December Dispatches
THIS WEBSITE IS A CONCEPT, relaunching January 2, 2012.
Washington, DC (United States)
Playing the part is the first and only step to successfully punking the media and politicos. This is the State Dinner-style iteration of the Balloon Boy escapades. Reality TV is close to defining Reality Reality… like a toddler grasping the significance of the baby in the mirror, so too do we seek the affirmation of existence that only the camera and YouTube exposure provide.
ALSO: Federal data shows that since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
Pacific Ocean
Groundbreaking footage captures the deepest undersea volcano eruption ever recorded.
Cameras capture a tool-using invertebrate; is the octopus smarter than your average American confederate?
Japan
Roger Cohen on Japanese Obsessions: “I’m not aware of any other nation where fantasy, escapism and the cyber world have fused with such intensity. Indeed, there’s a Japanese word, otaku, denoting a whole universe of monomaniacal geek-like obsession, whether with an electronic game, some odd hobby, or the cartoonlike “manga” comic books devoted to everything from kamikazes to kinky sex.”
South/North Korea
The government has broken ground on a $19.2 billion public works project to remake the country’s four longest rivers. It is an ambitious and controversial undertaking that has spurred a national debate over what constitutes green development.
The People’s Republic of China
China has banned individuals from registering internet domain names and launched a review of millions of existing personal websites in the toughest government censorship drive to date.
The New York Times reports on the “sense of disquiet, even in developing Asian nations in Beijing’s orbit, over the implications of China’s swift, seemingly boundless economic growth.”
BONUS: Check out the Taishan Towers.
Tajikistan
Afghanistan
Our Afghanistan dispatch actually finds us in Oslo, where President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize fewer than two weeks after his announced 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan. Elaborating on the concepts of a “just peace” and “necessary wars,” the man outlined what will likely become a guiding glibal military strategy.
You can download the President’s speech here: The Obama Doctrine.
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Iran
A revolution corrupted is under attack by the dreamers who staged it. But this time, a legitimate opposition may not withstand the fatal forces of hypocrisy. (See also: The tyrant eternally silences the whisteblower who exposes the rape and torture of dissidents.)
Meanwhile, a secret memo leaked to a British newspaper reports that Iranian scientists are conducting tests on a neutron initiator, one of the final technical hurdles in making a nuclear warhead. Yet most Iranians are concerned less with their country’s nuclear ambitions than they are with the government’s risky plan to phase out Iran’s decade-old system of state subsidies.
Finally, a hero is lost… Ayatollah Montazeri has died.
Turkey
Greece
Italy
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was punched in the face at the end of a rally by a man wielding a small statue, leaving the 73-year-old media mogul stunned with a bloodied mouth. The 42-year-old man accused of attacking Berlusconi in Milan as he signed autographs was immediately taken into custody.
Watch the Video
This fashion of physically engaging political leaders seems to be all the rage these days… check out the Christmas Eve assault Pope Benedict endured at the hands of another unstable Italian.
Watch the Video
Spain
We’re stretching this category to encompass the Spanish-speaking nation of Chile, where “[j]ust 9.2 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds are registered to vote.” Read the disheartening article here.
Portugal
