• Bloomberg notes a raid of Amazon's Japan office by that country's competition agency.
• Bloomberg View looks at paranoia about Pokémon Go and suggests China is not trying to overturn the world order.
• CBC reports on the popular music and dance of Brazil's slums, and reports on the diet of ancient humans.
• The Inter Press Service notes that African farmers ( Read more... )

Nate Berg's article in The Atlantic about the Rio de Janeiro Metro's Line 4, engaging with issues of poverty and justice in mass transit, is more than a bit relevant for the wider world. (Scarborough subway extension, anyone?)

On July 30th, after nearly 20 years in the works and more than doubling its initial cost estimates, the Line 4 subway ( Read more... )

Prscilla Hwang's CBC News article says worrisome things about Toronto.

The water conditions in Rio de Janeiro don't appear as bad as what's being reported, and the Toronto harbour is sometimes "almost worse," according to a Canadian Olympic sailor who is in the Brazilian city for his first Games ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes the closure of Poland's frontier with Kaliningrad, looks at how Google is beating out Facebook in helping India get connected to the Internet, notes British arms makers' efforts to diversify beyond Europe and examines the United Kingdom's difficult negotiations to get out of the European Union, looks at the problems of investing in ( Read more... )

• The Big Picture shares photos from Rio in advance of the Olympics.
• James Bow remembers Mel Hurtig, the recently dead Canadian nationalist.
• Centauri Dreams considers space-based collection of antimatter.
• Crooked Timber examines the tyranny of the ideal.
• Dangerous Minds looks at a charming early 1980s board game, Gay Monopoly.

Wired's Sam Lubell shares the news that at least some buildings in the Rio Olympics will end up being repurposed. Here's to hoping this will actually happen!

The Olympic Games are notorious for leaving burdensome buildings in their wake. Much of the swooping Olympic Park in Athens lies rusting and underutilized. Beijing National Stadium-or the ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes Amazon's development of a portal in Japan for Chinese tourists visiting that country, reports on an unexpected decline in Russian manufacturing, and looks at Poland's conflicts with the European Commission on legal and democratic issues.
• Bloomberg View notes Trump's social security plan depends on immigrants, and looks at the ( Read more... )

• 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 Brexit may be good for European criminals, looks at the negative impact of Brexit on Japan's retail chains, examines the way a broken-down road reflects India-China relations, looks at Russia's shadow economy and observes Ukraine's effort to attract shippers to its ports.
• The Globe and Mail notes the mourning in Québec for the ( Read more... )

• James Bow writes about the importance to him of Toronto's Bakka-Phoenix bookstore.
• The Dragon's Gaze considers the search for the debris disk of HR 8799.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that, early in the solar system's history, Venus may have been much better for life than Earth.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map noting the names for "tea" in ( Read more... )