Some solid questioning of the New Yorker article about the Osama raid.

Interesting background on the election of Pirate Party candidates in Germany.

Fantastic feature story on the raid to get Osama bin Laden.

Interesting piece on the development in India and how it proceeds despite the government and public services.

Fascinating feature on the paramilitary corruption in Colombia.

Derek Sivers moved to Singapore and plans to continue living in various countries.

The New Yorker wraps up what bin Laden has changed in America.

Andrew Sullivan writes about the reaction to Obama asking for a return to 1967 borders in Israel.

Felix Salmon writes about why you shouldn't donate money to Japan. The money you would donate can be put to far better use in other countries and other situations.

"In the midst of the Egyptian revolution, I realized that many of us in the West—and I include myself squarely in this—act under the assumption that progress in digital democracy would come here first, because our technology and our democracies are more advanced. Then it became clear to me that such advances would come instead where they are most needed: in the Middle East."

"After three decades in power, José Eduardo dos Santos is presiding over a resource boom. But too few Angolans are seeing the benefits."

"But if prices in Dubai seem inflated, they have nothing on Luanda. Last year Angola’s capital was the most expensive city in the world, according to Mercer, a New York-based consultancy."

Piracy off the coast of Somalia is getting worse despite the international efforts of the EU, UN, and even countries like Iran. As naval forces make the shipping routes through the Gulf of Aden safer the pirates move farther afield. In one case they attacked a ship 1,300 miles off the coast.

How the United States could find itself on the wrong side of history with Egypt.

"Obama has chosen cowardice and expediency over principles and honesty. And that choice undermines his stirring rhetoric much more than any sloppy choice of words could have."

"Cyber-skeptic Evgeny Morozov talks Tunisia, WikiLeaks, and why the US shouldn't promote internet freedom."

What it looks like to try to issue biometric-based identification cards to a country with over a billion people. Contractors have already created a database of 1 million people, only 0.1% of the total population.

"The hyper-caution and concern of the Americans was evident in the statements last night. They are potential kingmakers but appear terrified of acting before having a better understanding of the situation on the ground."

Lisa Curtis has to leave Niger after just 3 months because of terrorist activity in the area.

China is stepping up it's development efforts in Central Asia.

More thoughts from Clay Shirky about WikiLeaks and its role as a stateless/international organization.

The Atlantic surveys a recent study that focuses on how individual states compare in international math score rankings. The results are fairly surprising. It all goes to show that for schools more money brings more problems.

"Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Afghanistan meets a growing community of part-time expat jihadists."

Microsavings are affecting Haiti in a large way. Maybe we'll have the same technology in the near future.

The Economist looks into how Anonymous communicates and organizes their cyber-protests.

"One of my favorite write-ups is from euobserver.com: Heads start rolling in WikiLeaks affair. Let’s see: A German bureaucrat fired for leaking internal discussions to the US. A Swedish diplomat feeling really bad for similar reasons. Berlusconi in hot political water. The Georgian ambassador to Rome implicated in the Berlusconi mud. The leader of the Moldovan Communist party exposed in what seems like a perfectly routine attempt at parliamentary bribery.

Isn’t that awful. Losing sleep? Me neither."

7 years since Saddam's fall in Iraq the country still struggles what to do with some of the more polarizing relics of his reign. These include a Qur'an written in blood pulled from Saddam in the 1990s.

Julian Assange writes a great editorial in The Australian about Wikileaks and Cablegate.

The NY Times covers the uncertainty leading up to the presidential elections in Haiti.

"Women in the Netherlands work less, have lesser titles and a big gender pay gap, and they love it."

Russia has large nuclear ambitions and aims to become the leading energy supplier.

Interesting story about foreign aid projects done as individual ventures. Blink Now sounds like a particularly interesting project.

The floods in Pakistan are devastating for an already fragile infrastructure.

"No one wishes for a total Chinese collapse, but certain setbacks should be welcomed."

A team impersonated the Togo national soccer team.

How China's economic growth could be leading it toward a situation like Japan's in the 1990s.

"Islamic science had its heyday in the ninth century, thanks to Abū Ja'far al-Ma'mūn's House of Wisdom."

“For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he: and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.”

From that utterance in 1647 to Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1863 — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” — is a natural progression. And democracy is still an idea worth the fight.

"It is in this very context that I raise the spectre of police stopping citizens on the street to demand identification for reasons that cannot always be predicted and protected against. It has happened before."

