Widescreen: from Canal en Piotrkow by ReservasdeCoches.com. CC/flickr
Burma’s deeply weird rulers are promising to hold elections. A commission named by the military will control the vote and establish a stage-managed democracy… Libération » [Fr] LA Times »
He’s a tall, mob-busting charmer with a flair for the dramatic, a comparatively youthful swinging 60. Bo Xilai is rising in Chinese politics… read on»
Religious vendettas are heating up in Nigeria, with roaming gangs killing hundreds near the city that divides the Christian south from the Muslim north… read on»
She clearly dislikes feminism, but her beliefs about the Holocaust have been disturbingly vague. Meet Barbara Rosenkranz, major Austrian presidential candidate… read on» [Fr] and also»
Nicolas Sarkozy likes the image of being surrounded by glamorous young women. Pay no attention to the old men behind the curtain… read on»
It’s easy to envision a clutch of naive rock stars being outsmarted by a rebel army. But the millions raised by Live Aid probably did get to the Ethiopians who needed it… read on»
On Saturday, Icelanders voted on whether every man, woman and child in the country owed the British and Dutch governments $16,000. 93.2% said no… read on» and also» and also»
In the current chill between Greece and Germany, the memories of the harsh Nazi occupation are more than just excuses… read on» and also» and also» [Fr]
Tax-dodging billionaire Michael Ashcroft is dragging the UK Tories down in the polls. He may have given them so much money that it won’t matter… read on» and also» and also»
It’s illegal for lawyers to chase ambulances. People claiming to be chiropractors or archbishops, however, can hound the injured all they like… read on»
Tens of thousands of Ethiopians work as servants in Beirut. Even in mourning they are continually reminded of their second-class status… read on»
In the earthquake-scoured city of Concepciòn, the old familiar rule is enforced. Middle-class disaster victims scavenge justly, whereas the poor only ever loot… read on»
And who passed the Chinese budget? The National People’s Congress. Usually a rubber-stamp body where “smilence” is golden, it’s showing a feisty side… read on» and also»
China will post the smallest increase in military spending in over 20 years, instead hiking social and rural programs. A move to reassure neighbor countries, or to quiet domestic rumbling?… read on» and also» and also» and also»
Won’t somebody stop thinking of the children? The most shocking thing about child abuse is how rare it is… read on»
Vivian Schiller is trying to herd the cats of NPR, long a constellation of competitive entities, into an integrated radio/web news behemoth… read on»
Cairo’s wealthy are redefining most of the city as a slum and fleeing for distant, speculative suburbs that sprawl into the desert… read on»
As the maquiladora model breaks down, the great and good are paradoxically pushing post-earthquake Haiti to embrace a cheap-labor future… read on»
For a mass of trigger-happy young men with cheap machine guns, the dread Zetas of northern Mexico conduct their mass robberies in an orderly and thorough fashion… read on»
After local elections, anti-Muslim buffoon Geert Wilders is poised to become the most powerful politician in the Netherlands… read on» 
Your friendly neighborhood Brazilian arts collective makes prints, graphics, music, paintings like an alien alphabet. But portraits of Nick Drake sandpapered into a concrete wall?… read on» [via]
Bill Reid produced monumental sculpture with Haida iconography. He wryly understood the distance between his modern self and the vanished world of his symbology… Literary Review of Canada »
Genre fiction is put down as formulaic. Horror fiction doesn’t even get the respect of dismissal: literoids don’t even want to engage with writing about shame, loss, envy, panic…
The Millions »
Kuzhali Manickavel produces sharp-edged stories, dialogues, satire, and interviews. Like drinking strong coffee on a rainy day at a friend’s house, her kitchen table heaped with notebooks… read on» and also»
Karma Atchykah is an English-language MC of Haitian descent repping an Anglo Montreal suburb with the French name of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. Follow so far? Good. Because he just dropped a French album about Quebec sovereignty… read on»
From France and in motion, C215 brings stencil finesse to a practice of portraiture, putting powerful human faces on walls from India to Morocco… read on» and also»
There is woe in early spring, of pressures building that winter is still strong enough to resist. We used to know our way through this, but we forgot, and maybe we won’t ever remember it again. For now, from the wilds of Bergen County, Titus Andronicus:
[via]
More Whitniana for your Biennass, from three of our favorite Voices of Authority… read on» and also»
Like book publishing itself, Borders is a terminally enfeebled former juggernaut. Its customers still cherish the escapism of fiction, but can’t tell you how it works… read on»
Just when print needed it most, a new formula for fun bestsellers emerges: take a fusty genre and just add zombies. Are any of these books actually worthwhile?… read on»
