Cool Maps – Over $200/Day

In 2002, 53 million people in the world lived in households in receipt of US$200 purchasing power parity (PPP) per day. Of these high earners, 58% lived in the United States. Western Europe and South America are also home to quite large populations of high earners. Within Western Europe the most very high [...]

A Hunt for Whale Hunters

“Activists intent on disrupting Japan’s annual whale hunt have offered a $25,000 reward for information that leads them to the whaling fleet. … The Japanese crews are on a mission to kill about 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales. Commercial hunting was outlawed in the 1980s, [...]

Revolucion Energetica! Viva Hyundai!

“Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. boasted yesterday about the appearance of an electric power plant it had built for the Cuban government on a new issue of the 10-peso convertible peso note. Cuba has two currencies, one non-convertable and the other linked to the U.S. dollar.
Cuba has stressed the importance of increasing [...]

Foreigners in Korea

A Korean newspaper responds to a foreigners survey on living in Korea:
Foreigners say that it is very uncomfortable to live in Korea. Since the domestic economy is dismal, people are not friendly and foreigners are frequently ripped off. When the Consumer Protection Board polled foreigners residing in Korea for more than three months (excluding [...]

friends in low places

Preliminary US government findings that Israel violated agreements with the United States by its use of cluster munitions in Lebanon last summer should lead to an immediate cutoff of all US cluster munitions sales to Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. The Bush administration is expected to report to Congress today on a State Department [...]

Generals on Drugs

BANGKOK, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Thailand’s army appointed government said on Monday it had approved a cheap, copycat heart disease drug, the first time a developing country has ignored an international patent for such a treatment.As well as the “compulsory licence” of Plavix, made by U.S. and European pharmaceutical giants Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis [...]

Biscuits and Oil

PARIS (Reuters) – Lumps of oil mixed in with packets of biscuits that may have come from a ship grounded off the southern English coast have washed up on beaches in western France, a local official said on Sunday. The pollution could equally have come from a ship that decided to take advantage [...]

All Apologies

Last week I wrote on Emily Bazelon and David Plotz’s junket to Israel, which was paid for by an AIPAC sister organization. On the January 26, 2007, Gabfest podcast, Plotz and Bazelon apologize for their “unvarnished” “advertisement for the state of Israel”, with Bazelon saying that it was “below our standards”, “we agree with [...]

who cares if she can write …

Model and travel writer Paulina Porizkova gives an interview to World Hum and it doesn’t matter much what she says … because she is a stunner.
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The Last Defector Speaks

The last U.S. defector still in North Korea, Joe Dresnok, made his first public statement in 44 years. This fascinating interview was broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes”. One of the most interesting bits of information was the news that he has son, who has blond hair, blue [...]