"The human world is fast becoming an urban world -- and according to many, the faster that happens and the bigger the cities get, the better off we all will be. The old suburban model, with families enjoying their own space in detached houses, is increasingly behind us; we're heading toward heavier reliance on public transit, greater density, and far less personal space. Global cities, even colossal ones like Mumbai and Mexico City, represent our cosmopolitan future, we're now told; they will be nerve centers of international commerce and technological innovation just like the great metropolises of the past -- only with the Internet and smart phones."

"There’s a palpable sense of social tension in China these days, a shadow side to the triumphalism of its spectacular economic rise. Policy makers and economists frequently single out the by-now glaring rich-poor gap as a key factor. Increasingly, the poor are resentful, and the wealthy barricade themselves in walled compounds, hire bodyguards or send their families overseas."

The data show that growth in China is not dropping at the same rate as industrialized Western countries.

India is in dire need of non-computer engineers to rebuild its aging infrastructure.

A rape warrant for Julian Assange has already been withdrawn.

Allegations against Julian Assange are not slowing the work of WikiLeaks.

Looks like Wyclef will not be running for president of Haiti after all.

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange is none too happy with the way the New York Times handled the Afghanistan War documents.

China is cracking down on Uighur dissent websites.

The Pentagon is considering methods of "compelling" WikiLeaks into turning over the yet to be released documents.

"In media history up to now, the press is free to report on what the powerful wish to keep secret because the laws of a given nation protect it. But Wikileaks is able to report on what the powerful wish to keep secret because the logic of the Internet permits it. This is new."

Background from The Guardian about the Afghanistan war logs.

The current economic situation necessitates an economy that is driven by something more than GDP and product.

"How the United States got Lebanon's leading Shiite cleric dead wrong -- and missed a chance to change the Middle East forever."

“We forgive and forget,” Radebe said. “You’ve got to live in the world and you want to do it in peace. Mandela said we had to tolerate each other. Somebody has to give in so we can make our way forward. Sport has the power to unite people and change individuals.”

Discussion on the study that surveyed the use of "torture" as a descriptor for water-boarding.

Interesting take on how the G20 meetings in Toronto were a failure for all involved.

Perhaps we should not be as afraid of terrorist organizations as we are led to believe.

The story of an Afghan refugee that made it into space.

"Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation,at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation?"

Perhaps Twitter didn't have as large as role as we like to think in Iran.

Partly due to isolationist policies under Saddam the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq is withering.

China is making a big push for environmentally-friendly energy policies but these must be kept in perspective.

"I do not know the yardstick that determines whether the state is faced with a famine-like situation or not but the fact remains that water trains and water tankers are quenching the thirst in all 33 districts."

Four years after the raid on The Pirate Bay the authorities have succeeded in creating a massive, multi-headed monster. The trackers are now replicated across various countries.

A collapse in the Euro is suddenly seeming like a more plausible option.

The LRA has dwindling numbers and is facing a fairly well-disciplined and well-funded counter-assault from the Ugandan military forces. So why is it still surviving and terrorizing villages?

A story from a consultant working for Boston Consulting Group in Dubai.

"Alcohol consumption is falling in most big European countries."

Congo now has vast oil reserves. The question remains as to whether its largely incompetent government can make effective use of it.

Despite making wide gains in its relative openness to foreign investment Libya is still stuck in an imperfect situation.

"For those who consider India’s Maoist insurgency a grave and urgent threat, the evidence keeps mounting."

"Despite the achievements of Álvaro Uribe’s security policy, his successor will have to tackle a new threat from organised criminal gangs."

"A flawed election would be better than none, for it would mean progress towards a peaceful north-south split."

"Three Royal Navy ships are being deployed to help bring stranded Britons home as UK airspace remains restricted [due to the Icelandic volcano]."

Berlusconi's party performed better than expected in the regional Italian elections of 2010. After a string of scandals the party's performance was surprising.

"Sierra Leone is now considered safe enough at home to send 160 of its soldiers to help the mixed force of nearly 22,000 soldiers and police from the African Union and the UN that are keeping the peace in Darfur."

"After four gruelling years under siege, the Gazans—and the Islamist movement, Hamas, that governs them—are still managing against the odds to survive. Some even prosper."

"Indonesia now wants to raise its diplomatic game, acting the part of a regional power with a global impact. One sign of this is a desire to be ranked among the BRIC economic club of Brazil, Russia, India and China."

A long-standing traditionally revered ginko tree in Japan has fallen.

China's civil unrest is growing and some officials are giving warnings that there's worse to come.