Category Archives: Global: Miscellaneous

AP: However, the overall tone of Hasan Rowhani’s first post-election news conference, will likely be viewed by the West as further evidence that his stunning victory last week could open new possibilities for dialogue to ease tensions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

CNSNews: While lawmakers were eyeing China last week over cyber spying and theft, the U.S. joined a small group of countries – including China – in U.N.-hosted cyber security talks that ended with an affirmation that international law, especially the United Nations Charter, applies in cyberspace.

Forbes: Yet, there is a world wide perception that any data that is stored or even routed through the United States is sucked into cavernous NSA data centers for analysis and cataloging.

BBC: Search engines such as Google should do more to restrict access to online pornography, a government adviser on child internet safety has said.

AP: The Socialists, who finished second in Bulgaria’s election this month, were asked to form a new government Thursday, after the front-running party was unable to.

BBC: In Husby, more than 80% of the 12,000 or so inhabitants are from an immigrant background, and most are from Turkey, the Middle East and Somalia.

AP: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that a decision by election overseers to disqualify his top aide from next month’s presidential race is an act of “oppression” and that he will take the case to the country’s supreme leader.

Reuters: In France, the path to radical Islam often begins with a minor offence that throws a young man into an overcrowded, violent jail and produces a hardened convert ready for jihad

AP: Hard-line Iranian lawmakers have petitioned authorities to bar two prominent presidential contenders – a moderate former president and a protege of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – from running in next month’s election in a further sign of intense political jockeying over the final ballot list.

Reuters: In France, the path to radical Islam often begins with a minor offence that throws a young man into an overcrowded, violent jail and produces a hardened convert ready for jihad.

The Volokh Conspiracy has posted a very interesting fact and graphic.

Tech Crunch: Governments, even democracies, are not always fans of transparency. According to Google’s brand new transparency report, “government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown”, doubling since the second half of 2012 (1,054 requests vs. 2,285). Brazil took the gold medal of the censorship olympics, with 697 requests, while the United States took 2nd place, with 321 requests.

AP: Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed – pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.

AP: When Bindiya Rana, a transgender candidate in Pakistan’s elections, went door to door in the Karachi slum she hopes to represent, few people seemed to care about which gender she identifies with.

Express.co.uk: Fears that famine-stricken North Koreans are being forced to eat human flesh heightened earlier this year following claims a man was executed for murdering his two children for food.

AP: After a month of heated debate, the government in the tourist hotspot of Goa refused permission for promoters to open the country’s first Playboy club in a 22,000-square-foot open-air property on upmarket Candolim beach.

Gatestone Institute: Given the long history of Muslim Brotherhood activity in this country, its declared objective to “destroy the Western civilization from within,” and the extensive evidence of successful influence operations at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it is urgent that we recognize this clear and present danger that threatens not only our Republic but the values of Western civilization.

BBC: The leader of the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting in Syria, has pledged allegiance to the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Gateway Pundit: Shouldn’t we be able to see an audit of every taxpayer dollar spent on the Muslim Brotherhood? Between the F-16′s, US millions of dollars wasted on Afghanistan police cars, direct money aid, and now this.

NPR: Margaret Thatcher, who as British prime minister in the 1980s became known as the “Iron Lady” for her tough economic policies, her partnership with President Reagan in standing up to communism and the short war with Argentina over the Falklands, has died.

AP: An al-Shabab official said one of its judges sentenced the man to death because he forced a 13-year-old boy to have sex with him.

AP: Scottish leader Alex Salmond has set Sept. 18, 2014, as the date for an independence referendum that could radically alter the shape of the United Kingdom.

AsiaNews.it: The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

Acton Institute links to the audio.

Catholic Culture: Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak was enthroned as patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church on March 12 as his predecessor, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, was taking part in the Mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff at St. Peter’s Basilica.

LifeSiteNews: One of the highest-ranking police officials in Scotland has warned that if pornography’s effects on the culture are not checked, it will “result in a higher number of victims of serious sexual crime.”

