选择中国共产党最高领导人———九名政治局常务委员——背后的过程冗长、仔细掂量且不为人知。这层神秘的面纱让薄熙来稍微揭起了一点。薄熙来原来似乎有望进入常委的队伍，但因为野心过大而突然被解职。这位被驱逐的重庆市委书记为了获得国家权力，进行了种种运动，包括提供大规模补贴、重拳打击腐败、调动民族主义，用高唱文革时期的歌曲来赞颂毛泽东。目前，九名常委包括主席胡锦涛、总理温家宝、副主席习近平就薄熙来事件站在统一战线上。驻香港记者秦家骢分析了政治局常委的候选人和他们的背景。他预计包括改革派汪洋在内的温和派会上升，这是外国投资者所乐意见到的 。也许政治局会确保不断的合作，...
香港：高调的政治局成员薄熙来突然被撤职，这一事件背后的谜团似乎越来越复杂，影响之一非常明显：中国共产党苦心经营的、为未来十年打造的领导层按原计划将在今年晚些时候揭晓，但薄熙来事件的搅局可能扰乱了这一布局。政治局九名权力极大的常务委员的人选将决定这个国家未来的走向以及与世界的互动。
薄熙来原是重庆市党书记。位于中国西南的重庆是抗战时期的首都，人口三千万。薄熙来苦心孤诣要进入党的最高权力集团，在此过程中造成了领导层的分裂。
自2007年掌政重庆以来，薄熙来为自己及其“重庆模式”...
In the Middle Ages, spices were valued commodities, but not, as most people assume, for their ability to preserve meat. Rather, it was because medieval cuisine placed a premium on a variety of flavors. Spices were also thought to have medicinal properties, adding to their allure. These are only...
Workers harvest pepper near Quilon, south India in the 14th century: The desire for flavor fueled building of empires. (Source: Marco Polo's Livre des merveilles)
The control over gold, silver, precious metals and recently oil has been a source of...
Development of robots, artificial intelligence and autonomous machines outpaces regulations and leads to human rights concerns. “Although no ‘fully autonomous’ weapon exists at this stage, several countries, such as the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, and Israel, are thought to have...
Chile has formed a Constituent Assembly, charged with proposing a new constitution. Bruce Ackerman, constitutional law professor of Yale University, offers guidance and maintains that the assembly should not include delegates who are members of the existing government. “If you allow the existing...
"One of the great ironies of the Chilean situation is that its Constitution was imposed by a military dictator and yet the country has conducted seven entirely fair presidential elections over the past thirty years.” – Bruce Ackerman, Sterling...
News spreads quickly via the internet, and research suggests that increasing numbers of US adults rely on social media for their news. “There are hundreds of fake news websites out there, from those which deliberately imitate real life newspapers, to government propaganda sites, and even those...
Read the article from BBC News.
Craig Silverman and Lawrence Alexander report for BuzzFeed on fake news sites in Macedonia: “Teens in the Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News.”Snopes.com reviews internet rumors for accuracy.
In the past decade, advances in technology and communications have changed the way people live, connecting the world as never before. One currently-unfolding change is the way viewers experience the news: According to journalist Mark Glaser, modern tools - weblogs, cellphone cameras (both still...
Energizing citizen journalism: The terrorist bomb blasts in London triggered a new type of grass-roots reporting
SAN FRANCISCO: In the media business, it's easy to talk the talk of citizen journalism, the idea...
Many US allies including South Korea, Australia and the United Kingdom, signed up for founders’ memberships of the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. “Leaders in Washington were stunned that their transatlantic ‘cousins’ did not even consult them before rushing to sign up with AIIB...
If one needed any more proof of the new world order emerging, it was on full display in March-end.
With the deadline looming for founders’ membership of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Washington’s major European allies rushed in...
A standoff punctuated with frequent clashes in recent weeks along the Line of Actual Control turned violent with the death of 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley in Ladakh. China did not release casualty figures. Indian sources suggested as many as 40 Chinese died in brutal hand-to-hand combat that...