Samoan Economics and Time Travel

Samoa - Not ugly

Samoa is a small nation in the Oceanic continent. In order to improve its Economic prospects in the future it has decided to travel back in time, quite literally. You see the Pacific Island nation currently lies in the time zone GMT-12 or WST meaning that if right now its 12 pm in London, Samoans are only beginning their day at 12 midnight, they are however, 21 hours behind their relatively speaking neighbours in Canberra.

Samoans haven't been free from major overhauls in recent history. In 2009 the law was changed to force civilians to drive on the left hand side of the road, the same as is done in key "neighbours" Japan and Australia.

EU imposes arms embargo in Syria

The 27 state European Union has imposed an arms embargo on the beleaguered Middle Eastern Nation of Syria. Part of the so-called Arab Spring Syria has seen numerous anti-Government protests in the past few weeks, many of which have seen increasingly shocking and violent repercussions from the regime of President Assad.

Amateur video captured around the country reports troops backed by armoured tanks entering the main cities and rounding up civilians and the regime continues to block the entrance of journalists into the state. In the past six weeks, unofficial reports have stated that 3000 have been jailed and hundreds more have sacrificed their lives in the hopes of independence.

Weekend Randomness: Playmate Found Mummified

Yvette Vickers

The body of Yvette Vickers, a former playboy playmate was found severely decomposed in her Beverly Hills home this week. A neighbour of her's had claimed that the B-Movie actress had not been seen outside her home since the Summer.

It was this neighbour (Susan Savage) who noticed cobwebs forming on the Ms Vickers' letterbox. There she found the cordless phone off the hook and the electric heater still on. She claimed the body of her neighbour was barely recognisable.

Weekend Randomness: The Case of Tokyo's Oldest Man

This story is one of the site's most popular Weekend Randomness post originally posted on the 31st of July last year. Its a genuinely bizarre story and one of my personal favourites. 

The current world life expectancy average is 67.5 years with the Japanese being the most long lived population in the world with average life expectancy of 82.6 years. This contrasts with the average in Swaziland of just 39.6 years. This weekends random news comes from Tokyo, a thriving metropolis of nearly 14,000,000 people.

 So in such a long lived population there is a lot of interest in just who is the most aged resident in the city. Up until this week the record was held by one Sogen Kato a man of 111 years. The record for world's oldest man is held by another Japanese person Tamoji Tanabe in the Southern City of Miyakonojo. He is also 111 years.

Racism and the French Football Federation

Laurent Blanc

In one of the most shocking stories I have happened upon since starting this blog, a tape was uncovered this week outlining plans held to introduce an ethnic quota in the French national football team. This has spurred the Football Federation into action organising an inquiry into the origins of such a tape.


The tape implicates people as high ranking as the French national coach Laurent Blanc and François Blaquart, National Technical Director in charge of  youth coaching strategies. The investigative website Mediapart initially broke the story and transcribed the story for the media.

Junction News: Starvation in Africa: An all too Common Tale

 The site's most popular story and undoubtedly one of its most tragic. Originally posted on the 24th of July last it details the world's continuous lack of assistance to its most vulnerable people.

Today  I read a shocking report on the current situation of food shortages in the central African nation of Niger.  Here hunger is threatening up to eight million people in the nation, half of its roughly 16 million population. The nation is in dire need of rainfall after drought has destroyed the lifestock of the largely nomadic country. The great hunger also threatens 2 million people in areas of the neighbouring countries of Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and northern Nigeria.

The UN World Food Programme says it only has half of the $213 million people it claims it needs to up the distribution of emergency food aid. Response to the crisis has so far been quite slow. The reason given for this is both obvious and devastating.

Opinion: AV vote in Britain

Perhaps in my old (20) age I am becoming a little bit overly nationalistic as I've noticed that my last two strongly opinion driven pieces have been  tinged with a somewhat anti-British sentiment. I am in no way anti-British or indeed any nation in the world so if any of you feel this way I would like to open this piece with an apology.

However, the media's treatment of tomorrow's AV referendum has me somewhat baffled. For those of you not in the know about UK politics the country will go to the polls today to decide whether to keep the country's current first past the post electoral voting system or to adopt the Alternative Voting System. These will be explained after the page break.