Category Archives: Global: Miscellaneous

EU Observer: “A split in the Polish Law and Justice party, the British Conservative Party’s main ally in the European Parliament, risks further diminishing London’s influence in Brussels and causing fresh embarrassment over issues such as homophobia and anti-Semitism.”

Reuters: “Arab and African nations succeeded on Tuesday in getting a U.N. General Assembly panel to delete from a resolution condemning unjustified executions a specific reference to killings due to sexual orientation.”

Associated Press: “Iraq’s president said Wednesday he won’t sign off on a death penalty sentence against one of Saddam Hussein’s closest confidantes, Tariq Aziz, setting the stage for a possible battle over the fate of the man known as the international face of the dictator’s regime.”

Associated Press: “A congressional advisory panel is recommending that lawmakers prod the Obama administration into tougher action against what it calls China’s policy of keeping its currency undervalued.”

The Globe and Mail: “Mr. Soros even went so far as to say that at times China wields more power than the U.S. because of the political gridlock in Washington. ‘Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States,’ he said, a hard statement for him to make because he spent much of his life donating to anti-communist groups in Eastern Europe.”

My Fox NY: “The US faces an immense economic challenge from China’s explosive economic growth, free trade has gotten a bad rap, and President Barack Obama will have trouble getting reelected, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch told FOX Business Tuesday in a wide-ranging interview.”

Reuters: “China will unveil food price controls and crack down on speculation in agricultural commodities to contain inflationary pressure that its central bank governor highlighted as a risk on Tuesday.”

Irish Times: “An Irish Catholic priest has been banned by the Vatican from publishing any more of his writings after he suggested homosexuality is ‘simply a facet of the human condition.’”

Associated Press: “Nearly 128,000 Chinese students studied in America in 2009-10, a 30 percent increase over the previous academic year, the annual study by the Institute of International Education found.”

Julie Hörnle, Countering the Dangers of Online Pornography – Shrewd Regulation of Lewd Content? (October 1, 2010). Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 65/2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1686136

“This Article will detail how the UK has responded to the greater risks posed by illegal online content by successively extending the reach of the substantive criminal laws and by taking preventative measures. It will focus on the example of laws on obscene content on the internet and associated online behaviour and in particular on the ‘grooming’ offences, the law on extreme pornography and virtual child abuse images. An assessment of these offences against the ‘harm principle’ is made and while the internet’s role in facilitating such offences is acknowledged, the article argues that in some respect the legislation has overshot the mark.”

Associated Press: “Staking his ground in the global fight over the world’s major currencies, President Barack Obama on Friday disputed claims that the U.S. was deliberately weakening the dollar while accusing China of manipulating its yuan.”

Associated Press: “Stocks are falling as investors worry China might try to slow its surging economy to combat inflation.”

Associated Press: “Leaders of 20 major economies on Friday refused to back a U.S. push to make China boost its currency’s value, keeping alive a dispute that raises fears of a global trade war amid criticism that cheap Chinese exports are costing American jobs.”

Christian Science Monitor: “As G20 leaders gather in Seoul Thursday – their first meeting in Asia – to seek to rebalance the world economy, some economists here are warning the United States that it should not worry about China’s and other regional currencies being too weak; rather, it should worry if they get stronger.”

Associated Press: “President Barack Obama’s every utterance in a speech Wednesday morning at the University of Indonesia was met with laughter, applause and a swelling feeling that he belonged to this nation of islands.”

Reuters: “Germany’s undiplomatic outbursts against U.S. policy, calling it ‘clueless’ before a G20 summit, show growing estrangement on economics as America’s focus shifts away from transatlantic ties to domestic challenges and Asia.”

London Telegraph: “According to the Conference Board, a highly respected economic research association, China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy by 2012, or within two years.”

New York Times: “President Obama’s criticism of new Israeli housing plans for East Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s even sharper retort, have thrown the Middle East peace talks into jeopardy, with the dispute over Jewish settlements looming as a seemingly insuperable hurdle.”

Reuters: “China kept up a drumbeat of criticism of U.S. easy money policies on Tuesday, warning two days before a G20 world economic summit that Washington could destabilize the global economy and inflate asset bubbles.”

ACLU Press Release: “The U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) today issued a [set of recommendations] for the United States to bring its human rights policies and practices in line with international standards.”

Spiegel: “Schäuble: ‘The German export successes are not the result of some sort of currency manipulation, but of the increased competitiveness of companies. The American growth model, on the other hand, is in a deep crisis. The United States lived on borrowed money for too long, inflating its financial sector unnecessarily and neglecting its small and mid-sized industrial companies. There are many reasons for America’s problems, but they don’t include German export surpluses.’”

