Japan has a state-of-the-art forecasting system that predicts the trajectory and magnitude of radiation leaked into the air, but Japan didn’t act on its own information, according to the Associated Press. The forecasting system, SPEEDI, was built in 1986 at a cost of 11 billion yen ($140 million). The system uses weather conditions and the […]
While the markets continue to create waves of pressure on the US and Europe and investors worldwide, America’s downgrade due to political infighting within the United States was met with a confirmed Triple A rating for it’s neighbor, Canada. Canada is not immune to partisan politics, but in the last election a few months back, […]
A lot has been said by the major Western news sources (WSJ, Bloomberg, FT, NY Times) about China’s reaction to the downgrade of the U.S. creditworthiness. Although there has been no official comment from Beijing since the downgrade, the Xinhua news agency (the official mouth-piece and the usual government ‘attack dog’ for criticizing the U.S.) […]
Editor’s Note: The following piece was written by Omid Memarian for the IPS News Agency. Omid Memarian is an Iranian-American journalist and analyst based in San Francisco. Mr. Memarian is a regular contributor to the IPS News Agency (Inter Press Service), the Daily Beast, as well as Huffington Post. He is also recipient of Human […]
Controversial Procedures Please read part one first The Commission’s report indicated controversies existed around the last criteria. Rather than the parliament, ex-Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, of the provisional government that replaced ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s administration after his forced exile in February 2004, relieved Gousse of his duties as Justice Minister. According to the report, Former […]
Hardly after the 66th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara said Japan should perform simulated nuclear weapons tests to maintain its presence on the world stage. Ishihara said at a press conference that the Obama administration has been conducting subcritical nuclear tests and computer simulations since 2010, even after Obama […]
A few documentaries have caught my eye. A couple I have seen, one I just received a copy of, and a couple I am looking forward to seeing as soon as possible: SnagFilms has “Raindrops Over Rwanda” streaming for free, and if enough people watch it they will donate $50,000 to the Kigali Memorial Centre in […]
The Mail & Guardian has a comprehensive online guide to this year’s labour strikes. It is a great one-stop-shopping site to get up to speed on events that have shaken South African society and politics.
Are you reading the African Arguments network of blogs? You should be. African Arguments is a project of the Royal African Society in London, and the “intention of the site is to provide a forum for the serious analysis and discussion of contemporary African affairs with an emphasis on political life, and its impact on […]
Yesterday’s 5.6 percent drop in the Dow reverberated through Latin America’s major stock exchanges. Argentina’s stock market took the worst hit, losing almost 11 percent of its value. Brazil’s Bovespa declined more than 8 percent; Chile and Peru’s markets each lost 7 percent. Mexico’s stock market, the Bolsa, withstood the sell-off better than the other […]
From August 6 – 11, the “Northern Sea Route to Strategic Stability and Equal Partnership in the Arctic” conference is taking place aboard the Yamal, a Russian nuclear icebreaker. Representatives from all eight Arctic states, along with several Russian ministers and policymakers, are in attendance. The icebreaker will travel west from the port of Varendey […]
Santosh Hegde blows the lid on another mega-scandal The latest malefaction to explode in India’s seemingly unending season of scandals concerns the illegal mining and export of iron-ore deposits in the southwestern state of Karnataka. According to an extensive report – some 25,000 pages in length, with the summary running almost 500 – released […]
Cyril Ramaphosa is the potential game changer in South African politics. The master negotiator for the ANC during the CODESA process that ultimately led to 1994’s elections and the end of apartheid chose the path of business rather than politics after the mid-1990s. Yet there have long been whispers, hints, and yearnings for Ramaphosa to […]
Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s administration announced Thursday that it would fire three senior policy officials over allegations that the government had grown too friendly with the nuclear power industry. The three officials that the Trade and Industry Minister, Banri Kaieda, canned were Kazuo Matsunaga, Vice Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry; Nobuaki Terasaka, head of […]
There is a common misconception that China is an actual member state of ASEAN. Indeed, China is not one of the ten member states that make up the organization. An interesting fact about this regional institution is that during its earlier years, two of the member states – Indonesia and Vietnam – had their own […]