Japan scrambles fighters as Chinese plane flies over disputed islands

Tokyo scrambled F-15 fighter jets on Thursday after a Chinese state-owned plane entered airspace over islands disputed by the two countries. A Chinese maritime aircraft ventured over the Senkaku islands, called the Diaoyu Islands in China, just after 0200 GMT, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said, as cited by AFP. Confrontations have become commonplace since

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Detroit, an education wasteland

Detroit Public Schools (DPS) also need metal detectors In the public schools in Detroit, Mich., according to the U.S. Department of Education, only 7 percent of the eighth graders are grade-level proficient or better in reading. Detroit public-school eighth graders do even worse in math than they do in reading, according to the Department of

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Tennis player Caroline Wozniacki accused of ‘racist’ impersonation

Caroline Wozniacki has been accused of doing a ‘racist’ impersonation of fellow tennis player Serena Williams after stuffing her bra and shorts. At a recent exhibition against Maria Sharapova in Brazil, the former world No. 1 stuffed courtside towels down her kit to replicate the body of the curvaceous Grand Slam champion. But now the

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Gaza M75 perfume captures ‘victory’ scent

“Victory” has never smelled so sweet — or at least that’s what they would have you believe at the shop selling Gaza’s newest fragrance named M75 after a long-range Hamas rocket. It’s a bold move by the “Stay Stylish” shop in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighbourhood, but one that store owner Abu Ahmed expects to

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Economic warfare provoked Pearl Harbor

Robert Higgs Many people are misled by formalities. They assume, for example, that the United States went to war against Germany and Japan only after its declarations of war against these nations in December 1941. In truth, the United States had been at war for a long time before making these declarations. Its war making

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The race for resources

The year 2030 will see an increasingly chaotic world where China is the top economy and demand soars for resources, a US intelligence report said Monday. The National Intelligence Council, in its first assessment in four years aimed at shaping US strategic thinking, said that China will surpass the United States as the largest economy

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‘I kill all the whites. How great is that?’

Two weeks ago, Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx made national headlines when he called President Obama “Our lord and savior.” While hosting NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend, Foxx joked about how in his new film “Django Unchained,” “I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?” (video follows with transcript and

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The fiscal cliff: a lemming’s lunacy

Since the chicken-little metaphor is hackneyed, let us use the alleged lunacy of the lemming as a metaphor for the prattle that rises from the cattle that is America’s intelligentsia, in general, and on the fiscal cliff, in particular. “Alleged lunacy” because the idea that the adorable fury critter plunges periodically to its death, en

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Miss France ‘as white as snow’

A black rights group on Monday slammed the latest Miss France competition for producing a “white as snow” winner from a field it claimed was unrepresentative of the country’s ethnic make-up. Marine Lorphelin, 19, a brunette medical student from Burgundy, was on Saturday crowned Miss France 2013, having edged out Miss Tahiti, Hinarini de Longeaux,

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Apartheid is not to blame for mine violence, Cynthia Carroll

The recent comments by Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll represent an insult to everyone who still harbours some South African pride, despite our country’s slide into third-world squalor and corruption. As reported by Sapa, Carroll said: “The violence we have seen in the mining sector this year has its seeds in the legacy of apartheid

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‘Tintin in the Congo’ not racist, Belgian court rules

A Brussels court has rejected a legal bid to ban “Tintin in the Congo”, the second adventure of Belgian writer Hergé’s globe-trotting boy reporter. Black associations in the country claimed the book contained racist stereotypes. “Tintin in the Congo” – a classic 1920s comic strip about Belgium’s celebrated fictional boy reporter – is not racist,

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Belgium on high alert ahead of anti-Muslim film’s release

Belgium has heightened its terror alert level ahead of the release of another highly provocative film exploring Islam, reportedly made in cooperation with the notorious Koran-burning US pastor Terry Jones. ­The film’s creator is Pakistan national Imran Firasat, a former Muslim who now lives in Spain. Firasat said he aims to expose the truth of

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Mandela has stopped talking

South African leaders issued assurances about the health of former president Nelson Mandela on Sunday night after the 94 year-old was airlifted to hospital having reportedly stopped speaking amid a deterioration in his condition. The Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, quoted an unnamed person close to the Mandela family as saying: “He has not

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Russia, China wrestle US on Internet governance, freedom

A Russia-led proposal calling for sweeping new governmental powers to regulate cyberspace could enable countries to block some Web locations and wrest control of allotting Internet addresses from a U.S.-based body. The proposal, co-signed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, added to fears in some Western countries of a

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