Bloomberg: “China will force banks to hold more foreign exchange and strengthen auditing of overseas fund raising, stepping up efforts to curb hot-money inflows that may inflate asset bubbles and add pressure for a stronger yuan.”

Reuters: “G20 leaders must address bottlenecks in the global supply of rare earth elements or risk blockages in economic growth and the fight against climate change, industry groups from around the world said on Monday.”

Associated Press: “Five Church of England bishops announced Monday they are converting to Catholicism following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict XVI – the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to gay bishops and female clergy.”

Associated Press: “Shares in Ireland’s banks fell to record lows Monday and borrowing costs were near euro-era highs as the government prepared to discuss its fiscal survival plans with top European Union officials.”

Reuters: “U.S. President Barack Obama defended the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing dollars on Monday after China and Russia stepped up criticism ahead of this week’s Group of 20 meeting.”

Reuters: “The United States defended its human rights record on Friday from criticism from foes including Cuba and Iran, who called for it to close Guantanamo prison and investigate alleged torture by its troops abroad.”

US Department of State: “Further implementing Presidents Obama and Calderon’s commitment to build a 21st century border that promotes economic competitiveness while enhancing security, the United States and Mexico began operating a new border crossing called ‘San Luis II’ today in San Luis, Arizona and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora.”

Financial Times / Global Economy: “China, Brazil and Germany on Thursday criticised the Fed’s action a day earlier, and a string of east Asian central banks said they were preparing measures to defend their economies against large capital inflows.”

Rediff Business: “World Bank has cautioned China that an expected slowdown next year could hit its export driven economy and asked it to accelerate process to change its economic growth pattern to increase the domestic consumption.”

Jeff Jacoby writing in the Boston Globe: “In short, there is no consensus [on Keynesian deficit spending]. And if even the world’s most esteemed economic theorists cannot decide whether a huge new spending bill would make the current crisis better or worse, guidance will have to come from somewhere else. Perhaps that somewhere is Europe, where governments have deliberately rejected Washington’s embrace of massive deficit spending as the best way to rev up an ailing economy — with better outcomes than Americans have seen.”

NDTV: “The White House will, of course, stay in Washington but the heart of the famous building will move to India when President Barack Obama lands in Mumbai on Saturday.”

Associated Press: “The U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday, describing the work as a demonstration of America’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan.”

TIME: “Declarations of solidarity and the $2 billion in promised military aid received by a high-level Pakistani delegation in Washington last week belie the hardening of U.S. attitudes toward Islamabad . . . ”

Associated Press: “Premier Silvio Berlusconi dismissed calls Tuesday to resign over his involvement with an underage Moroccan runaway – and even created a new uproar by claiming it was better to love beautiful girls than gays.”

CNN: “A judge temporarily ordered a tabloid in Uganda to stop publishing lists identifying people it claims are gay after an advocacy organization filed a lawsuit.”

Two Nations, One Web: Comparative Legal Approaches to Pornographic Obscenity by the United States and the United Kingdom
William T. Goldberg, 90 B.U. L. Rev. 2121 (2010)

“Modern American obscenity law has developed over a period of approximately fifty years. The foundation of the law is built around a single test, the ‘community standards test,’ which tasks a trier of fact with gauging whether given materials would be considered obscene by the standards of the average member of the community in which they are made available. If that trier of fact deems those materials obscene, then the producer or distributor of such materials may face fines or imprisonment. The application of the community standards test has been refined, but never fully clarified. Thus, questions debated at the test’s first official implementation by the Supreme Court in the 1950s are still in question today: What types of materials actually fall within the scope of obscenity? What is the proper definition of the ‘community’ from which we should draw our standards? What role should individual privacy rights play? How do political pressures impact the application of obscenity laws? More recently, how should this standard apply following technological advances, like the internet, which have expanded the volume and variety of potential obscenity available in any given place at any given moment? This Note examines the underlying issues in U.S. obscenity law that raise these questions, yet primarily focuses on the impact of the internet on modern obscenity law in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Part One examines these basic questions and explores their complexities. Part Two introduces and examines recent changes in U.K. law that address many of these same questions. Effective in 2009, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 sharpened the United Kingdom’s definition of obscenity by imposing a strict liability offense for possession of ‘extreme pornography.’ Until this change, U.K. and U.S. obscenity laws were very similar, but this new Act imposes greater individual responsibility on consumers of such depictions, and also provides a far more precise definition of the prohibited materials. Part Three attempts to reconcile the tensions in U.S. law with the changes in U.K. law. The discussion focuses on the divergence in the laws and the consequence, if any, such divergence could, or should, have on American obscenity law.”

