME (France) REYKJAVIK – This Sunday, when Iceland goes to the polls to elect its next president, the choice is rather stark. There is the white-haired incumbent, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson,69, and there is Thora Arnórsdóttir, who is not only a 37-year-old newcomer to politics, but also just gave birth last […]
Worldcrunch AFP, UKPA, ABP News (India) GUWAHATI – Floods caused by heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 30 people and displaced nearly one million in India’s northeastern state of Assam. At least 27 Indian districts have been swamped by heavy monsoon rains that began last weekend. The overall flooding situation is worsening as additional […]
Op Ed: Elected on a platform that mixed solidarity for the poor and support for Peru’s all-important mining sector, leftist President Ollanta Humala has been criticized for failing on both fronts. How can the former military officer get back on t
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The Queen Mother Of The Arab Spring
Tawakkul Karman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in the Yemeni uprising that toppled President Saleh after 33 years in power. But this global face of the Arab Spring still has plenty of work to do in her native land.
Worldcrunch BBC NEWS (UK), HÜRRIYET (Turkey), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Turkey is deploying troops along its border with Syria, one week after Syria shot down a Turkish jet over the Mediterranean. Turkey’s TRT state television showed footage of columns of military vehicles moving from bases in Iskenderun and Diyarbakir to the border, close to the area […]
Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 50, has been sitting in an Indonesian jail for eight years waiting to be executed for drug trafficking. In a phone interview, he pleads with Brazilian president Dilma Roussef to save him.
Worldcrunch EL UNIVERSAL (Mexico) SAN JOSÉ – The Costa Rican capital is where Los Charros, a Central American drug cartel with links to to one of Mexico’s biggest mafia families, picks up cocaine to transfer through Central America. And Los Charros has found a way to launder money to cover up its trafficking revenue: by […]
Worldcrunch REUTERS, AL ARABIYA (Saudi Arabia), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) DAMASCUS – Gunmen attacked the pro-Assad television headquarters in Syria on Wednesday morning, detonating bombs and shooting three employees dead, Reuters reports. The Syrian Minister of Information gave a higher death toll for the attack, saying that seven people were killed and that others were injured […]
Loggers in the Russian Far East are facing off against conservationists over the fate of forests in wildlife reserves, with the Siberian tiger’s natural habitat hanging in the balance. And for local indigenous peoples, it’s not just an e
EL PERIODICO (Spain), NOTICIAS CARACOL (Colombia) BOGOTA – Colombian police say they have evidence FARC rebels are using teenagers as suicide bombers, reports El Periodico. In a video shot by Colombian police and showed by television station Noticias Caracol, we see an alleged 14-year-old rebel, “loaded with explosives, half-naked and painted green.” She was wounded […]
After 10 years and about two million sentences, the tribunals overseeing genocide prosecutions have finally closed. Many Rwandans feel more relieved than reconciled.
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Is This The Man To Clean Up Mexico?
Sunday’s presidential election in Mexico is “a referendum between honesty and corruption,” says leftist underdog candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Since the beginning of June, ethnic violence has marred the western state of Arakan in Burma, killing more than 80 people and displacing 90,000. The target of this violence: an ethnic minority that has been brutally persecuted for years.
Worldcrunch AL JAZEERA, FRANCE 24, HÜRRIYET (Turkey) BRUSSELS – NATO is holding a special meeting in Brussels on Tuesday at Ankara’s request, after Syria shot down a Turkish warplane last week, an incident which Turkey has branded an “act of aggression.” Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke for the first time about the incident […]
CLARIN (Argentina), LA NACION (Argentina) ABC COLOR (Paraguay) ASUNCION – Paraguay’s neighbors have reacted harshly to what they see as the undemocratic removal of Fernando Lugo from power last Friday. Argentina was the first country to recall its ambassador, and was quickly followed by Venezuela and Ecuador, Clarin reported. Argentine president Cristina Kirchner has called […]
In the Lebanese city of Tripoli, the Sunni Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood and the Alawite Djebel Mohsen neighborhood are at war. On one side supporters of the Syrian revolution, on the other side supporters of the Syrian regime.
WorldcrunchLA PRESSE (Canada) OTTAWA – The Canadian Department Of National Defense spent $50,000 (including tax) on little orange balls. Is this some sort of new stealth weapon developed by the Canadian Army? Guess again. According to documents obtained by La Presse, the Department Of Defense has bought 53,000 anti-stress balls in the past five years. […]
Worldcrunch RADIO NDEKE LUKA (Central African Republic), NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (France) BANGUI – Unidentified rebels attacked and plundered a uranium plant operated by French energy giant Areva in Bakouma in the Central African Republic reports the Nouvel Observateur. According to the Radio Ndeke Luka, Central African Armed Forces (FACA) were unable to contain the assailants, who […]
CNN TÜRK, HÜRRIYET, (Turkey) LA STAMPA (Italy), WSJ (United States) A Syrian general, two colonels, two majors, one lieutenant and 33 soldiers have defected from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and arrived in Turkey, Hürriyet, the Istanbul-based daily, reports. The officers and soldiers were part of a group of some 224 people who crossed the border […]
He was the charismatically-challenged alternative candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood party. But destiny has awarded the US-trained Islamist Morsi the presidency of Egypt at a crucial moment in the nation’s history.
