Today, Thailand is a different place. The rich and the powerful in Bangkok now call for less democracy. Rural residents, meanwhile, are fighting for more political representation through electoral politics. Their voices have been strengthened in the past decade thanks partly to Thaksin’s policy of grassroots empowerment.

http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/01/15/anti-government-does-not-necessarily-mean-pro-democracy/

Fast wäre zu Wochenbeginn im Berliner Stadtteil Friedrichshain eine Schule geschlossen wurden, weil die Reinigung der Toiletten mangelhaft war und auf den Treppen Staubschichten lagen. Als am vergangenen Montag das Gesundheitsamt zur Prüfung kam, hatten die Putzkräfte eine Generalreinigung beendet und damit die Schulschließung abgewendet. Doch der Fall dieser Berliner Grundschule, der sogleich durch die Medien ging, war keine Ausnahme.

http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/155676?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

L'Equateur coordonnera le groupe de travail composé de représentants des gouvernements de la Jamaïque, de la République dominicaine, du Nicaragua et du Venezuela pour former un bloc régional, comme alternative aux systèmes économiques hégémoniques d'autres régions. 

http://www.andes.info.ec/fr/noticias/lequateur-coordonnera-creation-dun-bloc-economique-regional-alba-petrocaribe.html

La compagnie nationale de pétrole Sonangol va attribuer dix blocs pétroliers onshore, une première en Angola, deuxième producteur d’or noir du continent africain, a-t-on appris mardi auprès de la Sonangol. "Il s’agit bien de la première mise aux enchères onshore en Angola et ce sont dix blocs qui vont être attribués", a indiqué le service de communication.

http://aucomptoirangolais.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/langola-va-attribuer-ses-premiers-blocs-petroliers-onshore/

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government on Tuesday brushed aside a report that talks with Washington to prevent further U.S. spying on German ministers faced collapse, saying it continued to push for a deal on the politically explosive issue. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said talks about reaching a "no-spy" agreement were proceeding. He would not comment directly on a Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper report that they were close to failing due to U.S. intransigence.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/uk-germany-security-usa-idUKBREA0D11M20140114

Dès le milieu de la semaine, cette éviction en forme de démission était pressentie. Le président Djotodia, parvenu aux plus hautes fonctions en mars 2013 à la faveur d'un coup d'Etat, n'a pas réussi à stabiliser un pays déchiré à force de combats entre ex-Sélékas et les milices antibalakas.

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/afrique/centrafrique-le-president-michel-djotodia-a-demissionne_1313002.html

Washington Post reporters called the communications depart­ments of Apple, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and other Internet companies. The day before, a report in the British newspaper The Guardian had shocked Americans with evidence that the telecommunications giant Verizon had voluntarily handed a database of every call made on its network to the National Security Agency. The piece was by reporter Glenn Greenwald, and the information came from Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old IT consultant who had left the US with hundreds of thousands of documents detailing the NSA’s secret procedures.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/01/how-the-us-almost-killed-the-internet/

In the space of 10 years, mobile phones and the Internet have changed African nations more significantly than any development since their independence from colonial powers. Now a growing group of entrepreneurs want to take things further.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/silicon-savannah-how-mobile-phones-and-the-internet-changed-africa-a-936307.html

It is equally possible, however, that the Euro-American globalist system will become increasingly marginal. China alone is, in the medium-term, big enough to be a bigger cultural and economic world than the EU and U.S. put together. In addition, China will no doubt continue not only to work in Western institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO), but also to develop its own alternatives with emerging allies: the Asian Development Bank, a possible “BRICS bank,” or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The world is increasingly a non-Western one with powers like China, Russia, Brazil, Japan, or South Korea, which are distinctly uninterested in making a fetish of free trade.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/10/30/europe-must-adapt-to-the-reality-that-we-are-living-in-a-world-increasingly-dominated-by-asia/

State legislators in California have introduced a bill that would ban state agencies from working with the National Security Agency, in an attempt to prevent the NSA from spying on Californians. The bill would deny NSA facilities in the Sunshine State access to state utilities like electricity and water. RT's Liz Wahl speaks to Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, to get an in-depth look at California's firm stance against the NSA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7MTrp1smw&feature=youtu.be