May 2012
13 posts
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The Rain in Spain
Spanish 10-year borrowing costs neared the 7 percent danger level and Bankia shares hit record lows on Monday after the government, struggling to sort out its finances, proposed putting sovereign debt into the struggling lender.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pinned the blame for the rising borrowing costs - the spread over Germany reached the highest since the euro’s launch - on concern...
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Vote like an Egyptian
About half all Egypt’s registered voters had cast ballots through the second and final day of the country’s historic presidential election, a top elections official said Thursday.
Voting continued into the night Thursday. Farouk Sultan, head of the Higher Presidential Committee, vowed on state television that the election would continue until the last person in any given polling...
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WatchHYDE PARK ON HUDSON: Bill Murray is FDR, just in time for awards season.
The former Ghostbuster now dons the cigarette holder, pince-nez, and Roosevelt charm in the film adaptation of the British radio play by the same name.
Read CR’s coverage from last year HERE
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China: Stunted Growth?
China might be worth emulating if its growth trajectory were sustainable. Indeed, if China could keep growing at its current rates indefinitely, Beckley’s thesis regarding its relative stagnation would soon seem ridiculous. But there is no reason to believe that this will happen. While we can expect China at some point to have an economy somewhat larger than that of the United States — after...
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PARRISH: The Black Wall Street
By C. Todd Williamson, III
Over 100 years ago, one street in North Carolina opened its doors to black businesses when others wouldn’t. Now it’s a model for the global investment world.
Continue reading in RELAFORD RENAISSANCE
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Renewed 'Scandal'
ESSENCE’s 2012 Black Women in Hollywood honorees Shonda Rhimes and Kerry Washington (pictured) have reason to celebrate: ABC gave their the hit show, Scandal, the green light for a second season. According to Hollywood Reporter, this will be the second year in a row that Rhimes has three successful series — Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice — running on the network. It is...
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A Merkel-Hollande alliance must work
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is calling for French president-elect Francois Hollande to join her in making “necessary decisions” to resolve Europe’s debt crisis.
Mr. Hollande is calling for new policies to boost European economic growth, but Ms. Merkel has ruled out a renegotiation of a European Union pact calling for tight budget controls.
Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have secured...
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Losing Lugar
Centrism and bipartisan consensus often are unduly worshiped by Washington’s punditeers, who are ever bemoaning the decline of across-the-aisle dialogue and compromise. Frequently, these calls for cooperation are escape routes for those who prefer to transcend real and important political and policy divides and who yearn to position themselves above the critical but down-and-dirty...
April 2012
12 posts
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Turkish Spring?
When the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid led to an avalanche of protests in Tunisia in January 2011, nearly the entire Arab world began to rock with popular uprisings. Unforeseen protests by Arab youth seemed to catch diplomats, politicians, and students of Middle East politics unprepared. The initial reaction of the pundits was that a long awaited wave of democratization...
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“I figure I’ll be champ for about ten years and then I’ll let my...”
– Muhammad Ali
Ali (then Cassius Clay, Jr) and his brother Rahman Ali (then Rudy Clay)
John F. Kennedy confers with his brother Robert during the 1960 Democratic Convention.
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Poverty's Worst Enemy: The Free Markets
The most significant events often escape media attention. How many would know from reading their daily newspaper or watching television that we live in an unprecedented economic period when the number of people living in extreme poverty is declining fast?
According to a just-published World Bank report, the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 per day—or its local equivalent—has...
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End of an Era in Zimbabwe?..Don't Count on it
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was yesterday said to be fighting for his life in a Singapore hospital with an undisclosed illness, amid reports he had agreed to hand over power to his feared Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The Zimbabwe Mail, quoting a senior official of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, said the President was undergoing intensive treatment in Singapore and that some...
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A Street fit for a 'King'
It seems as though every major city has a street named after the slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but this one has much more significance than most.
On the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Linden Avenue was renamed for the civil rights leader.
For two hours Wednesday, a four-block radius of downtown Memphis shut down for the momentous...
