(Not) From Russia With Love

British authorities believe that they've found a good suspect in the Litvinenko case, but Russia is not cooperating in his extradition, rather stating that he will stay in Russia and be charged there 'if there is sufficient evidence' (what that means in Russia's judicial system, however, is unclear). Andrei Lugovoi apparently 'laughed off' ideas of being extradited in a public statement. You can assume that this is now a dead end for the investigation. In other Russian stonewalling, a combined mission of both Georgia and the United States captured a Russian man attempting to carry weapons-grade uranium out of Russia and into Georgia. Russia, again, is not cooperating with the case.

Now for some 'big' thoughts. Time covers ideas of consciousness. The Star looks at the psychology of language work done by Steven Pinker. And if that's not enough for you, how about Fukuyama on Immigration and Identity; Bruckner on multiculturalism; Rosen on orientalism, or Broder on Western cultural capitulation. Like economics? Try a call for a return to Keynesianism from Le Monde diplomatique, or alternatively an article on Milton Friedman in the New York Review of Books.

Also:
- The NYT on the complex political situation in Iran.
- France mourns the passing of Abbe Pierre.
- Archaeologists have found the cave of Remus and Romulus.
- Zimbabwe is facing an extreme food deficit.
- Why does the stock market always rise in January?
- Women's clothing sizes are changing in Spain to reflect healthy body sizes.
- The CSM talks about the successes of Stephen Harper.
- The NDP calls for a ban on ATM bank fees.
- Explaining Kafka.
- Women find men whom other women find attractive, more attractive. Welcome to the world of memetic desire.

Obamamania!

Yes, you're probably already aware of it, but just to let you know for hundredth time, Barak Obama has formed an exploratory committee for a Presidential bid. Needless to say, he's generated the most amount of press and is a clear front-runner on the Democratic side. However, now the real questioning begins - is he the real deal, or are we looking at another version of Howard Dean? I'm hopeful that it's not the later.

Germany is moving forward in a number of different areas now that they are the head of the EU. First, Chancellor Merkel is proposing to put the EU Constitution back on track, hoping to approve it by 2009. Second, they are seriously looking at pushing the EU to make strides toward opening up their labour markets for African workers promoting 'circular migration,' hopefully without the negative consequences of their previous 'guest worker' programs. Though not EU related, an article in Der Spiegel notes how, unlike France, Germany is not worried about the 'degradation' of their language from foreign words, noting all the German words that have crept into many world languages.

Also:
- Ahmadinejad is facing increasing pressure at home.
- CSM explains the Shiite-Sunni split.
- NYT examines what $1.2 trillion can do, other than funding the Iraq War. Welcome to opportunity cost.
- A poll taken in Britain shows that most people support the creation of an English Parliament.
- Astronomers have found eight new 'hobbit galaxies' in the Local Group.
- A picture of Earth from 4 billion miles away.
- Choosing between Equate brand and a name brand? Guess what? They're exactly the same.
- Dion stresses the importance of environmental policy.
- Psychology Today looks at how the role of humour is differentiated between the sexes.
- The Telegraph on the decline of the trophy wife.
- A new way to map music using non-Euclidean geometry.
- A picture of the United States labelled with countries most equating each state's GDP.

Britian and France... Up in a tree...

Two interesting historical facts about European politics that I learned this year. First was that during WWII before the French government surrendered to the Germans, Charles de Gaulle attempted to lobby for a political union between the France and Britain against the common German enemy. Now, it turns out that the same thing was proposed again in 1956 by French Prime Minister Guy Mollet during a meeting with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Once the appeal for political union was turned down, the French PM then lobbied for France to become part of the Commonwealth. Needless to say, none of this happened, but it is an interesting historical footnote.

Over in Russia, a new law was introduced that prevents any immigrants from seeking jobs in retail trade, which will replace a 40% maximum the police used to target Central Asians and Caucasians in market raids. Johnny Depp is reportedly planning to make a movie based on the life of the life of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who was poisoned in London in November.

Also:
- A Pentagon official speaks out against a top law firm that consistently asks to represent to represent Guantánamo Bay inmates, stating that their corporate clients should stop doing business with them because of their commitment to seeing justice done.
- The genetics of sleep.
- Why Europeans are taller than Americans.
- Researchers at York University have found that bilingualism delays dementia.

Big day for Astronomers

Lots of astronomy stuff going on. First, a new gamma-ray observatory is being prepared for launch by NASA. Meanwhile, the existing Chandra X-Ray observatory has observed the reflection of a Mercury-sized object being devoured by the black hole in the centre of our galaxy. New measurements show that the Magellanic Clouds, once thought to be orbital companions of the Milky Way, might actually be independent of our galaxy. India's space programme took a major step launching its first recoverable satellite. A PhD student has hypothesized that the famous 'Pillars of Creation' were destroyed 6,000 years ago by a supernova. However, since they are 7,000 light years away, they still 'exist' for us. Finally, the first triple quasar system has been discovered, previously considered statistically almost impossible.

Also:
- The Russian oil is flowing again through Belarus.
- Today is the 5th anniversary of the use of Guantanamo Bay as a detention facility.
- The US attacks in Somalia may have killed some Canadian citizens.
- Speaking of Canada, the US Defence Department is warning defence contractors about bugged loonies.
- The NYT looks at the the effect of minimum wage laws along state borders with differing minimum wages.
- Four ways the US Congress could stop the war in Iraq, if they really wanted to.
- Judaism starts to go open source.
- Ireland's economy has soared in the past decade, and researchers have found a telling sign of this new prosperity. In a sample of Irish Euro notes, they found that 100% of them contained some trace of cocaine.

