New Euro Crisis! Conventional Tournament Hosting ‘Too Expensive’ for Europe

Michel #Platini posits #Euro2020 to be hosted across continent after only serious single-country bid comes from #Turkey tinyurl.com/84ulmfq—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 30, 2012

Adieu! France Télécom Switches Off Minitel; First Digital Generation ‘In Mourning’

#PreInternet online system started in #1978 faces extinction on 30/06/2012; #Minitel still popular 'into late 1990s' tinyurl.com/76ra5y6—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 29, 2012

Economic Integration Acceleration Situation: Qatar to Sink US$5bn Into China

#Qatar applies for Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor licence; Chinese stock and bond markets 'targeted' tinyurl.com/7shpzla #Asia—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 29, 2012

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Goodnight Vienna!

It seems incredible that almost a decade separates the date of this blog post and the beginning of the Iraq War, almost indisputably the most controversial military operation in the first decade or so of the twentieth century; bewilderingly and despite its recency, there is still much about it that is uncertain. There are profound disagreements over the precise reasons that the United States – ultimately joined, though mostly symbolically, from forces spanning nearly forty countries – pursued this conflict, and it remains to be seen whether the incredible fiscal drain placed on America’s resources, conservatively estimated at US$3trn by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, will prove to be a burden of decisive proportions.

But one thing is becoming ever-clearer: the geopolitical effect of military engagement in Iraq has been to turn one of the largest oil producers in the world into a state with a symbiotic relationship with Iran. In fact, so strong is the bond between Iraq and Iran – neighbours locked in a one million casualty conflict of their own for much of the 1980s – that the two countries are now forming an alliance with OPEC to counter Saudi Arabian influence within that organisation. This is particularly significant because despite Saudi Arabia’s dire international image, it is perceived as a reliable partner when it comes to pumping sweet, black crude out of the ground and supplying it to world markets with few questions asked; Iran, much like Venezuela, is keener to utilise the political potential of OPEC towards its own geostrategic goals.

Naturally, this feeds back into the United States’ present economic predicament, which is characterised by sensational levels of wealth destruction and, in the form of astonishing quantities of monetary printing, desperation; the last thing that the energy-intensive American economy needs is for the price of its key production and transportation input to undergo a structural increase in price because of a shift within the dynamics of OPEC. Yet that is precisely what it is being confronted with, the irony being that the status quo of the early 2000s would have precluded such an outcome.

Reading: The Ultimate Escapism?

#Prisoners in four Brazilian jails to get sentences reduced by 4 days for each 'redemptive' book read + essay written tinyurl.com/7ns8ab7—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 27, 2012

It’s a Wrap: New Japanese Robot ‘Invincible’ at Scissors, Paper, Stone

#University of #Tokyo #robot 'cheats' way to success by observing hand shape of human opponent; applications 'vast' tinyurl.com/7ty5rxp—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 27, 2012

Panenka, Postiga, Pirlo: Juventus Icon Adds Name to Chipped Penalty Maestro List

Andrea #Pirlo dinked penalty alters #psychology of Euro 2012 shoot-out; England crash out, Italy advance tinyurl.com/8yzgtsq #Ibricic—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 27, 2012

Walking on the Moon – Soon! China Completes First Space Manual Docking

#PRC splurges US$6bn on human space program, 1992-2012; Chinese astronauts 'at home' in space, President Hu 'happy' tinyurl.com/bo4x995—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 27, 2012

Creditor 4, Debtor 2: Germany Trounce Greece at Euro 2012

Angela #Merkel oversees 'training session' mauling of #EU pariah state; Mesut #Özil 'steals show' tinyurl.com/72rtoqb
#austerity #Euro2012—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 23, 2012

Creativity: The USP Par Excellence?

At a time when abundance is arguably the norm in most areas of life in the developed world – from the supermarket shelves heaving with imported delicacies to the information-rich electronic devices that have colonised the collective consciousness of vast swathes of the planet during the past decade-and-a-half – it seems bizarre to speak of acute scarcity. Yet in at least one key area of modern existence, this modality is arguably the defining one: creativity.

With typical creativity guidance searches on popular web portal in the millions per month, it seems as the world is sitting at a desk with a blank sheet of paper and a flummoxed expression. And this phenomenon is manifesting itself in almost every imaginable conventional sector. Literature is forced to draw on translated texts from other languages in order to be viable in qualitative terms: authors such as Orhan Pamuk and Aleksandar Hemon, both so recently curious exotica on the fringes of the mainstream, are now the centrepiece of the entire enterprise.

The general consensus on the Internet is that popular music has been dying a virulent death for at least a decade: what we are left with is endless remixes. And in football, the one position that almost no-one can occupy is that of the playmaker, the one person on the team for whom simple sideways passes are categorically insufficient; even the Brazil national team, the most successful international side in the history of the FIFA World Cup, has no obvious replacement for the iconic Kaká.

Is living in a world where the ability to create – to realise that which was not there and has no precedent – has perhaps never been so rare such a bad thing? Ultimately, this depends on one’s position on the continuua of creativity. The sumptuous insight articulated by Swedish business gurus Jonas Ridderstråle and Kjell A. Nordström – ‘Future success will be about challenging current wisdom and moving your pawn from A2 to E7 in one move’ – has never looked so prescient. But how can a person be or become creative? And what is creativity anyway? These will be the topic of the next article in this series.