GlobalPost, a Boston-based news organization that provides international news to a U.S. audience, has redesigned its business news page. Thomas Mucha, the editor in chief, explained the changes in an e-mail to Talking Biz News: GlobalPost’s editorial mission is to “explain earth” every day by using our extensive network of professional journalists based in more than 50 countries (we employ approximately 100 journalists from around the world each month). Our audience is deeply interested, in particular, in a broad range of global business and economics stories — from the ongoing euro crisis, to emerging economies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, to what’s happening every day in the BRICs and beyond. A quick look at our audience demographics explains why: GlobalPost’s audience ... Continue reading →
GlobalPost, a Boston-based news organization that provides international news to a U.S. audience, has redesigned its business news page. Thomas Mucha, the editor in chief, explained the changes in an e-mail to Talking Biz News: GlobalPost’s editorial mission is to “explain earth” every day by using our extensive network of professional journalists based in more than 50 countries (we employ approximately 100 journalists from around the world each month). Our audience is deeply interested, in particular, in a broad range of global business and economics stories — from the ongoing euro crisis, to emerging economies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, to what’s happening every day in the BRICs and beyond. A quick look at our audience demographics explains why: GlobalPost’s audience ... Continue reading →
The human rights organization Amnesty International claimed on Friday that North Korea had killed at least 30 officials last year and rounded up 200 more in January of this year, executing some and sending others to political prison camps. The Telegraph said the State Security Agency rounded up the 200 as power was transferred from the late Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-un. The 30 who were executed last year became scapegoats after they failed to improve ties with South Korea, taking the fall for the low point in the relationship between the north and south. The Telegraph noted that North Korean officials often shoulder the blame on failed policies even when they are carrying out orders from higher up. More on GlobalPost: North ... Continue reading →
Here's one of the more colorful sayings attributed to China's new material girls, most notoriously on a Chinese television dating show: "I'd rather cry in the back of your BMW than laugh on the back of your bicycle." Funny, yes. But the remark also reveals the aspirational urge across China to leave behind symbols of the past and to race headlong — wallets open and arms outstretched — into a more prosperous future. As the Economist points out today in a must-read special report on the Chinese economy, the bicycle has long been a useful analogy for thinking about China's remarkable and complex economy: everything's fine as long as you keep peddling. Here's how writer Simon Cox puts it: "Bikes—especially when heavily laden—are stable only ... Continue reading →
NAIROBI, Kenya — African Union forces in Somalia announced on Friday that they had taken control of Afgoye, a town 18 miles outside the capital Mogadishu, after a three day offensive against Islamist insurgents who have used the area as a headquarters. "We are now fully controlling Afgoye town," said Lt Colonel Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The military operation to oust Al Shabaab from their Afgoye stronghold was a tricky one because the area is also home to as many as 400,000 displaced people who live in temporary shacks either side of the main road. The UN refugee agency said that 6,200 people had fled their homes during three days of fighting over Afgoye. Speaking in the Kenyan capital ... Continue reading →
Need to know: The US housing market may be doing a little bit better, but nearly one in three homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, according to the real estate website Zillow. A few sunbelt states and Michigan have it even worse. In Arizona, one of the states hardest hit by the housing downturn, more than half of all homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. But the news isn’t all bad. Zillow said nine in every 10 underwater borrowers were still making mortgage payments on time. Want to know: Everyone knows CEOs make a lot more money than pretty much everyone else, but the Associated Press has painful new way to quantify it. David Simon, the head of Simon Property, the company ... Continue reading →
Just before 10 a.m. ET today somewhere over Australia, SpaceX became the first privately owned company to successfully launch a rocket and dock with the International Space Station. American astronaut Donald Pettit used the ISS’s robotic arm to reach out and grab the Dragon capsule. “It looks like we have a dragon by the tail,” Pettit told mission controls in Houston and Hawthorne, Calif. It was shortly after that, a NASA Television webcast showed a jubilant control center in Hawthorne, home of SpaceX. The entire mission took 3 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120525/space-station-snags-dragon-the-tail Continue reading →
Mao Sugiyama has taken performance art to a whole new level. In March, just days after his 22 birthday, Sugiyama reportedly had his penis and testicles surgically removed and kept them frozen for two months before dishing them out. Sugiyama identifies as an asexual and used the exhibition to show that he does not affiliate with either gender, according to the Huffington Post. He cooked his genitals, seasoned and braised them, then served them to customers at an event hall on May 13, according to postings on his Twitter and IOL News. He divvied up the severed penis shaft, testicles, and scrotal skin between five people, who each paid $250-a-plate, and garnished it with button mushrooms and Italian parsley. Sugiyama initially considered eating them himself, ... Continue reading →
Mao Sugiyama has taken performance art to a whole new level. In March, just days after his 22 birthday, Sugiyama reportedly had his penis and testicles surgically removed and kept them frozen for two months before dishing them out. Sugiyama identifies as an asexual and used the exhibition to show that he does not affiliate with either gender, according to the Huffington Post. He cooked his genitals, seasoned and braised them, then served them to customers at an event hall on May 13, according to postings on his Twitter and IOL News. He divvied up the severed penis shaft, testicles, and scrotal skin between five people, who each paid $250-a-plate, and garnished it with button mushrooms and Italian parsley. Sugiyama initially considered eating them himself, ... Continue reading →
