World News!

Canada

• Research mathematicians at the University of Alberta have proposed that the number 16,777,216 be officially named a "fillion".

China

• Chinese Q2 GDP increased at an annual rate of 9.5% (2.2% from Q1 to Q2), good news for those concerned about inflation but still the slowest rate of growth since Q3 2009.
• The China Securities Regulatory Commission will be conducting stress tests on its brokerage industry.
• A study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that there was a 41% decrease in Chinese websites from 2009 to 2010.  They insist that there is no link between this and China's increasingly tight internet regulations, citing a 79% increase in individual web pates over the same period.

European Union

• Plans for a special summit on a second Greek bailout ran off the rails on German refusal to participate.  The feeling of the German government is that Greece is funded until September, so why rush?

Italy

• The IMF has asked Italy to decisively implement a package of austerity measures to ensure "a positive effect on market sentiments".

Ireland

• Moody's has cut Ireland's sovereign debt rating to Ba1 (the upper end of non-investment grade), citing their concerns that the PIIGS nation will be forced to seek a second bailout.

Japan

• Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called for development of renewable energy sources in an effort to make Japan a nuclear-free nation.
• Joji Morishita of the Institute of Cetacean Research has announced that their research fleet[1] will be returning to Antarctic waters to study whales[2], taking advantage of the fact that the International Whaling Commission allows member nations to issue "scientific permits" for the killing of a set number of whales.  Typically, the Japanese government issues "scientific permits" for several hundred whales per year.  Presumably, it feels the ICR is being ecologically friendly by recycling the dead whales into convenient single-serving packages.

Libya

• According to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, Muammar Gaddafi has been in contact with several nations, exploring options for stepping down from power and leaving.

Syria

• An explosion hit a gas pipeline in northeastern Syria.  Official sources are reporting no casualties and only limited damage, and the cause is currently unknown.
• Syria has condemned Secretary of State Clinton's remarks (stating that Brutal Dictator[3] al-Assad had "lost legitimacy" to rule and that he was "not indispensable") in the wake of the "completely spontaneous and absolutely not instigated by the Syrian government"[4] attacks on the French and US embassies in Damascus.

United States

• In the wake of the New Corporation hacking scandal, Senator Jay Rockefeller has called for the Commerce Committee to investigate whether journalists working for the company broke US law.
• Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, has expressed serious concerns restrictions placed by the US government on his attempts to meet with PFC Bradley Manning.  He states that the US requirement that all of his communications with Manning be monitored are a violation of long-standing UN rules applied to official UN interviews with inmates held anywhere in the world.

[1]  A research fleet with harpoon cannons.

[2]  Specifically, to study how how the ability of whales to survive having harpoons fired into them, whether they taste better as a simple shabu-shabu or marinated in soy sauce, and then the most efficient means of packaging them for resale.

[3]  Oops.  I meant "President'.  Darn those typos.

[4]  Nudge, nudge.  Wink, wink.  Know what I mean?