• 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... )

• Astronomy Now notes a white dwarf star that is consuming what looks to be limestone debris from one of its planets. Is this a sign of marine life?
• Bloomberg notes Rolls-Royce's opposition to Brexit, notes how international sanctions are hurting Hezbollah, looks at China's massive spending on infrastructure, notes how Donald Trump has barred the ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes California's dependence on oil imports, looks at how Libya's internal divisions limit oil exports, observes the devastation of Fort McMurray, reports on EU-Turkish disputes on visa-free travel, observes the problems of Belarus' banks, and reports on Kenya's closure of Somali refugee camps.
• Bloomberg View talks about how the ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes that Azerbaijan's oil wealth lets it outspend Armenia on military good, looks at a hydropower project in Congo intended to eventually protect mountain gorillas, and notes that spending on solar and wind energy is outpacing fossil fuel spending.
• CBC notes the alarming possibility that smart devices could be bricked by their ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's article about continuing instability in Libya, and its conséquences, is depressing.

Libya’s United-Nations-brokered peace deal may help calm deepening political turmoil, but the North African nation will struggle to restore oil production to levels reached before the Arab Spring five years ago ( Read more... )

I have a post up at Demography Matters looking at how one image, of a ship in 1991 laden with Albanian refugees, is being misrepresented as something else entirely.


( Read more... )

Open Democracy's Richard Reeve writes about increasing political instability in the Sahel, something he associates with--among other things--foreign interventions like the one three years ago in Libya.

While the world’s attention has been focused on the US-led military interventions in Iraq and Syria, a quieter build-up of military assets has been ( Read more... )

Spiegel International describes the steady progress made by the Islamic State in North Africa. Anarchic Libya and Egypt's unstable Sinai peninsula are particular loci for expansion, while Tunisia is a notable source of manpower.

Chaos, disillusionment and oppression provide the perfect conditions for Islamic State. Currently, the Islamist ( Read more... )

• Al Jazeera notes the breakdown of the Libyan state.
• Bloomberg mentions Finland's new interest in NATO, notes European Union plans to strengthen sanctions against Russia, takes note of China's vetoing of democracy in Hong Kong and looks at China's strengthening of its South China Sea holdings, and in West Africa notes the unburied bodies in the ( Read more... )

• Al Jazeerah observes the existence of regional tensions in Libya and warns that Canadian Inuit women are at risk of sex traficking.
• The Atlantic argues that Russia's annexation of Crimea is globally destabilizing and notes that an excess of angry young men also helps destabilize the world.
• The BBC notes the important role played by Crimea in the ( Read more... )