In 1939, Veit Harlan made a viciously anti-Semitic (and successful) Nazi propaganda movie. Seventy years later, his Jewish and non-Jewish descendants feel tainted by his works… read on» read on»
Catherine Millet, after becoming famous for a memoir of her freewheeling sexual life, pens a memoir of her searing and transformative experience of sexual jealousy… read on»
We have kept an eye on funny writer Sam Lipsyte since his stories enlivened issues of Open City back in the 90’s. Bask in our prescience, and climb aboard the bandwagon… read on» [via]
Like a Scandinavian David Lynch, Steig Larsson evoked an insidious, murderous rot concealed beneath Sweden’s blond-wood social-democratic veneer… read on» [via]
Bass jockey Ghislain Poirier and burnt toaster Face-T released “No Blood Run” nearly three years ago. A dancehall song about the arms trade, it’s still tearing up clubs and sparking off remixes…
André Aciman has written a novel with an annoying premise and annoying characters. Dammit if he isn’t a maddeningly good writer, and the book beautiful despite itself… read on» 
Benny Morris thinks that the Israeli peace movement succeeded in fading away. Gideon Levy thinks it didn’t really exist in the first place. Others think it never could have…
Tablet »
Ha’aretz »
Jews sans frontières »
It has rapid growth, a vigorous democracy, and a strong environmental movement. But India doesn’t have a green party…
Le Devoir » [Fr]
Before Alexander McCall Smith wrote novels about African detectives, he came of age in the violent, weary, wounded culture of early 1970’s Northern Ireland… read on»
Rabble-rousing Hindu extremists to the left of them, fundamentalist Islamist goons to the right, India’s liberal Muslims are stuck in the middle with scandalously few allies… read on»
The mainstream turn in 90’s feminism replaced romanticism with instrumentality, liberation with fashion, normality with the surreal eldritch horror of Madonna… read on»
Reality, fantasy, the Hegelian rabble and the vampires who feed on them: Žižek watches Avatar… read on»
People deserve austerity. The poor, not the financial sector, got us into this mess by making too much money and getting too many services… read on» and also»
How do gender-egalitarian societies do it? With affordable day care, good parental leave, and reproductive freedom. Equality is not rocket science… read on»
Snared in the tendrils of the brutal and clumsy counter-terrorist apparatus, both the guilty and the innocent seem terribly small… read on»
The pernicious institution of caste formed over 3500 years, and will take more than the 60-odd years of Indian independence to undo… read on» [via]
Canada isn’t alone in having a weakened but critical office as the linchpin of its constitution. Australia too totes around a governor-general for which it has little use… read on»
“The eyes of all capitalists are averted from the United States. Great and high-minded merchants loathe the name of America.” Scenes from the first American default… read on»
Almost everything you know about the life of the Buddha is wrong. He didn’t wander as a revered sage, but built a movement in the face of palace intrigue, murder, and bitter rivalries… read on» and also»
“To talk about empire, you’re automatically Noam Chomsky” says author Mark Danner. Discussion of violence and imperialism is not the exclusive province of the left… read on»
Mussolini is still disturbingly popular in Italy. You can buy all manner of Duce-emblazoned kitsch, and yes, there’s an app for that… read on» [Fr]
“I’m not always calling into question who’s a man and who’s not, and am I a man? Maybe I’m a man.” Judith Butler talks about Jewishness, boycott, and of course, gender… read on» [via]
You don’t have to be a prude to find a hyper-sexualized culture unsettling. Its impulses come not from freedom, but from the post-Fordist imperative to sell oneself… read on»
India’s progressives have been unable to face the growing Maoist Naxalite insurgency. It hits too close to their idea of what the country is, and what independence means… read on»
Bernard-Henri Lévy self-pwnage update, as the affair now becomes a debate over the whether the French media was too gleeful in puncturing his pomposity… read on»
From the cultish crannies of fundamentalism, Jewish-identified Christian sects tell Jews “We are better Zionists than you”… read on»
An American translator comments, speculates, rambles, and corrects the record about the failed experiment of Fordlândia… read on»
Some academic says that China’s leadership risks turmoil by keeping a tight lid on dissent. So what? He’s the main social-issues adviser to the Communist Party… read on» [via]
Canada basked in its 1980’s image as a bulwark against apartheid. Behind the perfect Canadian conceit lay growing trade with South Africa, and government vacillation… read on»
Proposals to punish the PIIGS by kicking some or all of them out of the euro are in fashion this week. It might work better if Germany left instead… read on»
Within weeks David Cameron will smugly surf to power, propelled by financial-industry money and in thrall to the sharp-toothed religious nuts who have chomped their way to the heart of the Conservative Party… read on»
It’s abundant, cheap, filthy and de facto impossible to expand in the US. “Clean” or not, coal is on its way out… read on»