AP: Argentine Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope Wednesday and chose the papal name Francis, becoming first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

Washington Post: So where do most of the cardinal electors who choose the pope come from? More than half come from Europe, even though the continent only accounts for 24 percent of the world’s Catholic population, as the following map from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows . . .

Fox News: Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro says President Hugo Chavez has died.

Pat Buchanan at Townhall: What is it that gives a party its legitimacy, its right to rule? What holds a nation together when its cradle faith, its founding ideology, has been abandoned by both elites and the people? That is China’s coming crisis.

Telegraph: A Chinese wealth survey has found that Asia has more billionaires than any other continent, apparently surpassing North America for the first time.

Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian: This belief in the unfettered legal and moral right of the US to use force anywhere in the world for any reason it wants is sustained only by this belief in objective US superiority, this myth of American exceptionalism. And the results are exactly what one would expect from an approach grounded in a belief system so patently irrational.

Telegraph: Iceland could become the first Western democracy to attempt censorship of the internet under radical proposals to block online pornography.

Nathaniel Botwinick at National Review: In a foreign-policy address at the Heritage Institute this morning, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) called for a shift in American foreign policy, saying that the U.S. should apply a strategy of containment to radical Islam and declaring himself “a realist, not a neoconservative.”

AP: Zimbabwe’s parliament has begun discussing a new constitution that reduces some of the president’s powers . . .

Haaretz: In interview with Al-Ahram on eve of Islamic Summit Conference in Cairo, Iranian president also says his country opposes outside intervention in Syria.

The Telegraph: In a surprise move, peers passed an amendment to the Defamation Bill to introduce a cheap arbitration service between newspapers and people who feel wronged by the press – one of Lord Leveson’s key recommendations.

AP: The new archbishop of Canterbury on Monday formally took up his post as the leader of the world’s 80-million-strong Anglican Communion.

CNSNews: The U.S. Senate Thursday defeated an amendment that aimed to prevent the Obama administration from transferring F-16 fighter aircraft and Abrams tanks to an Egypt in disarray.

Israel National News: The United Nations says Israel must withdraw all of its citizens from the regions of Judea and Samaria. The recommendation came in a report issued Thursday by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has a history of passing numerous biased resolutions condemning Israel for various alleged ‘crimes’ each year.

Gatestone Institute: These reactions are indicative of the contempt the political elites have for the concept of democratic accountability.

AP: U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians’ latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded U.N. status when their foreign minister spoke at the Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read “State of Palestine.”

Washington Post: The Tibetans of China had a difficult 2012, and so far 2013 is not looking much better. Tibetan self-immolations, in protest against Beijing’s increasingly harsh rule over the Himalayan region, are continuing apace. Since the new Communist Party leadership took power, Chinese authorities appear to have tightened their grip on Tibet, sending in security forces to cordon off areas of unrest and even confiscating thousands of satellite dishes.

BBC: The Obama administration has made no bones about it – it wants a strong Britain within a strong Europe.

Free Beacon: The State Department has refused to cancel or delay the delivery of several American-made F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, claiming that the arms deal serves America’s “regional security interests,” according to an official State Department document obtained by the Free

AP: The workers demanded the scrapping of the ridiculously strict requirements stipulating that workers only have two minutes to go to the toilet and workers will be fined 50 yuan ($8) if they are late once and fired if they are late twice,” said the security guard, surnamed Feng.

Emirates247.com: A well-known Saudi Islamic scholar has issued a new fatwa (edict) saying holding elections for a president or another form of leadership is prohibited in Islam.

Investors.com: The radical Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t just threaten Israel and Mideast peace. According to the Egyptian press, several of its operatives have infiltrated the U.S. government and are influencing policy here.

Telegraph: France’s campaign in Mali has escalated into a ground war when troops fought to prevent al-Qaeda and its allies from striking deep inside territory previously under government control.

The Guardian: A Chinese man who agitated for an investigation into the suspicious death of an activist has been detained at an unknown location, his lawyer said on Monday, describing him as possibly the first to be held under a controversial new law that allows secret detention.

