A new kind of empire?

This is the question the Christian Science Monitor asks in its new mini-series of stories about American military/economic/cultural power in the world. The navigation for the three articles is under the graphic on the right. An interesting read.

In good news, President Thabo Mbeki is meeting with the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to discuss ways in which South Africa can develop the mining industry after the war laid waste to much of the production. This in addition to agreements in security, human rights, and other subjects. I particularly like this idea since it features a non-colonial power helping out the development of this shattered country for more of a 'made-in-Africa' solution to their problems.

In more good news, at least for the Dean campaign, it looks like Carol Mosley Braun is going to drop out of the race and endorse Dean. This will be useful to the campaign, especially after the attempt by Al Sharpton to portray Dean as a racist in a recent debate, to which she had leapt to Dean's defense.

Speaking of the primary, it looks like for the first time in a while Iowans are having trouble picking out a candidate because they like them all as opposed to voting for the one that doesn't seem as bad as the rest. However Wesley Clark isn't running in Iowa, which might be good given that he's only now gotten on the bandwagon in declaring the there was no link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, even though he had said there was in a New York Times interview in 2002.

In Canadian politics, another member of the Conservative Alliance has jumped ship for the Liberals, making for a total of four Tories having left the new Conservative party. Given that Dr. Martin was always one of the cooler members of the Alliance, it's not too surprising that he wanted nothing to do with the new party. There are also rumours that former Liberal Heritage Minister Sheila Copps might run for the NDP in the next federal election. The Sheila Copps defection, if it happens, could work well for the NDP who have always had a strong presence in her Hamilton riding and would probably gain some of the Liberal vote with her crossing the floor.

In what seems to be the biggest science news of the day, a robot researcher has been developed that outperformed human scientists in a lab. Working with a 'hypothesis generator,' the computer generated results just as accurate as graduate students and did not need to perform as many experiments to come to the same conclusions. This could be a benefit to scientific research like genomics where there is too much data being generated for scientists to analyze.

Deutsche Welle wins the cake for the most number of interesting stories today however, with one exploring the limits of reality shows. Also, in a move I greatly approve of, the EU is considering banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Personally, there's nothing I hate more than knowing that spending a night out will result in everything you wear smelling like cigarette smoke, so I'm very pro-smoking bans. Finally, a great story on a German brewery making 'anti-aging beer.' Leave it to the Germans to figure out a way to make beer healthy. :)