• At Apostrophen, 'Nathan Smith talks about how he made a tradition out of Christmas tree ornamentation over the past twenty years.
• blogTO notes that Toronto's waterfront has major E Coli issues.
• Crooked Timber notes the potential for the recent by-election in London, fought on Brexit and lost by the Tories, to mean something.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports ( Read more... )

• Antipope's Charlie Stross worries about the literal survival of Britons in the post-Brexit United Kingdom.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of an ancient corpse in China shrouded in cannabis.
• Dangerous Minds reports on a 1971 BBC documentary about New York City starring a pre-stardom Patti Smith.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a study mapping the changing ( Read more... )

• Astrobeat U>notes the vulnerability of Florida's Space Coast to Hurricane Matthews.
• D-Brief notes that the Voyager probes are the most distant US government-owned computers still in service.
• Dangerous Minds shares high-heeled tentacle shoes.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that a President Trump would enable anything the Congressional Republicans wanted ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes concerns over Northern Ireland's frontiers, looks at how Japanese retailers are hoping to take advantage of Vietnam's young consumers, examines the desperation of Venezuelans shopping in Colombia, looks at Sri Lankan interest in Chinese investment, suggests oil prices need to stay below 40 dollars US a barrel for Russia to reform, ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes the decline of Japan's solar energy boom with falling subsidies, suggests 1970s-style stagflation will be back, looks at how an urban area in Japan is dealing with overcrowding, looks at Russia-NATO tensions, and examines how Ireland is welcoming British bankers.
• Bloomberg View looks at the return of Russian tourists to Turkey, notes ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg looks at the European cities hoping to poach talent from London post-Brexit, notes central Europe's support for the European Union, looks at how Venezuelans are dealing with broken cars with the car industry gone, and looks at the United Kingdom's already substantial hit.
• Bloomberg View considers peace in Columbia, notes American infant ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg looks at the restarting of northern Alberta oil, looks at the deterioration in Sino-Taiwanese relations, reports on how Norway is using oil money to buffer its economic shocks, and suggests low ECB rates might contribute to a property boom in Germany.
• Bloomberg View notes the idea of a third party in the US, one on the right to counter ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Christine Jenkins has a brief article about a push for development in Amazonian Colombia that has obvious potential environmental repercussions.

Remote, sparsely-populated regions of Colombia will see “spectacular growth” when they become open for development following a peace deal with Marxist rebels, Colombian President Juan Manuel ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Matthew Bristow and Nafeesa Syeed report on how the habit of Middle Eastern countries of recruiting Colombian mercenaries to fight in regional wars is not playing well at all in Colombia itself.

Colombia’s government is frustrated at having its top soldiers lured to the Middle East as mercenaries for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab ( Read more... )

Al Jazeera America's David Martin and Sheila MacVicar report ("Hoping to reach US, Cuban doctors and nurses sit in limbo in Colombia") on Cuban medical workers who, after leaving Venezuela with the goal of getting to the United States, find themselves caught in Colombia as they wait to enter.

In a working-class section of the Colombian capital, a ( Read more... )