Riots Imperil Democracy in Mongolia

Residents demand universal suffrage

(NEWSER) - Hong Kong observed the 10th anniversary of the handover to China today as tens of thousands took to the streets for the now-traditional annual pro-democracy rally. Beijing appears no more amenable to universal suffrage, however—Hu Jintao was in town to swear in the territory's new chief executive and his government, but the Chinese president departed before the march began. More»

Cost advantage isn't the only reason Asia is gaining on US

(NEWSER) - Asia isn't just snapping up low-wage unskilled manufacturing jobs from the US; thanks to rapidly expanding engineering and research capabilities, the continent, and particularly China, have been able to lure away America's high-tech manufacturing jobs, too, according to a new report from the National Science Board. In the last decade the US lost 687,000 of these high-tech jobs—a sizable 28%, the Washington Post reports. More»

Income inequality threatens 'whole nature of our society': Paul Krugman

(NEWSER) - A new CBO report tells the same old story, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times : The very rich are getting much richer at the expense of everyone else. Cue the think tanks and "obfuscators" who say it ain't so for all kinds of reasons. They're just trying to "obscure the stark reality," writes Krugman. "We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only." More»

Meanwhile, Interpol joins effort to save Asian tigers

(NEWSER) - Two stories of note on the wires about animal conservation:

• Rhinos: Poachers have killed a record 341 rhinos this year in South Africa, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The horns fetch big money on the black market for use in traditional medicine or as ornamental daggers, reports the BBC . It's gruesome business, with poachers usually just sawing off the horn and leaving the animal to bleed to death. South Africa has the world's largest rhino population, about 20,000.

Tribal society faces barriers to unification

(NEWSER) - Libya is finally getting a shot at democracy—but experts expect growing pains as a divided tribal society makes the shift from decades of authoritarianism. Historically, such transitions have not gone well, political scientists tell the Christian Science Monitor . “We would actually feel fairly pessimistic about the prospects for this [transition] to be successful and stable,” notes a professor who has examined 41 such transitions around the world. "The more diverse the society, the less stable these new regimes tend to be." More»