For Bloomberg, Stephanie Baker and Helena Bedwell report from the Georgian port city of Batumi about how a mothballed Trump Organization project there is set to take off. The next four years will be interesting, won't they?

Donald Trump flew to the Black Sea resort town of Batumi in 2012 and, standing alongside then Georgian President Mikheil ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes the 1970s, when Yonge around Queen was under reconstruction.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about her writing life in New York City.
• The Crux considers: Neandertal or Neanderthal?
• Dangerous Minds notes the new Laibach app.
• The Dragon's Gaze looks at evaporating hot Jupiter HD 209458b.

• Bloomberg notes the advance of Catalonian separatism, looks at the economic catastrophes hitting Mozambique, and looks at how Africa is getting more people online by devising apps for non-smartphones.
• Bloomberg View examines at length the implications of Donald Trump's not quite criminal call to have Russia hack more E-mails.
• The CBC notes young ( 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... )

• blogTO notes the spread of condos along the western waterfront of Toronto.
• Centauri Dreams considers the idea of planetary cloaks.
• Crooked Timber considers strategic voting in the American context.
• Dangerous Minds notes, with photos, two nuns in California who grow medical marijuana.
• The Dragon's Tales note evidence of invasive species introduced to ( Read more... )

• Anthropology.net notes the discovery of Australopithecus remains east of the Great Rift Valley.
• blogTO suggests that Toronto restaurants east of the Don face trouble in attracting customers.
• Patrick Cain maps gentrification over the past decade in Toronto and Vancouver.
• Geocurrents polls its readers as to what themes they would like the blog to ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Zulfugar Agayev describes the economic catastrophe facing oïl-exporting Azerbaijan.

Azeri officials met for talks with the International Monetary Fund as the former Soviet Union’s third-largest oil exporter reels from the collapse in crude prices, with Finance Minister Samir Sharifov saying the government isn’t yet asking outside ( Read more... )

At Open Democracy, Arzu Geybulla notes how all opposition in Azerbaijan, and to Azerbaijan, is being traced to the "Armenian lobby". In this environment, no dissent is possible.

Conspiracy theories are no stranger to resourceful leaders. They can consolidate political power, cultivate the image of an external enemy and reduce their responsibility ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes the TTC's commitment to imrprove the 501 Queen streetcar.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes one white dwarf that has the debris of a planetary system about it and looks at a brown dwarf with detectable clouds.
• Far Outliers notes how, in 1988, Armenia-Azerbaijani disputes over Karabakh started destabilizing the entire Soviet Union.
• Language Hat ( Read more... )

Eurasianet's Giorgi Lomsadze describes how the Turkish-Russian feud is forcing the states of the South Caucasus to pick sides, in something that is not going to be in their benefit at all. (Armenia, as expected, is aligning with Russia, while Georgia and--more reluctantly--Azerbaijan are moving towards Turkey.)

Sandwiched between Turkey and Russia ( Read more... )