BERLIN — German officials halted sales from more than 4,700 small farms after dioxin was found in some feed for chickens and pigs and as fears grew about how far contaminated food might have spread....
By Roger Cheng, Wall Street Journal technology blog, January 7, 2011
The U.S. needs to fix its primary education system, encourage talented immigrants and cut business taxes if it wants to maintain it lead in innovation, several top tech executives said Friday.
By Sami Moubayed from Damascus, Asia Times Online, January 5, 2011
United States President Barack Obama's decision to bypass the senate and appoint Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria has bigger implications for the US than its Syrian interests in the Middle East. While Republicans say the appointment sends "the wrong message", Damascus has the ear of top Iranian and Iraqi officials, and clear influence in Lebanon, making it a significant broker in the Middle East peace process.
WASHINGTON-- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Thursday for shrinking the Army and Marine Corps by as many as 47,000 troops, opting to cut ground forces in response to pressure from the White House and Congress to reduce the defense budget.
By Chrystia Freeland, Atlantic Magazine, January/February 2011 issue
F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.
Saudi Arabian officials have "detained" a vulture on accusations of being a spy for Israel, media reports say. The griffon vulture was carrying a GPS transmitter bearing the name of Tel Aviv University, prompting rumours it was part of a Zionist plot.
Note that in order to keep their readers fully informed on the general topic, BBC has also linked to a story from last month on that page:
By Christopher Bodean, Associated Press, January 5
J-20 stealth fighter photos have appeared on Chinese websites, suggesting that the leaks of images of what could be China's first stealth fighter jet are a calculated moved by the traditionally secretive People's Liberation Army.
By Anthony Shadid, New York Times, January 4-5, 2010
ZAKHO, Iraq — A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it....
Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent of the moderate Barelvi school, and a member of the non-violent Da’vat-i Islam organization....
By Jayson L. Lusk and F. Bailey Norwood, Econlib.org, January 3, 2011
(Hat tip to Donal for reminding me of this website. Unfortunately, I suspect he might not like what this essay says, but I do. And I've been an avid gardener for a couple decades now. )
By Polly Curtis, Tim Webb and Tom Burden, The Guardian, January 4, 2011
The rise in VAT marks the true start of the coalition's "squeeze" on families, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said yesterday as business leaders warned of the potential damage of the tax increase to a fragile economy.
Shoppers flooded high streets yesterday, snapping up items such as furniture, electrical goods and kitchens in an attempt to beat the VAT rise, from 17.5% to 20%, which took effect at midnight....
A fight over the budget loomed on Sunday.....White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee accused Republicans of "playing chicken" with the nation's financial credibility....
Manufacturing activity expanded for a 17th month in a row in December, rising to the highest level in seven months, a purchasing managers' group said Monday.....
By Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal Capital Journal, January 3, 2011
...Mr. Cantor insists this generational change is no accident. It's the direct result, he says, of the so-called Young Guns program that set out to recruit a new set of Republican congressional candidates for the 2010 campaign. That program was established by Messrs. Cantor and McCarthy, along with 40-year-old Rep. Paul Ryan, who now will become chairman of the budget committee. (Mr. Ryan succeeds departing Democratic chairman John Spratt, 68.)....
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post Foreign Service, January 2, 2011
TEHRAN - Iran is overhauling its education system to rid it of Western influence, the latest attempt by the government to fortify Islamic values and counter the clout of the country's increasingly secularized middle class....
By Eric Lipton, Nicola Clark and Andrew W. Lehren, New York Times, January 2, 2010
Sales campaigns for commercial jets on the global market often include politicking and cajoling at the highest levels of government.
...This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs....
Guest Op-Ed for the January 3 edition of The New York Times
THE visit by President Hu Jintao of China to Washington this month will be the most important top-level United States-Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago. It should therefore yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem.....
Coupons for Patients, but Higher Bills for Insurers
By Andrew Pollack, New York Times Business, January 2, 2011
Describes a new scheme wherein the drug companies give discount coupons for brand name drugs to insured patients, so they can get brand name drugs for a similar co-pay as with generics, while still billing the insurer the much higher amount. Think the insurers are just going to eat that? Think again. Sigh.
....This is the first time that a group of young Palestinian cyber-activists has agreed to meet a journalist since launching what it calls Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change. It is an incendiary document....that has captivated thousands of people who have come across it online, and the young university students are visibly excited, but also scared. "Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our families at risk," says one of them....