March 2012
20 posts
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Mali Matters
Under a sickle moon a large man with dreadlocks, a sparkling purple cloak and white moccasins climbed the stairs of the house that has become Mali’s new nerve-center. He was a marabout — a West Africa holy man — summoned by the 40-year-old army captain everyone in Kati is now calling le President. The new power in Mali is Amadou Sanogo, a career soldier whose improbable coup d’etat...
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Compromising a Case: (in 140 characters or less)
THE COURTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
By Jason E. Goodson
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month on the trouble U.S. courts were experiencing with jurors using social media during trials. In jury trials, judges provide instructions to members of the jury that they are to avoid outside news or resources pertaining to the case they are serving on. It has however, become increasingly difficult...
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Can the "Milkman" deliver a cup of 'Joe'?
By Reynolds Graves, Editor in Chief
First time office seekers all face the daunting issue of name recognition. As their campaigns begin, pressing the flesh at fundraisers, factories, church basements and backyard barbeques become quite routine. One candidate however, will have a different goal.
Joe Kennedy III declared his run for the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District in February and...
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WatchThe Day of the Festival of Patrick: From the pool report:
“So an incumbent president facing a tough reelection fight walks into a bar…”
President Obama made a brief St Patrick’s Day pilgrimage to a Washington DC Irish bar, The Dubliner, on Saturday, where he quaffed a pint of Guinness and enjoyed cheers from a rowdy crowd of green-clad partiers, some of whom had staked...
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Buenos Aires: Boom or Bust?
When Argentina defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2002, few predicted that the country would soon bounce back — much less rank as one of the fastest-growing emerging economies over the next decade. Yet, aided by aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus, Argentina has enjoyed an Asian-style 7.6 percent average annual growth rate since 2003, with commensurate gains in employment and declines...
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Extra Baggage: Handmade Tich
Proving yet again that you really can do anything with a giant Russian-made sewing machine, TB’s a made-to-order coterie of adventure-ready, high-performance backpacks and messengers that’re cleverly crafted from salvaged/ rescued materials and hyperbolically described as “super awesome”. Read more HERE
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India's "Super Tuesday"
India’s version of Super Tuesday was anything but super for the ruling Congress Party, which fared more poorly than it had hoped in a closely watched state assembly contest in northern Uttar Pradesh that is perceived as a barometer of its standing on the national stage.
With most of the votes counted, Congress was also facing losses in assembly races in northern Punjab and western Goa states...
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Super Tuesday Results
CLICK THE MAP FOR REAL TIME RESULTS
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WatchSURPRISE: It’s Putin!
Vladimir Putin triumphed in Russia’s presidential election on Sunday and, tears rolling down his cheeks, called his victory a turning point that had prevented the country falling into the hands of enemies.
Continue reading HERE
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Be Winston Spencer...Sort of
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“It is fun to be in the same century with you”
– President Franklin D. Roosevelt over dinner with Sir Winston Churchill
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“I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my...”
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U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe announcing that she will not seek reelection in 2012
February 2012
14 posts
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Africa is leading the World
The poverty mafia once controlled the development debate in Africa. No longer.
The old approach was about how to prevent Africa from getting poorer. All development goals were essentially negative, as experts wallowed in risk-aversion and promoted various doomsday scenarios of an Africa with a rapidly growing population.
The new thinking on development is to share Africa’s wealth more...
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Britain's Broker than Allen Iverson?
In a stark warning ahead of next month’s Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy.
Mr. [George] Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.
“The British Government has run out of money because all the money...
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Very Relaford: Blue Suede 'Shoes' (Loafers)
VERY RELAFORD: Blue Suede Shoes
See who wears these the best at VR
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No Sleep Til Brooklyn
Bay Ridge Councilman Vinnie Gentile is calling for the Oxygen network to take off the air a new program called, “Brooklyn 11223,” a show that has been called “as trashy as “Jersey Shore.”
Oxygen’s announcement of “Brooklyn 11223″ said the series will offer “a voyeuristic look into the lives of a group of twentysomething friends whose once rock-solid friendships have been torn apart by...