Chinese Blogger Thrives as Muckraker
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: February 5, 2013
BEIJING — With his five cellphones constantly ringing, it is not easy these days to get the undivided attention of Zhu Ruifeng, a professed citizen journalist whose freelance campaign against graft has earned him pop-star acclaim and sent a chill through Chinese officialdom.
“Shush, I’ve got the BBC on the phone,” he said one afternoon last week, silencing the crowd of acolytes and journalists who had flocked to the bookstore where he holds court most days.
A former migrant worker with a high school education, Mr. Zhu has become an overnight celebrity in China in the two months since he posted online secretly recorded video of an 18-year-old woman having sex with a memorably unattractive 57-year-old official from the southwestern municipality of Chongqing. The official lost his job. Mr. Zhu gained a million or so new microblog followers.
Brennan nomination exposes criticism on targeted killings and secret Saudi base
By ,
President Obama’s plan to install his counterterrorism adviser as director of the CIA has opened the administration to new scrutiny over the targeted-killing policies it has fought to keep hidden from the public, as well as the existence of a previously secret drone base in Saudi Arabia.
The administration’s refusal to provide details about one of the most controversial aspects of its drone campaign — strikes on U.S. citizens abroad — has emerged as a potential source of opposition to CIA nominee John O. Brennan, who faces a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday.
The secrecy surrounding that policy was punctured Monday with the disclosure of a Justice Department “white paper” that spells out the administration’s case for killing Americans accused of being al-Qaeda operatives.
IRAN
Time is running out with Iran
Iran, once again, has signaled its readiness to enter negotiations on its controversial nuclear program. This time around, experts are hoping for direct talks with the United States - because little time remains.
The alternative to a diplomatic solution in the dispute over Iran's nuclear program could be war – but no one wants it to come to that, according to Michael Brzoska, Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg. "Iran has always said that it is ready to negotiate," he told DW.
After much stalling and foot dragging, Iran again pronounced that it was ready to negotiate on Sunday (03.02.2013) during the recently held Munich Security Conference. The country's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, was reacting to an offer for talks by US Vice President Joe Biden.
Farm Wars: EU Grapples with Costs of Subsidizing Agriculture
By Susanne Amann, Jörg Schindler and Christoph Schult
European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos wants to reform Europe's agricultural policy, but resistance from the farming lobby threatens to derail his plans. It will be to the detriment of citizens, who are expected to pay for a highly subsidized industry that is harmful to the environment.
From the top of the hill, farmer Martin Ramschulte has an unobstructed view of the past. "That one down there has given up," says Ramschulte, "and so has that one, and that one back there, too." Then he points to a brick house next to a pond. "And if this continues, it'll eventually spell the end of that place, too."
It was three or four years ago that Ramschulte began pondering the fate of farming in his area. One neighbor had just ordered 1,500 hogs, another neighbor had ordered 2,000.
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