the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

by Tom Clifford Beijing. Lunchtime. A bitter wind is blowing from the north across Beijing making the temperature seems colder than minus 6 degrees Celsius. I am meeting a friend. “ You must try the chili tofu and parsnip soup. ” Then before she puts down the menu, she asks me about Trump, and the phone call. “ He should not have taken the call, ’’ she said as the waitress took our orders. I have always enjoyed my colleague’s company. She is tolerant, knowledgeable and witty. She wants to live in America. But what she said next stung me. “ There could be war over Taiwan. It is part of China. Chiang Kai-shek was president of China before he fled there in 1949. He didn’t flee to a foreign land. He retreated to part of China. ’’ On almost every other issue, the pace of economic growth, pollution, health and education investment, my colleague would disagree with Beijing. She is not a nationalist but on Taiwan she is marching to the same tune a

Syrian government forces today [6/12] made dramatic gains in retaking the last major population center still in rebel hands, eastern Aleppo. First the Syrian army retook several neighborhoods on the eastern side of the divided city, and then late in the day they re-took the old city on the northwestern side of eastern Aleppo. Though the BBC spin on the victory of Syrian government troops over mostly al-Qaeda forces in Aleppo is predictably biased toward the rebels, even that British government mouthpiece reported on the residents of Aleppo finally returning to their homes now that the jihadists have been routed. According to some reports, more than a thousand Aleppo residents have returned to their homes. The rebels are confined to less than 15 percent of the territory they once controlled in Aleppo and although some have claimed they will fight to the finish, hundreds have already accepted -- or are negotiating for -- either amnesty or resettlement offers b

‘ We were living in security and peace. These areas are being targeted, they want to force us to leave. Every Syrian is being targeted,’ one Syrian religious leader told a delegation of reporters who visited Aleppo earlier this month. by Eva Bartlett Part 5 - Humanitarian crossings: shelling of Castello road On Nov. 4, prior to our 9:30 a.m. arrival at the Bustan al-Qasr crossing and until our departure an hour later, no one had been able to cross from the area just beyond crossing, which is occupied by Jaysh al-Fatah militants. Two weeks prior to our arrival, journalists had reported that terrorist factions heavily shelled the crossing and areas around it starting in the early morning. A Syrian general at the crossing confirmed that shelling had taken place on Oct. 20, adding that three police officers had been wounded. A journalist in the delegation asked the general what he would say to Syrian civilians like Bashir Shehadeh, who demanded that the SAA e

In the trove of documents provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is a treasure. It begins with a riddle: “ What do the President of Pakistan, a cigar smuggler, an arms dealer, a counterterrorism target, and a combatting proliferation target have in common? They all used their everyday GSM phone during a flight. ” This riddle appeared in 2010 in SIDtoday, the internal newsletter of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, or SID, and it was classified “top secret.” It announced the emergence of a new field of espionage that had not yet been explored: the interception of data from phone calls made on board civil aircraft. In a separate internal document from a year earlier, the NSA reported that 50,000 people had already used their mobile phones in flight as of December 2008, a figure that rose to 100,000 by February 2009. The NSA attributed the increase to “ more planes equipped with in-flight GSM capability, less fear that a plane w

political comment by failed evolution After the heavy defeat in the recent referendum, the Italian PM, Matteo Renzi, announced his desire to resign. Renzi is a typical sample of the youngest politicians in Europe who restrict their action in a rhetoric of resistance against Berlin's orders inside eurozone. Another typical sample: the Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras. But when he had to take crucial decisions, Renzi retreated in almost every aspect against the majority of the Italians. The most disgraceful decision was the relaxation of labour and employment laws. In the end, Renzi did what the big capital and Berlin dictated. It is highly doubtful whether the majority of the Italians bothered to look at the details of the changes in constitution that Renzi wanted to pass through the referendum. Yet, it didn't really matter because Renzi and many other European 'leaders', still don't understand that the negative votes from people in most of the