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Suspicious Minds – Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reveals that elderly Communist Party members in the Chinese province of Yunnan have been questioned after they penned a letter calling for the sacking of Zhou Yongkang, the country’s top security official, amid rumors of continued infighting following the downfall of Bo Xilai. The Financial Times reported Sunday [...]
Thanks to sensational atrocities like the 49 headless corpses dumped on a highway last weekend, Mexico tends to grab most of the world’s drug-war attention. But as we’ve reported, the western hemisphere’s most violent drug-trafficking nexus today is Honduras, where the murder rate is five times higher than Mexico’s and is now the world’s worst. Honduras wants [...]
Deal in Nepal – The Kathmandu Post reports that Nepal’s major political parties have agreed to a future form of governance, with executive powers split between a directly elected president and a prime minister elected by parliament. “Negotiators from across party lines said that though the mixed model had some weak points, including a risk of [...]
Drug thugs dumped 49 bloodied and dismembered corpses on a northern Mexican highway on Sunday, May 13. We journalists are finding little new to say, few fresh insights to offer, about these all too frequent narco-massacres in Mexico and the 50,000 people murdered so far in the country’s endless drug war. That’s troubling, because one [...]
“Get your personal affairs in order.” It’s the hardest thing doctors have to tell cancer patients who are as ill as media reports suggest Hugo Chávez is. With an election looming in less than five months, the 57-year-old Venezuelan President would also need to get his political affairs in order — and many believe the [...]
the number of unemployed people across the world by the end this year—up from 196 million in 2011, according to the International Labour Organization’s World of Work 2012 report released Tuesday, May 1. The study said government austerity programs are sending global joblessness rates ever-higher, threatening much of Europe with a return to recession.
Thinly Veiled – Following Monday’s U.N. Security Council censure of North Korea for its recent failed rocket launch, China’s Global Times issued a stern editorial — “Pyongyang must remember to heed China’s advice.” The semi-official mouthpiece continued: “Pyongyang should treat China as a friend as China does it. It will pay the price if it [...]
The increase in world military expenditure in 2011, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “It is too early to say whether the flattening of military spending represents a long-term change of trend,” the think tank noted.
In the summit’s wake – after a U.S. Secret Service scandal involving 11 special agents, some Cartagena prostitutes and a reportedly loud disagreement between them over payment for services rendered – much of the talk is about…well, it’s not about the U.S.’s rebounding influence in Latin America.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will host the sixth Summit of the Americas this weekend, April 14 to 15, in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. The hemispheric gathering marks a comeback for Colombia, which is emerging from half a century of crippling guerrilla, drug and political violence and is making a serious bid to be [...]