CTV (The Canadian Press): “The fate of an ex-bureaucrat’s sexual discrimination complaint against the federal government hinges on Trudeau-era memories and good old-fashioned record-keeping . . . The latest round of Richard’s fight for redress is slated to be heard Monday in the Federal Court of Appeal.”

European Commission Press Release: “The European Commission has today sent a formal request to the Czech Republic to implement fully EU rules against gender discrimination in employment (Directive 2002/73/EC). The request, in the form of a reasoned opinion under EU infringement procedures, comes after the Czech Republic failed to adequately implement all aspects of the Directive in its national law. The Czech Republic has two months to tell the Commission how it will fully comply with the Directive, failing which the Commission may decide to refer the Czech Republic to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

CNBC (NYT): “A Chinese scientific research center has built the fastest supercomputer ever made, replacing the United States as maker of the swiftest machine, and giving China bragging rights as a technology superpower.”

ABC News: “European air officials accused the United States of imposing useless and overly intrusive travel security measures, calling Wednesday for the Obama administration to reexamine policies ranging from online security checks to X-raying shoes.”

AP: “Western democracies were founded on colonization, exploitation and slavery, and would crumble if not for welfare payments to their underprivileged citizens, it said.”

Houston Chronicle (AP): “France’s parliament granted final approval Wednesday to a bill raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, a reform that has infuriated the country’s powerful unions and touched off weeks of protests and strikes.”

Breitbart: “Rampant issuance of dollars by the United States is saddling China with ‘imported inflation’, Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming was quoted as saying by state media on Wednesday.”

Breitbart: “European Union trade commissioner Karel De Gucht on Tuesday urged global partners to diversify mining sources for prized rare earths as a battle with China deepened over scarce supplies . . . The United States and Australia have 15 and five percent respectively of global reserves, but stopped mining them mainly because of cheaper Chinese competition.”

Associated Press: “Pope Benedict XVI says all countries have the right to regulate immigration flows and protect their borders, and immigrants must respect the laws and national identity of their host nations.”

CBS: “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday ordered the expropriation of U.S.-based glass maker Owens-Illinois Inc.’s unit in the South American country. ”

The Herald: “A report by Glasgow City Council into its decision to wind up the Castro Centre, which was spearheaded by a member of the city’s ruling Labour administration who has since been suspended by the party, shows around £64,000 of public money was spent by it before it was axed, considerably more than previously estimated.”

Associated Press: “The European Union agreed Monday to review in detail Serbia’s request to join the bloc, an application that is warmly endorsed by Washington but that divides EU members.”

Yahoo (AP): “The French Senate, pushed into an early vote, approved on Friday a hotly contested bill raising the retirement age to 62, hours after riot police forced the reopening of a strategic refinery to help halt growing fuel shortages amid nationwide strikes and protests.”

Associated Press: “Protesters blockaded Marseille’s airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon on Thursday ahead of a tense Senate vote on raising the retirement age.”

AP: “The world’s second-largest economy grew 9.6 percent in the July-September quarter over a year earlier, official figures showed Thursday. That was down from the previous quarter’s 10.3 percent but still by far the highest of any major economy.”

Newsmax: “Outspoken talk-radio host Michael Savage warns that China is steadily wiping out the American industrial base and ‘burying’ the United States by keeping the value of its currency artificially low.”

Vancouver Sun: “Sex shop owner Tony Perry vows to challenge a recent Board of Variance decision denying his appeal of a city hall ruling aimed at shutting down his Fantasy Factory outlet at 701 Kingsway.”

Associated Press: “China’s ruling Communist Party called Wednesday for its members to reject Western-style democratic notions amid a brewing debate on the direction of future political reform.”

New York Times: “China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week.”

CNBC (Reuters): “A commerce ministry official denied a report that China would cut export quotas for rare earth metals by 30 percent next year, the China Business News said on Wednesday.”

Breitbart (AP): “Masked youths clashed with police officers and set fires in cities across France on Tuesday as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement took an increasingly radical turn.”

