What Wedding? — TIME’s Ishaan Tharoor writes the definitive non-wedding story: ‘Five Reasons to Hate the Royal Wedding.’ Love it anyway? Click here.
New Waves— Over the last 32 years, China’s remarkable growth has shown that Western-style modernism is not the only route to modernization, writes Eric Li for the Christian Science …
After two days of talks in Beijing on human rights, a U.S. representative expressed concern about the recent crackdown in China and the lack of information about several activists being held incommunicado by police. “In recent months we’ve seen a serious backsliding on human rights and a discussion of these negative trends dominated the …
Tomorrow’s wedding—yes, that one—is termed a semi-state occasion. And it seems that the House of Windsor and Her Majesty’s Government have got themselves into a semi-state about it. Hear that screeching? It’s the noise of palace machinery being thrown into reverse as representatives of dodgy regimes are disinvited, while Tony Blair …
Have Oil, Will Fight — The West is considering blocking all oil trade with Libya. That’s ill-advised, argues Vivienne Walt. By tapping into the country’s own vast supplies, Gaddafi could keep his army fighting for a while.
Post-Racial — David Remnick calls out Donald Trump and his fellow ‘birthers’ in an essay for the New Yorker. …
Turning Points — Misratah, the besieged port city in western Libya, has become a symbol, for both sides, of the rebellion’s reach. Abigail Hauslohner and Aryn Baker explain why neither Gaddafi nor the rebels can afford to let it go.
New Leaders — The Wall Street Journal interviews Lobsang Sangay, the new prime minister of …
One of the most disheartening things about food safety problems in China, aside from the harm they do to human health, is the regularity with which they occur. That thought came to mind as news of the latest tainted food scandal emerged this week. Nearly 300 villagers in Hunan were hospitalized over the weekend after eating pork at a …
Yes. Read why on Battleland.
Guantanamo Files — The story of the day is the leak of 700 documents related to the notorious American prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The disturbing details are, frankly, too many to list. To get you started, the Guardian has a useful summary and the New York Times’ multimedia package is worth a look. See the original documents, …
Talk all you like about the “troubled Middle East” but yet another survey is out showing Israelis, at least, quite like their lives. Israel ranks 7th in the entire world in the new Gallup Global Wellbeing report, which covers more than 150 countries. Residents were asked questions based on the splendidly named Cantril Self-Anchoring …
It was an injustice that led a 26-year-old Tunisian street trader called Mohammed Bouazizi to douse himself in petrol and strike a match. The resulting conflagration killed Bouazizi, crackled through Tunisia, chasing out its despised President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and sparked uprisings across the region that are still burning …
Berbers Do Battle — A rebel victory in Libya’s mountainous west may solidify the alliance between Arab rebels and Berber tribes, says Graeme Smith in the Globe and Mail; Read TIME’s Ishaan Tharoor on the fighting in western Libya, here.
Tempests, Teacups — Writing in the New Yorker, Peter Hessler, a Peace Corps …
The odds didn’t seem good for Li Zhuang. A defense attorney who had already once fallen afoul of the law, Li was back on trial this week in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese megacity that has been waging a very public campaign against organized crime. In 2009, as the anti-gang campaign was starting, Li briefly represented Gong …
Troublemakers — Damascus claims subversives out of Lebanon are inciting unrest in Syria, says Nicholas Blanford in a dispatch from Wadi Khaled. But his visit to the border seems to provide evidence that the traffic is the other way around.
Killed in Action — Two photojournalists were killed in Libya yesterday. The New York Times‘ …
