Tag Archives: Global: Miscellaneous

Bloomberg: China, the largest foreign investor in U.S. government securities, joined Russia in criticizing American policy makers for failing to ensure borrowing is reined in after a stopgap deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.

FoxNews.com: A tomb believed to be that of St. Philip the Apostle was unearthed during excavations in the ancient Turkish city of Hierapolis.

NCPA Policy Digest: When viewed in terms of additional total energy output by source, measured in the common unit of million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE), we see that energy from nonhydro renewable sources (mainly wind and solar) grew by only 11.4 MTOE from 2000 to 2010, while new energy supply from coal grew 976.4 MTOE.
That’s 85 times as much new energy that came from coal than from nonhydro renewables.

NationalJournal.com: June was the deadliest month in more than two years for U.S. troops, with 14 killed. In May, the U.S. death toll was two. In April, it was 11. Senior U.S. commanders say the three primary Iranian-backed militias, Kataib Hezbollah, the Promise Day Brigade, and Asaib al Haq, and their rockets were behind 12 of the deaths in June.

AP: On a visit to Kiev on Thursday, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church Catholicos Ilya II asked Russian Patriarch Kirill to “restore friendship and brotherhood between our people.”

Yahoo! News: The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

OneNewsNow.com: A grassroots pro-family group is outraged that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more $90 million in grants to Communist China.

Colour pictures revealed of London blitz from Nazi bombers in World War II | Mail Online: For many, photographs from the World War II have only been seen in grainy black and white. But now, new colour images have emerged that show the full horror of the destruction inflicted by Nazi bombings across London. The powerful images were released to mark the 70th anniversary of the launch of Winston Churchill’s ‘V for Victory’ campaign on July 19, 1941.

Washington Times: China’s military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, according to an intelligence report made public on Thursday.

Yahoo! Finance: China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone — fake Apple stores.

The Observer: exual violence is one of the most horrific weapons of war, an instrument of terror used against women. Yet huge numbers of men are also victims. In this harrowing report, Will Storr travels to Uganda to meet traumatised survivors, and reveals how male rape is endemic in many of the world’s conflicts

Reuters: The credit ratings agencies are again angering governments, but this time they are taking on the big fish of the world economy.

NYTimes.com: China, one of the United States’ biggest creditor, urged the United States government on Thursday to act to protect investors’ interests, highlighting rising concerns around the globe about the protracted budget talks taking place in Washington.

UN.org: The General Assembly today admitted the Republic of South Sudan as the 193rd member of the United Nations, welcoming the newly independent country to the community of nations.

AP: A poll in Europe finds that most West Europeans believe that China has either supplanted or will supplant the United States as the world’s leading power.

AP: China is watching whether the Federal Reserve launches a new stimulus that might hurt China by pushing up commodity prices, a Cabinet researcher said Thursday.

Boston.com: Poland’s prime minister, whose nation just took over the presidency of the European Union, met with top EU officials Friday to discuss key issues including the financial crisis and immigration.

The Washington Post: Two founders of a new Russian opposition party have been barred from leaving the country for six months, after court officials ruled that a correction they were ordered to publish did not have a large-enough headline and was missing a key word.

BBC News: China has blocked internet references to retired leader Jiang Zemin after rumours circulated that he had died.

The Washington Post: The president of the U.N. Security Council says he expects a ministerial meeting on July 13 to recommend that South Sudan be admitted as the 193rd member of the United Nations.

Liu Junning at WSJ.com: China has indeed made great strides since 1978′s “Reform and Opening” in alleviating poverty, opening up to the world, and making slow steps down the road of legal reform. Yet on closer inspection, the most significant transformations from the perspective of boosting prosperity have involved loosening of control over the people, not some alchemy of power and Marxism.

Yahoo! News: A street in the Czech capital has been named after former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to honor his contribution to the fall of communism.

AP: Benedict told delegates of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization that access to food is a basic human right that must be guaranteed. He said it’s urgent to develop economic models that aren’t just based on profit but take into account the “human dimension.”

AP: China’s local governments have piled up debts of $1.6 trillion, the national audit agency announced Monday, amid mounting concern Chinese banks might be hurt if borrowers cannot repay loans.

Telegraph: It is in the interest of cash-rich China to help resolve the eurozone debt crisis, but Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, who is visiting Britain and Continental Europe, will want a share of the West’s buying power in return .

Telegraph: Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered a devastating blow to his authority on Tuesday as MPs forced the resignation of one of his closest allies amid growing domestic opposition to his radical leadership.