New York Times: “The Chinese government plans a further reduction, of up to 30 percent, next year in its quotas for exports of rare earth minerals, in an attempt to conserve dwindling reserves of the materials, the official newspaper China Daily said Tuesday.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial, “China’s Rare Earths Gambit” [full text via Google News]: “If this continues over the next few years, it will put big multinationals in a bind: Either move high-value production processes to China, or get out of certain lucrative businesses. Beijing has always driven a hard bargain with foreign firms, using the allure of its giant domestic market to force technology transfers. Rare earths represent an even bigger crowbar with which to pry out Western corporate trade secrets.”

Related: Chinese monopoly on rare earth elements poses grave danger

Pat Buchanan writing at Townhall: “Is Europe’s adventure in international living about to end? . . . Across Europe, there is a resurgence of ethnonationalism that is feeding the ranks of populist and anti-immigrant parties that are gaining respectability and reaching for power . . . But the awakening of Europe’s establishment to the shallow roots of multiculturalism will likely prove frustrating and futile . . . For not one European nation, save Iceland and Albania, has had a birth rate for decades that is not below zero population growth.”

Associated Press: “The front-page newspaper story featured a list of Uganda’s 100 ‘top’ homosexuals, with a bright yellow banner across it that read: ‘Hang Them.’ Alongside their photos were the men’s names and addresses.”

BBC News: “Father Stephen Bould told the BBC that he will probably follow some of the congregation of St Peter’s in Folkestone into the Roman Catholic Church.” (video)

Maria Abi-Habib writing in The Wall Street Journal [full text via Google News]: “Widespread incidents of fraud in Afghan elections last month included armed men stuffing ballot boxes, observers said, in a vote Western officials said will lead to the disqualification of as much as a quarter of the ballots cast.”

L. Gordon Crovitz writing in The Wall Street Journal, “In China, even the Premier is censored,” [full text via Google News]: “Consider Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. He has called for political reform several times in recent months, but censors have blocked domestic reporting of his comments. This led to an open letter from 23 well-known Communist Party elders calling for free speech. The letter was posted last week in a blog area of sina.com, one of the country’s largest websites, and widely shared before being removed.”

Telegraph: “The remarks from China’s ministry of commerce came hours before the US was due to release a report on whether it considers China a “currency manipulator” as fears grow that tensions over the currency could lead to a protectionist trade war.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “However, in his final directions to the jury, Judge Bill Everson said they had to be satisfied the drugs were noxious to Ms Leach’s health, rather than the foetus.”

AP: “Tentative links are developing between supporters of the Tea Party movement in the United States and right-wing fringe groups in Britain that are opposed to what they call the “Islamification” of Europe.”

Reuters: “China has become the world’s largest energy user, having overtaken the United States, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.”

MySanAntonio.com: “State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves . . . It also might pick up some American know-how about tapping the hard-to-get deposits trapped in dense shale rock formations, analysts said.”

AP: “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is pressing political reforms to the restive Balkans with the hope that such changes will lead to the region’s full integration into the European Union and NATO.”

Daniel Ikenson writing at Cato @ Liberty: “The Chinese currency issue is in full bloom this week, as the House of Representatives passed the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act of 2010 by a vote of 348-79 on Wednesday. Though there is so much to criticize about the bill and about the layers upon layers of misinformation, myth, and subterfuge that brought us to this point, this post concerns the dubiousness of the bill’s central premise: that Yuan appreciation will significantly reduce the bilateral trade deficit.”

Wall Street Journal / China Real Time Report: “In its first Global Wealth Report, Credit Suisse predicts that total household wealth in China could more than double to $35 trillion by 2015 from $16.5 trillion at the moment. China currently is third in terms of the total share of global wealth after the U.S. and Japan, at $54.6 trillion and $21 trillion respectively, and is 35% ahead of France, the wealthiest European country.”

The Christian Institute: “An investigation into a disturbing playground craze involving coloured wristbands and sexual acts between children has uncovered a hidden online world of teenagers, sex and porn, a BBC broadcaster has revealed.”

Associated Press: “Authorities say two Romanian men have been arrested for allegedly taking pornographic photos of children and putting them online.”

AFP: “A gay Saudi prince strangled and beat his male servant to death during an apparent sex attack in a London hotel room, a court heard on Tuesday.”

Shawn Ambrosino writing at Townhall: “But over the past couple of decades – as more and more businesses deferred their production to the cheaper, overseas work-force – China has slowly gained more and more control over this market, till last year, they produced over 97% of the world’s supply or Rare Earth elements . . . Rare Earth metals are vital for many of our defensive entities, used in such things as the magnets that help direct the fins on our smart bombs to the silencing the whir of the blades on some of our combat helicopters.”