AP: Record unemployment and fraying social welfare systems in southern Europe risk creating a new divide in the continent, the EU warned Tuesday, when figures showed joblessness across the 17 EU countries that use the euro hit a new high.

Wall Street Journal: In other words, a household with two people earning a little under €1 million would not be subject to the tax, while an individual making even a dollar more than €1 million would have to pay. So while it is fair to take 75% of what someone earns, it isn’t fair unless the law confiscates 75% from all rich households equally.

AP: Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, will be replaced by 56-year-old former oil executive Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham.

Spiegel Online: Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

AP: Socialist President Francois Hollande’s budget aims to cut (EURO)30 billion ($40 billion), with two-thirds of that coming in tax hikes, including a 75 percent levy on incomes earned over (EURO)1 million. But it was the increase in taxes on profits from investments that raised the most hackles in France . . .

Reuters: A French psychiatrist whose patient hacked an elderly man to death was found guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday in a groundbreaking case that could affect the way patients are treated.

Reuters: It showed Christianity is the most evenly spread religion, present in all regions of the world, while Hinduism is the least global with 94 percent of its population in one country, India.

Boston Globe: Argentina’s government told the country’s largest media conglomerate on Monday that it has begun a process to break up the company and auction off its media licenses.

Guardian: David Cameron’s strategy of exploiting the euro crisis to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and claw back powers from Brussels has run into stiff resistance from France on Friday.

AP: The U.S. and more than 20 other countries refused to ratify the accord by the 193-nation International Telecommunications Union. Here is a look at Internet restrictions and availability at selected countries and regions around the world:

The Hill: The United States said Thursday that it will not sign a United Nations telecommunications treaty that U.S. technology companies warn would disrupt governance of the Internet and open the door to online censorship.

Boston Globe (AP): A full-scale replica of Noah’s Ark has opened its doors to the public in the Netherlands.

AP: The EU received the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday for promoting peace and human rights in Europe following the devastation of World War II, and the bloc was urged to use that unity in its battle with an economic crisis that is causing suffering for many of its citizens.

AP: This year’s Nobel literature winner Mo Yan, who has been criticized for his cozy relationship with China’s Communist Party, defended censorship Thursday as something as necessary as airport security checks.

AP: Maria Menendez, a 25-year-old caught in Spain’s job-destroying economic crisis, would love to work in Germany as a veterinarian. Germany, facing an acute shortage of skilled workers, would love to have her. A perfect match, it seems, but something’s holding her back: She doesn’t speak German.

NCPA Policy Digest: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have started to plan their own development bank, as well as a bailout fund to help many countries around the world. This is done in response to the growing dissatisfaction of Western banking institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says The Diplomat.

AP: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected as her party’s leader with a landslide majority of 98 percent of the vote.

Fox News (AP): A Protestant mob has stormed into the grounds of Belfast City Hall and clashed with police after the council’s Catholic majority voted to remove the British flag from the building for most of the year. More information …

ABC: The historic vote recognizes Palestine as a state and gives Palestine the right to join U.N. agencies. It opens the door for Palestine to become a party to the International Criminal Court, allowing them to bring cases against Israel.

AP: The Palestinians are certain to win U.N. recognition as a state Thursday but success could exact a high price: Israel and the United States warn it could delay hopes of achieving an independent Palestinian state through peace talks with Israel.

AP: Germany says it won’t back a Palestinian drive for statehood in a U.N. vote this week – putting it at odds with France and other European countries.

Heritage Foundation: Egypt remains in turmoil after its president decreed last Thursday that he was no longer subject to the laws of his country—giving himself power over the judiciary and other branches of government.

Expatica.com: Two companies which used to produce animal porn films are hoping to sue the government for millions of euros for loss of earnings, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.

AP: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez faced a nationwide strike on Tuesday, led by the union bosses who used to be her most steadfast supporters.

AP: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives chose a right-leaning new leader on Monday in a razor-thin victory – 98 votes – and with so much rancor that some feared the party could break apart.