China.org.cn: While talking about making genre movies in China on Wednesday in Shanghai, some well-known film directors explicitly expressed their great disappointment at China’s film censorship. “The only reason that we cannot make genre movies is the barrier that censorship sets,” Chinese director Jia Zhangke said.

WSJ.com: Indications are emerging that dissenting voices are gaining traction in the public square. For instance, ordinary Chinese are running for election in local legislative bodies that are usually rubber-stamp bodies filled with reliable worthies chosen by the Party.

AP: “The Vatican will submit a long-overdue report on its treatment of children to the United Nations this fall, the Holy See’s envoy in Geneva said Monday.”

The Christian Institute: Children should be protected from seeing online pornography, a “suppressed” Ofcom report has said. Ofcom passed the report to the Government nine months ago, but the Coalition has not published it nor acted on its recommendations, according to the Guardian

Yahoo! News: Greece’s rapidly evolving political crisis comes a day after anti-austerity riots in central Athens and the collapse of negotiations to form a coalition government triggered a sell-off in global financial markets. Investors are deeply worried that a default in Greece could hurt banks elsewhere and set off a financial chain reaction that experts predict would be catastrophic.

Toronto Star: Canada’s anti-prostitution laws were enacted for the mundane purpose of keeping neighbourhoods clear of hookers and johns and not to prevent women from being exploited, as the federal government claims, the Ontario Court of Appeal was told Wednesday.

FT.com / Global insight – The global order fractures as American power declines: Harold Macmillan, the prime minister who watched US power rise as the British empire crumbled, used to say that Britain would play ancient Greece to America’s Rome. These days it looks as if Rome is declining too. The US finds it increasingly hard to drive forward its vision of international trade and economics over the objections of big emerging-market countries . . .

XINHUANET.com: The European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek on Tuesday stated that he opposes Palestinian plans to seek membership in the United Nations in September.

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama’s guarantee on $1 billion of Egyptian Eurobonds is poised to reduce the country’s borrowing costs, helping the transition to democracy after six decades of autocratic rule.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Ontario Appeals Court began hearings today on a landmark case that could see prostitution decriminalized in the province.

BuenosAiresHerald.com: Erdogan is expected to pave the ways for the Turkish institutions to welcome “European values and standards,” said in a statement presidents of the European Community and European Consul , Jose Manuel Durao Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy.

Telegraph: Hillary Clinton has been in discussions with the White House about stepping down from her job as Secretary of State to become head of the World Bank, according to reports.

Yahoo! News: A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.

U.S. Dept. of State: he Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina have a long tradition of moderation, and are a continuing rebuke to the notion that Islam has no place in Europe. We want to see BiH thriving as a peaceful member of the European Union and NATO, with the conflict and suffering of the 1990s left behind never to return. We know that the citizens of this unique country want this too, from Prijedor to Travnik, from Foca to Livno and from Mostar to Brcko.

CNBC: The dollar fell to a one-month low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday and a record low against the Swiss franc after a Chinese official said the greenback would continue to weaken versus other major currencies.

Bloomberg: Commodity markets need international oversight, more transparency and intervention to deflate bubbles because increasing speculation means prices are no longer driven by supply and demand, the United Nations said.

ENInews¦ Featured Articles: In the wake of the destruction and surrender of the Japanese empire in August 1945, a “spiritual vacuum” emerged that the country’s de-facto ruler, General Douglas MacArthur, sought to fill with religious and quasi-religious beliefs still new to Japan, from Christianity to Freemasonry. That is the focus of a recently published study of the Occupation years of 1945 to 1952 by Japanese investigative journalist Eiichiro Tokumoto. In “1945 Under the Shadow of the Occupation: The Ashlar and The Cross,”

NYTimes.com: More than a month after saboteurs blew up an Egyptian pipeline supplying natural gas to Israel, the line is repaired but gas is not flowing and foreign shareholders of the company suspect politics to be the reason. They are threatening legal action against Egypt.

AP: hina has responded to more than a week of surprising protests in Inner Mongolia with its well-honed strategy: deploy overwhelming force, keep potential protesters from gathering and pledge to address at least some grievances.

AP: Turkey’s government has defended a new regulation that will filter the Internet and restrict access to websites that show pornography, bomb-making and violent content.

Washington Post: China’s Communist Party has finally got its story straight. It took 16 years of editing and four extensive rewrites. Chinese leaders, otherwise preoccupied with running a rising superpower, kibitzed throughout.

AP: A year after a widespread sex scandal rocked Roman Catholics in Pope Benedict XVI’s homeland, German intellectuals and faithful alike are turning their backs on the church, calling for change or simply leaving the congregation.

