On Tuesday, Japanese food producer Meiji announced the recall of 400,000 cans of infant formula after traces of radioactive cesium were found in the company’s milk powder. Tests of the “Meiji Step” batch of formula with an …
Case of Scottish Hacker Illustrates Divide Between U.S. and U.K. Extradition Laws
Sometimes the bleakest of battles can find some unexpected support.
In 2002, a Scottish man living in North London found himself under suspicion for hacking into dozens of Pentagon and NASA databases from his home computer. …
Bombs Explode in Afghanistan, While Seats Go Empty in Bonn
When Afghan President Hamid Karzai, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with some 100 high-level Afghan and International delegations, met in Bonn for a conference on Afghanistan’s …
Crunch Time for the Euro and Europe: Taking Note of the Elephant
Elephant, meet room.
Doubt and despair returned to Europe by Tuesday despite positive reaction a day earlier to the French-German proposals to save the teetering euro. The reason? The pachyderm in the room that markets see all …
Snow Falling on Smog: Is There Any Hope for Beijing’s Air?
During the 2008 Olympics, there was hope. The prospect of China’s coming-out party being swathed in a choking haze prompted Beijing to take major steps to clean up its notoriously bad air: moving factories out of the city, …
So Long, Socrates, the Da Vinci of Brazilian Soccer
“Football is freedom,” Bob Marley once said, and the legendary Jamaican musician — like all of the African Diaspora and the Global South in general — claimed Brazil as his own proxy representative at soccer’s World Cup. No …
Is Sarkozy and Merkel’s New Debt Proposal The Beginning of The End To The Euro Crisis?
The details of the campaign by France and Germany to save the euro became a little clearer Monday though substantial questions about it remain as the week winds toward a European Union summit on the euro crisis summit on Friday. …
The Return of the Blood Diamond. (And We Don’t Mean the Movie).
They say a diamond is forever. From today, and for now, that also includes blood diamonds. On Monday the respected rights and commerce watchdog Global Witness announced it was quitting the international certification scheme set …
Israel on the Islamist Surge in Egypt: Told You So
The stunning showing by Salafist parties in the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections surprised Israeli officials as much as the rest of the world. The estimated 40 percent of the vote that went to the Muslim …
Top Chinese Security Official Sounds Warning about Economic Imbalances
As labor unrest continues to bubble in China’s export-oriented manufacturing regions, a top Chinese official has warned the country needs to improve its means of handling the harmful side-effects of its market economy. In …
British Ambassador Describes Embassy’s Takeover by Iranian Mob
Dominick Chilcott, the UK’s wonderfully named ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, has given the Washington Post’s Frances Stead Sellers a blow-by-blow account of the view from inside the British embassy when an Iranian mob breached its gate and ransacked the compound, as well as an embassy residential compound a few miles away. …
The Bonn Conference: Can Afghanistan Be Saved Without Pakistan On Board?
It’s rarely a good sign these days when a summit gets referenced by the city that hosts it: Kyoto is now synonymous with the international community’s failures dealing with climate change; Oslo has become another watchword for …
Despite Downed U.S. Drone Claims, Iran War Talk May Be Overblown
Anyone cut off from all news media for the six months before December 2011 could be forgiven for imagining we’re in the opening stages of a war between the West and Iran. Sunday’s headline was Iran’s claim to have captured a …