Reblogged from National Post | News:
As North Korea pledges to never abandon its nuclear capabilities, the National Post’s Scott Barber looks at the escalating rhetoric coming from the Hermit Kingdom, and the world’s response.
March 7
The U.S. “is set to light the fuse for nuclear war,” said a spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry after the UN Security Council passes tougher sanctions against North Korea.
Reblogged from National Post | News:
Japanese Coast Guard vessels fired water cannon to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and eight Taiwan Coast Guard vessels from waters Japan considers its own on Tuesday in the latest twist to a row between Tokyo and Beijing.
If you're among the throng of citizens outraged by questionable legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, CISPA and ACTA, the White House has a deal for you. On Monday, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel called on all interested parties to submit their comments and suggestions for how the United States should go about combating IP piracy. That's right: clearly having learned a lesson from the backlash its peers in Congress endured recently, the executive branch is trying to open up the process and, presumably, develop an anti-piracy strategy that's actually sane.
The European Parliament has been advised to reject a controversial new global anti-piracy trade agreement.
Parliament's influential international trade committee on Thursday voted 19-12 against merely deferring its decision on adopting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) until the European Court of Justice has decided whether it would violate the EC's fundamental freedoms.
The vote means parliament is more likely to adopt the committee's view against ACTA in its July 4 plenary meeting, regardless of whether the court rules it lawful or not.
Reblogged from Fortune Management & Career Blog:
FORTUNE -- Private equity executives and plumbers. In an obvious shot at Republican presidential candidate and Bain Capital chief Mitt Romney, Vice President Joe Biden said a few weeks back that they're equally prepared to be President -- which is to say not at all.
Reblogged from National Post | News:
French President François Hollande's Socialists won an absolute parliamentary majority on Sunday, strengthening his hand as he presses Germany to support debt-laden euro zone states hit by austerity cuts and ailing banks.
The Socialist bloc secured between 296 and 321 seats in the parliamentary election runoff, according to reliable projections from a partial vote count, comfortably more than the 289 needed for a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
Reblogged from Financial Post | Business:
LONDON - Parties committed to Greece’s multi-billion-euro bailout are on course to secure a slim parliamentary majority on Sunday, according to an official vote projection from the interior ministry.
The projection showed New Democracy taking 29.5 percent of the vote, with SYRIZA in second place with 27.1 percent. The Socialist PASOK followed in third place with 12.3 percent.
The result translates into 128 seats for New Democracy and 33 seats for PASOK.
Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera lives on with the announcement today that Prince Charles is to be made Field Marshall, Admiral of the Fleet and Marshall of The Royal Airforce - the highest military ranks.
The luvvies are doing their best to see who can be the most self-deprecating about their 'Honours'... the BBC reports
The British Empire Medal makes a come back.
Reblogged from Financial Post | Business:
BERLIN/PARIS - Germany’s Angela Merkel criticized France’s economic performance on Friday in a war of words with its new Socialist president, Francois Hollande, over how to tackle Europe’s deepening debt crisis ahead of a pivotal election in Greece.
Describing her own country as Europe’s “stabilizing anchor and growth engine," the centre-right chancellor told German business leaders that Europe should talk about the growing gap between the bloc’s two biggest economies.
HBO has apologized after a scene in Game of Thrones featuring the disembodied head of George W. Bush on a pike was uncovered. HBO told the website io9: "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste"; the scene will be removed from future releases of the episode on DVD.
The producers of
Reblogged from National Post | News:
Undeterred by a sudden escalation in the Kremlin’s crackdown on the opposition, tens of thousands of Russians flooded Moscow’s tree-lined boulevards Tuesday in the first mass protest against President Vladimir Putin since his inauguration in May.
In an appearance before the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow, the CEO of Continental Resources will argue for preserving the billions of dollars in tax subsidies the federal government provides to oil companies each year. Given that Continental Resources bills itself as "America's Oil Champion" (after, we assume, a difficult championship battle), the CEO's stance probably comes as no surprise. In fact, it's hard to figure out why the Senate's even bothering to hear from him, when a large blinking sign reading MORE MONEY PLS would be functionally equivalent.