Europe News: This year’s election for the U.N. Human Rights Council has, once again, produced a body that has fewer “free” countries – 21 of a total of 47 – and has more than one-third of the seats held by members of the Islamic bloc.

Yahoo News: Spain’s ability to meet deficit reduction targets was thrown into doubt on Monday after voters angry about austerity and the EU’s highest unemployment rate gave the ruling Socialists a fierce drubbing in local elections.

Daily Mail: “‘Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality,’ he warned in remarks that underscored the deepest divide in relations between the U.S. and Israel in years.”

AP: Twenty-three women and a 43-year-old man were charged Friday with child pornography offenses in what investigators say is a unique case because of the number of female suspects.

NCPA Policy Digest: Great Britain’s government-run health care system, the National Health Service (NHS), has long considered limiting coverage for people with illnesses deemed to be lifestyle-related.

AP: The European Union president called Tuesday for a level playing field in commerce between China and Europe, warning the European public could turn to protectionism if they felt China wasn’t playing fair.

AP: The United States plans to send an envoy to North Korea for talks on the North’s urgent request for food aid, a South Korean official said Tuesday.

The Hill: The epicenter of the crisis is in China, where four out of five PC software programs were stolen last year at a commercial value of nearly $8 billion. In the United States, four out of five PC programs are legally purchased. That discrepancy unfairly skews trade and competition.

Guardian: America funding technology to break web censorship in repressive regimes, such as China and Iran

Guardian: Ugandan MPs will debate a bill calling for gay people to be imprisoned for life on Friday after a walkout by women MPs over an unrelated matter forced parliament’s adjournment.

Christian Institute: The findings are based on research conducted by Dr Tim Jones, senior lecturer in Cognitive Psychology at Worcester University and top criminologist Professor David Wilson from Birmingham City University.

BBC: The panic was sparked by rumours that seismologist Raffaele Bendandi, who died in 1979, predicted the city would be devastated by a quake on 11 May.

Express.co.uk: HUNDREDS of Osama bin Laden supporters clashed with English Defence League extremists today as a “funeral service” for the assassinated terror leader sparked fury outside London’s US Embassy.

AP: The Scottish National Party won a majority of seats in Scotland’s parliament and promised Friday to hold a vote on independence, while the Liberal Democrats suffered an enormous defeat in Britain, losing more than 600 local seats.

Catholic Culture: The Holy See Press Office has issued a statement in response to the trial of Bishop Raymond Lahey. The Canadian bishop pled guilty to possession of child pornography and faces a sentence of at least one year in prison.

Guardian: Close allies of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

CNBC: As a result of Mexico’s purchase, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and other so-called “official sector” buyers are on track to record their largest collective purchase of gold since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, which pegged the value of the dollar to gold, in 1971.

BBC: China has set up a new government body to control information on the internet.

AP on Boston Globe: The U.S. is urging China to lift restrictions on foreign investors which it says are a major barrier to improving commercial relations.

AP: A Canadian Roman Catholic bishop has pleaded guilty to importing child pornography . . . Police say they found hundreds of files and dozens of videos, many of them showing young males engaged in sexual acts.

AP: Chipping away at European unity, the EU began to revamp its unique system of unfettered cross-border travel across much of the continent Wednesday, bowing to the stresses generated by a flood of North African immigrants.

Reuters: Canada’s Conservatives stormed to a decisive victory in Monday’s federal election, winning 54 percent of the seats in Parliament and securing a stable four-year term in power after vowing to focus on the economy.

Rasmussen Reports: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just eight percent (8%) of adults now think China is a bigger threat militarily. Seventy-six percent (76%) disagree and say the Asian giant represents a bigger threat economically.

AP: Entrepreneurs could face new challenges under a government plan to modernize Chinese industry that would expand the dominance of state companies in coal mining, steel and other fields.

The Hill: The American Chamber of Commerce in China said in its annual report that there is an emerging pattern of Chinese industrial policies that favor domestic companies while stifling foreign competition, including regulations related to indigenous innovation, licensing, standards, government procurement, competition law and intellectual property enforcement.

Japan Times: penly gay candidate Taiga Ishikawa won a seat in the Toshima Ward Assembly in Tokyo in Sunday’s election, marking a historic first.

KFYI: The documents indicate al-Qaida terrorists reportedly planted a nuclear device somewhere in Europe and threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden is caught or assassinated, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported. The Telegraph also received access to the documents that WikiLeaks obtained.