Worldcrunch CLARIN (Argentina) TARTAGAL – The ambulance was traveling fast, its lights on and sirens blaring — an emergency, for sure, in this northern Argentine city. But Salta provincial police, here near the Bolivian border, knew better. They stopped the suspiciously speedy ambulance and discovered that the apparent emergency was actually an express delivery of […]
More and more people are criss-crossing Russia to take part in protest actions, spawning a new breed of “political tourists” just in time for the summer travel season.
Turkish President Gul breaks government silence after downing of air force jet by Syria.
Worldcrunch O GLOBO (Brazil), EL PAÍS (Uruguay) MONTEVIDEO – Uruguayan president José “Pepe” Mujica wants to make his country the world’s first to grow and sell pot. With marijuana consumption already legal in Uruguay, Mujica says that drug-related crime continues to plague the country, and that handing over production and distribution to the government can […]
Have negotiations with Iran hit a dead end? President Obama has made it clear the discussions could not go on indefinitely, but it is the Supreme Leader in Iran who may hold the next card.
Worldcrunch CNN, ABP NEWS TV (India) KABUL – A standoff between Afghan and NATO forces and Taliban militants who had attacked a hotel near Kabul and taken civilian hostages ended Friday morning with at least 26 people dead, CNN reports. According to the Kabul police chief, the Taliban militants killed 15 civilians as well as […]
Worldcrunch IL MESSAGERO, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy) MILAN – Under mounting pressure from the Chinese government, Milan’s city council cancelled a vote planned this week that would have awarded honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama, the Italian daily Il Messagero reported. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who has gathered similar honors over the years from Rome, Venice […]
Analysis: Shaming suspects, parading them in the streets – in China, police believe public humiliation is the best method to deter criminals, a practice dating from ancient times.
Worldcrunch LE FIGARO (France), AFP BEIJING – Chinese artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei said Thursday that he’d been barred from attending a hearing on a tax evasion case that the Chinese government has ordered against a firm he founded. Chinese police authorities also warned Weiwei that he was not authorized to leave the country, […]
In the next six months, French troops will be leaving Kapisa province, handing it back to Afghan control. What does the future hold for this hotbed of insurgency?
Worldcrunch THE NATION, THE DAILY TIMES (Pakistan), BBC NEWS (United Kingdom) ISLAMABAD – Newly nominated Pakistani Prime Minister Makhdoom Shahbuddin came under judicial scrutiny on Thursday, only a few days after the country’s Supreme Court disqualified his predecessor, Yousaf Raza Gilani, for contempt of court. Shahbuddin was nominated Prime Minister of Pakistan by President Asif […]
Worldcrunch THE AUSTRALIAN, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) A boat carrying about 200 asylum-seekers bound for Australia has capsized off the Indonesian coast. The Sydney Morning Herald reports an Australian Customs surveillance aircraft spotted a boat in distress about 120 nautical miles north of Christmas Island. According to the The Australian daily newspaper, Australian search […]
Worldcrunch AL JAZEERA (Qatar), JERUSALEM POST (Israel) GAZA – The military wing of Hamas announced that it had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel, after three days of bloodshed in and around Gaza, reports Al Jazeera. “In response to the Egyptian efforts to try and stop the aggression on our people, we at Al-Qassam […]
Worldcrunch OUEST FRANCE, LE PARISIEN, EUROPE 1 (France) TOULOUSE – This southwestern French city was the scene of a new standoff on Wednesday, with a man claiming to belong to Al Qaeda taking four hostages in a bank. Last March Mohammed Merah, killed three French soldiers and three children and a teacher at a Jewish […]
Worldcrunch DAILY TELEGRAPH, BBC (UK), EXPRESO (Ecuador) LONDON – British police said Wednesday that Julian Assange had violated the terms of his bail, and was subject to re-arrest after the 40 year-old Wikileaks founder spent the night at the embassy of Ecuador, where he is seeking asylum. Assange, who is set to be extradited from […]
Worldcrunch AL ARABIYA, AL-MASRY AL-YOUM (Egypt), AP CAIRO – Conflicting reports continued Wednesday on the condition of Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak, after he was transferred from prison to a military hospital following a stroke, Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reports. “Hosni Mubarak is clinically dead,” the official MENA news agency had reported late Tuesday. But […]
Worldcrunch LE FIGARO, LE MONDE, AFP (France) After weeks of relative silence, the Bo Xilai affair that has shaken China’s highest echelons of power has taken a new turn with the arrest of a French architect known to have close connections to the disgraced politician and his jailed wife. A spokeswoman for the French Embassy […]
Op-Ed: The posturing of recent days between Berlin and Paris had its logic. But now the moment has arrived to find the terms to strike a deal to save the euro that is what matters most to both countries. And beyond.