Word: worldly
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...crackdown on illegal immigrants has intensified, questions remain as to whether it will do anything to deter refugees from making the arduous trip to the continent in the first place. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Oct. 21 that Europe now receives 75% of the world's asylum seekers. And increasingly, these migrants are from Iraq and Afghanistan. About 13,200 Iraqis applied for asylum worldwide between January and August - the largest number for a single country for the fourth year running. Afghans followed a close second...
...another item to the list of areas of life supposedly improved by the "Obama effect": press freedom. Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard credits the President with the U.S.'s jump from 36th place to 20th in this year's eighth annual world press freedom index. Atop the list, which is compiled based on questionnaires completed by hundreds of media experts and journalists worldwide, are a Scandinavian quartet - Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - and Ireland. The bottom three spots are occupied by Turkmenistan (173rd), North Korea (174th) and, for the third year in the row, Eritrea...
...while sales have climbed, economists say the government has yet to push through the sort of reforms that would make consumer spending a solid economic pillar. Chinese are still among the world's biggest savers, in part because of the lack of good public systems for retirement pensions and health insurance. "Most economists think they've overdone investment and underdone consumption and spending for social welfare," says Stephen Green, the Shanghai-based head of research for Standard Chartered Bank. "There will be a price to pay. No one knows how big that will be. The bet is they'll grow...
...easy being the god of your nation's unofficial religion, and Argentina's soccer fans have become accustomed to the occasional meltdown by their appointed deity, Diego Maradona. Maradona's legendary feats as a player - arguably the world's best, in his day - earned him the "god" appellation years ago, but his performance as coach of Argentina's brilliant but struggling national team has shattered his aura...
...Maradona, who turns 49 next week and is already a grandfather, is revered at home for leading Argentina to historic victories on the soccer field, particularly winning the 1986 World Cup. That was also the tournament in which he exacted a symbolic revenge for Argentina's defeat by Britain in the 1982 Falklands War by scoring two goals to sink England, the first illegally with a concealed fist that he wryly attributed to "the hand of God", and the second following a sublime run from the halfway line leaving the England defense for dead...