“The war against drugs has failed”

by Marie-Christine Bonzom in Washington, swissinfo.ch A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy has concluded that the war on drugs has failed, triggering a heated debate in the United States. The report, written by a high-profile panel including former Swiss cabinet minister Ruth Dreifuss, criticises the repressive approach […]

King Abdullah I remembered

AMMAN (Petra) – Jordan today marks the 60th anniversary of the death of His Majesty King Abdullah I (1882-1951), who was assassinated as he was entering Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for Friday prayers. King Abdullah I, the founder of the Kingdom, led the Arab forces of the Great Arab […]

China executes corrupt Hangzhou and Suzhou officials

China has executed two officials from eastern cities after convicting them of corruption. Xu Maiyong, a former vice-mayor of Hangzhou, and Jiang Renjie, who was vice-mayor of Suzhou, were put to death after their appeals were rejected. Officials said Xu and Jiang took almost 300m yuan ($46m; £29m) by embezzling and taking […]

Indonesia breaks mass wedding record

 The couples joining the mass wedding were of various ethnics and religion.  The youngest couple was aged 16, while the oldest was 86. JAKARTA – INDONESIA broke the world record for mass weddings when 4,501 couples got married at the Sports Palace of Senayan in Jakarta, local media reported on […]

Picture of the Day: Lake Saiful Muluk Kaghan Valley, Pakistan

 Source/Credit: Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopaedia Lake Saiful Muluk (Urdu: سیف الملوک) is a lake located at the northern end of the Kaghan Valley (34°52′37.34″N 73°41′37.71″E) near Naran. It is in the north east of Mansehra Districtin the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. At an altitude of 3,224 m (10,578 feet) above sea level it is amongst one of the highest lakes in Pakistan. The weather here […]

Who Needs Humans?

The IT model robot at iRobot Corp. headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts. Source: Newsweek Amid all the job losses of the Great Recession, there is one category of worker that the economic disruption has been good for: nonhumans. From self-service checkout lines at the supermarket to industrial robots armed with saws […]