Hollande first 100 days in office
By Sanchia Alasia.
France’s finance minister Pierre Moscovici confirmed this week that the country is on course to cut three per cent of gross domestic product by next year, despite a socialist president being in power for 100 days.
President [...]
How Many Shootings Does It Take?
By Baldr Odinson.
I just read a blog post at Random Musings, where the author wonders what the “magic number” of gun deaths is to lead to real action. In his words:
I don’t know if anyone from the NRA/gun lobby will read this, or [...]
Edging towards War: Netanyahu takes on Obama
By Louis Fishman.
Last spring in my Palestinian-Israeli conflict class, we periodically dealt with current events. Our class discussions reflected much of what the students followed in the mainstream media, and during those months it seemed [...]
In 30 days to Armageddon – How an Israeli-Iranian war can lead to World War III
By Oliver Krumme.
It seems to be a decided fact that Israel is determined to launch an attack on Iran. Being driven by paranoia and the collectively spread fear that Iran might attack Israel with nuclear weapons or even develop nuclear capabilities, [...]
Soccer weaves a thread through Syrian rebels and Assad forces
Fawwaz al-Assad’s soccer club: Bashar without the thugs.
By James M. Dorsey.
Soccer, never distant from Middle Eastern politics, weaves its own thread through the brutal battle for the future of Syria, wracked by the Arab world’s most [...]
Irrational Fear that Ladybugs Cause Painful Deafness is Weirdly Related to Crime Risk Knowledge
By Mike Sutton.
In today’s news in the U.K. Danielle Eccles, a British woman, suffered pain and deafness for three years until she was cured when a perfectly preserved ladybird (ladybug) fell out of her ear. So what? you might ask.
Well, for [...]
Media Propaganda: What Does it Look Like?
By Majia Nadesan.
I write a lot about propaganda. I charge news reports as being propagandistic. On what basis do I make this charge?
Let me provide a subtle example of how propaganda works.
I am going to provide the title and opening paragraph [...]
The Arab Spring Revisited: From Mass Protests to Local Revolts
By James M. Dorsey.
Synopsis
The push for change in the Middle East and North Africa, dominated by the bloody civil war in Syria, has morphed from mass anti-government protests in the capitals into a wave of smaller, political and socio-economic [...]
The Dictator Lets 90 Political Prisoners Out
By Nima Ch.
Released Political Prisoners of the Section 350 of Evin Prison
Seyyed Ali Khamenei the dictator pardons 90 innocent political prisoners. We are looking forward to his decision. We know that he has not acted out of compassion.
My [...]
Giant Galaxy Cluster Sets Record Pace For Star Creation, Astronomers Stunned
By Alton Parrish.
Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster — one of the largest objects in the universe — that is breaking several important cosmic records. The discovery of this cluster, known as the Phoenix Cluster, made [...]
22 Stats That Show How The Emerging One World Economy Is Absolutely Killing American Workers
By Michael Snyder.
For decades our politicians have promised us that the “free trade” agenda would bring us greater prosperity than ever before. They insisted that merging our economy into the emerging one world economy would [...]
The Asylum Years
By Jeremy Sare, England.
In Britain’s colonial era there used to operate what was termed ‘Gunboat diplomacy’ which equated fairly closely to President ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt’s maxim of, “wave a big stick.”
It would appear such archaic [...]
Power developers deeply frustrated by SA’s regulatory obstacles
By Alwyn Smith.
Regulatory uncertainties are continuing to hamper the development of much-needed private power capacity in South Africa, the head of the South African Independent Power Producers Association said on Tuesday.
In fact, MD Doug [...]
Let’s Make This a Fair Fight
By Jeremy Sare.
The perennial problem with public debates on drugs policy is that, in no time, the views of either side of reformers and prohibitionists become hugely misrepresented, to both their mutual fury.
These discussions are invariably [...]
When BBC Coverage of the Earthquake in Iran is Better Than Iranian State TV
By Nima Ch
At least 180 people have died in northwestern Iran because of an Earthquake. Iranian State TV does not report very much about the earthquake. Instead of presenting this disaster, they broadcast Ramadan Prayers and other religious stuff! BBC [...]
New Omnia nitric acid plant registered as CDM project
By Alwyn Smith.
Specialist chemical services provider Omnia said on Monday that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had registered its new nitric acid complex, in Sasolburg, as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) [...]
New Fossils From The Turkana Basin Shed Light On Early Human Evolution
By Alton Parrish.
One of the newly discovered fossils, KNM-ER62000. The face is very similar to that of the enigmatic fossil known as KNM-ER 1470, discovered four decades ago.
Photo credit: Fred Spoor.Exciting new fossils discovered east [...]
Conflict in Syria: The Regional Fall-out
By James M. Dorsey.
Synopsis
The international community’s inability to end the bloodshed in Syria contributes not only to a hardening of ethnic and sectarian battle lines in that war-torn country, but also to the exacerbation of fault lines [...]
The after effects of the Arab Spring, good or bad for Israel?
Countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen recently had civil confrontations to push out their tyrant rulers in order to construct a new state. Many of these countries are still under the ‘after effects’ of these Arab [...]
BOSS Largest 3D Map of the Sky: The Cosmic Ruler And The Key To The History Of The Universe
By Alton Parrish.
The Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has issued Data Release 9 (DR9), the first public release of data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). In this release BOSS, the largest of SDSS-III’s [...]