Tag: international

News

Air Canada Flight Makes A Detour To Locate A Stranded Yacht

by

Picture this. You’re on a plane, flying from Vancouver, B.C. to Sydney, Australia.

You’re flying over the Pacific Ocean. For the last 12 hours, your flight has been perfectly uneventful.

And then suddenly the captain’s voice comes over the plane’s speakers.

There is a boat in distress, the captain explains. And the plane is going to change course in order to help look for it.

That’s exactly what happened to 270 passengers on board Air Canada flight AC033 last Monday.

The captain was told there was a “vessel in distress” somewhere in the Tasman Sea, which is between Australia and New Zealand.

A yacht with one person aboard had left Sydney, Australia, about two weeks earlier. It had lost its mast, was very low on fuel and had been drifting.

Continue Reading →
News

EU Wins Nobel Peace Prize

by

The European Union, a collection of countries in Europe, has been awarded an important prize — the Nobel Prize.

It was given the honour for keeping peace for more than 65 years.

That is a very big accomplishment, especially because the Second World War began just 21 years after the First World War ended in 1918.

But not everyone is happy to see the European Union receive the prestigious prize.

That’s because even though Europe is not at war, it is struggling with a different kind of problem.

Many countries in Europe, including Greece, Spain and Italy, are having trouble paying down their debts.

Their governments borrowed too much money and now they must cut back on the amount of money they spend to pay their workers and for things like roads, hospitals and schools.

Continue Reading →
News

Ikea Criticized For Airbrushing Women From Its Saudi Arabia Catalogue

by

Ikea is a large chain of stores around the world that sells furniture and home accessories.

Recently the company came under fire for removing all of the images of women from the pictures in the Saudi Arabia edition of their catalogue.

In the Ikea catalogue, families are shown using and enjoying Ikea’s products. In the Saudi Arabia version of the book, none of the families show women in them.

In other editions of the catalogue, women are featured in the photos.

The images of women were digitally removed from the pictures in the catalogue. This is known as airbrushing or photoshopping.

Ikea said they shouldn’t have removed the images; they regret having done it.

Ikea prints more than 60 versions of its catalogue and sends them all over the world.

Continue Reading →
News Technology

Google Puts Cambridge Bay, Nunavut On Street View

by

People around the world will soon be able to see what life in a small northern community looks like, thanks to Google Street View.

The hamlet of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, was photographed for Google Street View in August.

Street View is a feature of Google Maps which allows users to see panoramic street-level photographs of the places on a map.

In Street View, the user can click on arrows and “travel” along the streets, seeing the buildings, houses and sidewalks.

Many places around the world have been mapped by Street View but Cambridge Bay, which is located on the southeast coast of Victoria Island in Canada’s Arctic, is the farthest north so far.

Continue Reading →
Arts News Sports

Pianos And The Pan American Games

by

The Pan American Games are coming to Toronto, Ontario in 2015.

The Games are like the Olympics, but only athletes from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean compete.

It is different from the Olympics because it celebrates culture as well as sports. And that’s where the pianos come in.

The Games don’t start for another three years, but last July a Pan Am project called Play Me, I’m Yours, put 41 painted pianos around Toronto.

The pianos stood for the 41 countries and protectorates belonging to the Pan American Sports Organization. (Protectorates are countries that have their own government but also get protection from stronger countries.)

Each piano was decorated by an artist who lives in Canada but was born in one of the 41 countries.

The pianos were placed in public parks, streets and squares.

Play Me, I’m Yours invited everybody to play. It didn’t matter if you were piano teacher or could only play Chopsticks.

Continue Reading →
News

Pope’s Butler On Trial For Leaking Documents

by

The Pope’s butler is on trial.

The Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church around the world. The current Pope is Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pope’s butler is named Paolo Gabriele.

His job is to look after the personal needs of the Pope—for instance, serve the Pope his meals and help him dress.

Naturally, he has access to some very private areas of the Vatican, like the Pope’s bedroom and other rooms.

For months, Italian media have been publishing private information about the Catholic Church. No one knew where the media got the information.

It looks like the butler may have done it.

Continue Reading →
Politics

Canada And UK To Share Office Space

by

Canada has hundreds of offices around the world in many different countries.

Recently, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) signed an agreement to share some of their embassies.

The two countries have a “common history and shared values,” Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a press release. He said the new arrangement will help Canada save money on office space and resources. It will also allow Canada to have offices in countries where they don’t already have them.

“Canada will be sharing space, as we do with other trusted countries, to get maximum reach at minimal cost to taxpayers,” said Baird.

Baird’s UK counterpart agreed that the two countries share common interests. The most “pressing international issue on our common agenda” is the situation in Syria, said William Hague, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Continue Reading →
Sports

Lockout Threatens NHL Season

by

The start of the NHL season, and the season in general, may not happen as expected.

The NHL has locked out its players.

For the second time in eight years, the NHL is experiencing problems between its owners and players.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and owners has expired.

Continue Reading →
Arts Entertainment News

CUT! It’s A Wrap For TIFF 2012

by

The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival ended last Sunday.

For 10 days, movies from more than 60 countries were shown around the city.

Thirty-eight of them were premieres, or films that were shown in Toronto for the first time. And all the big players–famous actors, directors and producers–came out to see them, and to be seen.

A film festival is an event about movies: watching movies, making movies and acting in movies. And of course, it’s about the business of movies. Many big movie deals are made during TIFF. Storytellers meet writers. Writers meet producers. Producers meet directors. Directors meet actors. And later–often years later–a movie is made

Continue Reading →
News Politics

A Plan To Help Eurozone Countries In Debt

by

Europe’s central bank thinks it has a good plan to help countries like Greece, Spain and Italy. Those countries are struggling because they took on too much debt.

The idea is that the European Central Bank will agree to buy some of the debt.

In return, the troubled countries must agree to spend less money and to put their finances in order.

When countries lend money to other countries, they receive small payments called interest.

When a country borrows too much money, some of the people who lent the money begin to worry that they won’t get their money back. So they demand higher and higher interest payments.

This puts pressure on countries that are already having trouble paying back all the money they borrowed.

It pushes their debt even higher.

Continue Reading →
1 … 14 15 16 17 18 … 28