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via Paul Sloan, CNET News It may seem odd to talk about user growth for Facebook, which with 1 billion-plus members is already more than three times the size of the entire U.S. population. But much of what the company does boils down to just that: How to add the next billion users? And then … Continue reading
via Lucy Sherriff, The Huffington Post A university’s Christian society has banned women from speaking at events and teaching at meetings, unless they are accompanied by their husband, it has been revealed. The Bristol University Christian Union (BUCU) had originally decided women would be allowed to teach at meetings after their international secretary resigned in … Continue reading
via BBC News Israel says it will not give in to international pressure to halt plans for 3,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would continue to stand by its “vital interests” and would not change its decision. The UK, France, Spain, Denmark and Sweden … Continue reading
via Aron Heller and Karin Laub, Associated Press Israel responded swiftly Friday to U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, revealing it will build 3,000 more homes for Jews on Israeli-occupied lands that the world body overwhelmingly said belong to the Palestinians. The plans also include future construction in a strategic area of the West Bank … Continue reading
via BBC News The UN General Assembly has voted to grant the Palestinians non-member observer state status – a move opposed by Israel and the US. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the assembly the vote was the “last chance to save the two-state solution” with Israel. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, said the … Continue reading
via Ariel Zirulnick, Christian Science Monitor Now that the exhumation and reburial of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is complete, the wait for results on cause of death begins. Suspicions that Israel poisoned him are widespread, and the results will put to rest eight years of questions about his rapid health deterioration and subsequent death. … Continue reading
via The Wall Street Journal French President François Hollande has a bold new plan to tackle social injustice and inequality in France: ban homework. Introducing his proposals for education reform last week at the Sorbonne, the French president declared that work “must be done in the [school] facility rather than in the home if we … Continue reading
via Keith Bradsher, The New York Times The Chinese government swiftly blocked access Friday morning to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The New York Times from computers in mainland China in response to an article in both languages describing wealth accumulated by the family of the country’s prime minister. The authorities were also blocking … Continue reading
via Ben McConville, San Jose Mercury News Scotland moved a step closer Monday to a vote on independence after Scottish and British leaders signed a deal laying the groundwork for a popular referendum that could radically alter the shape of the United Kingdom. Officials from London and Edinburgh have been meeting for weeks to hammer … Continue reading
via William Neuman, The New York Times President Hugo Chávez, long a fiery foe of Washington, won re-election on Sunday, facing down cancer and the strongest electoral challenge of his nearly 14 years in office and gaining a new mandate to deepen his socialist revolution. Though his margin of victory was much narrower than in … Continue reading
via David D. Kirkpatrick, Alan Cowell, and Rick Gladstone, The New York Times The violently anti-American rallies that have roiled the Islamic world over a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad expanded on Friday to nearly a dozen countries, with demonstrators breaching the United States Embassy in Tunisia for the first time and protesters in Sudan’s … Continue reading
via Jamie Dittmer, The Daily Beast The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three State Department officials were killed last night in a targeted rocket attack, after riots over a U.S. film depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. The assault came as the envoy sought to reach safety during a vicious Salafist assault … Continue reading
via Lester Brathwaite, Queerty Earlier this month, Mexico’s Supreme Court upheld Mexico City’s same-sex marriage law as constitutional, but on Tuesday the court extended the legality of those marriages to all 31 states. So basically, any gay marriage registered in Mexico City has to be honored in all of Mexico. Each state, however, is not required … Continue reading
via Frank Holmes, Forbes A surprising wealth of information about the world’s most prosperous people can be discovered in two new reports. The Chinese Millionaire Wealth Report 2012, put together by GroupM and the Hurun Report, found that there are now a million millionaires in China. On average, a Chinese millionaire is 39 years old, … Continue reading
via Robert Burns, The Huffington Post Suicides among active-duty soldiers in July more than doubled from June, accelerating a trend throughout the military this year that has prompted Pentagon leaders to redouble efforts to solve a puzzling problem. The Army, which is the only branch of the military that issues monthly press statements on suicides, … Continue reading
via Jens Hansegard, The Wall Street Journal Jim Butcher’s decision to join Sweden’s army of “latte dads” last year didn’t win him any popularity contests with family and friends back home in the U.K. “When I told my friends in England, they spat up their tea,” said the 35-year-old head of communications for digital-music company … Continue reading
via Damien Cave, The New York Times The agricultural output of Uruguay includes rice, soybeans and wheat. Soon, though, the government may get its hands dirty with a far more complicated crop — marijuana — as part of a rising movement in this region to create alternatives to the United States-led war on drugs. Uruguay’s … Continue reading
via AP, NPR Dinh Thi Hong Loan grasps her girlfriend’s hand, and the two gaze into each other’s love-struck eyes. Smiling, they talk about their upcoming wedding — how they’ll exchange rings and toast the beginning of their lives together. The lesbians’ marriage ceremony in the Vietnamese capital won’t be officially recognized, but that could … Continue reading
via Reuters Scotland’s devolved government said on Wednesday it would legalize same-sex marriage after British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to push through legislation to enshrine it in law in England despite church and some political opposition. “We are committed to a Scotland that is fair and equal and that is why we intend to … Continue reading
via Rob Waugh, Mail Online A Russian entrepreneur who heads a hi-tech research project called ‘Avatar’ has contacted billionaires to offer them immortality. Itskov claims he will personally oversee their immortality process, in exchange for an undisclosed fee. Itskov, a media entrepreneur, claims to have hired 30 scientists to reach this goal – and aims … Continue reading
via Anthony Faiola, The Washington Post Like so many others in this fiercely independent island nation, Steve Baker, a dashing English engineer, is fed up with the long hand of the European Union in British life. The E.U., he said, has meddled for years in British legal affairs and labor laws. But now the 27-nation … Continue reading
via Scott Shane, The New York Times For streamlined, unmanned aircraft, drones carry a lot of baggage these days, along with their Hellfire missiles. Some people find the very notion of killer robots deeply disturbing. Their lethal operations inside sovereign countries that are not at war with the United States raise contentious legal questions. They … Continue reading
via Owen Bowcott, The Guardian The US policy of using aerial drones to carry out targeted killings presents a major challenge to the system of international law that has endured since the second world war, a United Nations investigator has said. Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, told … Continue reading
via David Ignatius, The Washington Post As an intelligence operation, it must have seemed like pure genius: Recruit a Pakistani doctor to collect blood samples that could identify Osama bin Laden’s family, under cover of an ongoing vaccination program. But as an ethical matter, it was something else. The CIA’s vaccination gambit put at risk … Continue reading
via Tim Padgett, Time Drug thugs dumped 49 bloodied and dismembered corpses on a northern Mexican highway on Sunday, May 13. We journalists are finding little new to say, few fresh insights to offer, about these all too frequent narco-massacres in Mexico and the 50,000 people murdered so far in the country’s endless drug war. … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 