Who questions doing something about climate change these days?

The chief economist of Chrysler, apparently, claiming that the Europeans had a 'Chicken Little' view of the problem. This comes as the European Commission is preparing to unveil a new environmental policy including plans for a 20% cut in greenhouse gases from the 1990 levels by 2020. The problem is that he's not completely incorrect. At this point in time, the cost associated with we would have to do to make even a marginal change in increasing temperature would be huge compared to what with could accomplish putting it elsewhere (welcome to opportunity cost). Still, it's this sort of attitude that prevents Americans from doing anything at all, and that's clearly not the optimum strategy.

Meanwhile in Poland the scandal facing the Church over Communist spying continues on, as other priests, including 3 bishops, are accused of similar deeds. A story from the CSM talks about how the massive migration out of Poland and other Central/Eastern European countries has spawned new programmes trying to draw them back. It's an interesting economic experiment in a way, because the shortage of labour (all things being equal, of course) should increase real wages within these countries, making the wage disparity between the West and East more equitable. However, this effect will be depressed by the fact that the people most likely to leave are also the most productive - the economic theory assumes that they migrants are being drawn from a random population, which is likely not the case.

Belarus has given into Russian demands and removed a transit tax on oil shipments, but the effects of the shutdown are still being felt in Europe, leading to a continuing questioning of their current reliance on Russian energy. Der Spiegel has a profile on Semyon Vainshtok, the president of the Russian pipeline company who made the decision.

Also:
- There is apparently a move about by reformers in the Iranian Parliament to impeach President Ahmadinejad.
- More of Germany's attempts to fight neo-Nazi movements.
- European businesses are now more confident in the future than their American peers.
- Britain eyes making a probe to orbit the moon.
- Astronomers have found the first celestial object to have more than two poles.
- The rumour mill has Justin Trudeau contemplating a run for a federal seat in Montréal. Let the love-in begin!

Russia shuts off the oil

In an escalation of the current dispute over Belarus siphoning oil from a pipeline running through their country from Russia in retaliation for doubling their gas prices, Russia has counter-retaliated by cutting off the oil supply to Belarus, and therein Western Europe as well. It was initially reported that Belarus was the cause of the shut down, but the Belarus government claims that the stoppage comes from Russian soil. German Chancellor Merkel declared this sudden interruption of oil as "unacceptable," and many German newspapers mulled over the reliability of Russia as a trading partner and their reliance on foreign energy.

In other news:
- Scientists believe that many differing physical characteristics are not caused just by genes themselves, but in variations in their expression.
- Psychology Today talks about how conservatives and liberals are different in many things other than their political opinion.
- Italy considers what to do about 25 CIA agents accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric within its borders and sending him to Egypt to be tortured.
- Slate weighs in on the Polish archbishop scandal.
- A modification of the burqa allows Australian Muslim women to serve as lifeguards.
- The BBC on how spicy foods can kill cancer cells.
- With the Democrats proposing an increase in the minimum wage, the Christian Science Monitor looks at what it's like to live on the current minimum wage.

A hodge-podge of different stuff

The oil row between Russia and Belarus is beginning to effect the EU, as supply to Poland and Germany drops by 20%. Meanwhile, Georgian fruit-farmers are fighting back, blocking the main route between North Ossetia and South Ossetia in protest of the Russian ban on imports that were imposed a year ago. This all comes during an 10-day holiday period in Russia during the first week of the new year, where the leisure time increases the crime rate dramatically and points out the increasing economic disparity between the poor and the well-off. Another story illustrates the increasing discrimination and ethnic tension Muslims are facing in Russia.

In astronomy, scientists have constructed a hypothetical 3D map of dark matter using observations made by the Hubble space telescope. On the flip side, a Washington State University professor claims that the initial searches for life on Mars may have inadvertently killed the life they were looking for. Despite the amount of research done on using genes to cure diseases, other scientists are now looking for sequences of DNA that ensure that life will not happen. Since I'm studying international politics, massive fights over methodology (and epistemology) are nothing new to me, and this paper talking about some of the methodological Balkanisation in the biological sciences with regards to new techniques at least makes me feel like we're not the only ones.


In other news:
- The top 10 foreign policy stories you might have missed in 2006, according to Foreign Policy.
- Far-right MEPs in the European Parliament are joining together to increase their political power, as a German town successfully banded together to drive out neo-Nazi extremists.
- Leaked documents state that Israel planned to bomb Iranian nuclear sites with nuclear weapons - or did they?
- The New Yorker looks at the rhetoric versus the reality of Chávez's Venezuela.
- A Guardian piece about Afghan families who sell their pre-pubescent daughters as brides in order to feel the family.
- If you were lucky enough to make over $1 million this year, you also were lucky enough to gain the most from the Bush tax cuts.
- China is flying high economically, but high levels of corruption may take the shine out of the growth.
- After the resignation of an archbishop for Communist spying, Der Spiegel takes a look at the changing relationship of Poles to the Catholic Church.
- Slate examines the issue of cloned food.
- The American Dialectical Society claims that 'plutoed,' or to to demote or devalue
someone or something, is the word of the year. (pdf)
- Thanks to the Wii, video games might now actually be good for you.