WASHINGTON - Respected Republican Jeb Bush suggested Monday that neither adored conservative icon Ronald Reagan nor his own father, George H.W. Bush, would have enjoyed much success in today's ultra-conservative, intensely partisan Republican party.
"They got a lot of things done with bipartisan support, but right now it's just difficult to imagine,” Bush, brother of the 43rd U.S. president and son of the 41st, said in a round-table discussion with reporters and editors held by Bloomberg View in Manhattan.
Thirty-two-point-six percent of the residents of Philadelphia are obese -- a staggering figure, and a higher percentage than any other large city in America.
To address the issue, the city has committed $900,000 to a program that would expand access to healthful food at small, local convenience stores. (We wrote about Philadelphia's efforts last August.) Selecting some 600 of its 2,500 corner stores to receive funding -- and refrigeration systems -- the city aims to make fresh fruits and vegetables available in communities that are currently labeled…
Reblogged from National Post | News:
ATHENS — A Greek far-right politician who slapped a left-wing politician in the face and threw water at another during a live television talk show sued his victims for defamation on Monday.
Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman of the far-right Golden Dawn party, said he would also sue private TV station Antenna for wrongful detention after he was locked in a room in the studio following the attack until he broke down the door and escaped.
“When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.”
Pope John Paul II
After The Home Secretary's extraordinary performance on Andrew Marr this morning where she set out her cunning plan to bring out guidelines for the judges in relation to the interpretation of…
Reblogged from National Post | News:
PARIS — Socialist President François Hollande looked set to consolidate his grip on power with a left-wing majority in parliament after a first-round vote on Sunday, and may be able to govern without relying on hard leftists hostile to closer European integration.
Initial projections by polling agencies based on a partial vote count suggested his core Socialist bloc could win 283 to 329 seats in the 577-member National Assembly in next Sunday’s runoff, shifting the lower house to the left for the first time in a decade.
Reblogged from National Post | News:
Queen Victoria's musing on the week, as imagined by Tristin Hopper.
Monday
So it’s 60 years for Elizabeth, is it? Big deal. Try hanging in for the full six-oh without indoor plumbing and central heating — and with an actual empire to run.
At my Diamond Jubilee, I didn’t even leave my carriage. No way you’d catch me standing on some tacky barge for an afternoon to be gawked at like a circus bear.
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. from the South Side of Chicago is introducing a $10-per-hour minimum wage across the nation. As a representative, he introduced the measure to his fellow-congressmen in the House yesterday.
It has been five years since the federal minimum wage has been raised. The employees affected are those that are covered by federal minimum wage laws. In 2007, it was set at $7.25 which means Jackson is asking the lawmakers to boost the minimum wage approximately 38% over the five-year period.
Reblogged from National Post | News:
MOSCOW — Helmeted riot police round up hundreds of protesters, including some whose only apparent crime is wearing white ribbons of opposition. A teacher who spoke out about election rigging is dragged into court and fined. Now a new law signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday raises fines for participating in unauthorized protests 150-fold, to nearly the average annual salary in Russia.
Reblogged from National Post | News:
In the supposed workers’ paradise of North Korea, inequality is assigned at birth, a study by a U.S.-based human rights group says.
Education, jobs, access to scarce food and health care, and even whom you marry all hinge on how loyal your forebears are viewed to have been to the Kim dynasty that took power six decades ago.
The study released Wednesday by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea says all adults in the socialist state are categorized as one of three classes: loyal, wavering or hostile.
South Korea has by some measurements the highest suicide rate among industrialized nations. According to the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD), 28 out of 100,000 Koreans took their own lives in 2009 -- nearly triple the rate in the U.S. On any given day in Korea, an average of 40 people kill themselves.
Reblogged from Business & Money:
In April, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took aim at China's powerful state-owned banks. According to Reuters, he said at a discussion with local businesses: "Frankly, our banks make profits far too easily. Why? Because a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position, meaning one can only go to them for loans and capital. That's why right now, as we're dealing with the issue of getting private capital into the finance sector, essentially, that means we have to break up their monopoly."
WSJ Markets
Recent Comments