By Charles Kenny - As we ramp up to 2015 and (maybe) a new set of Millennium Development Goals, people are proposing things to include: universal energy access, freedom from violence, a learning goal, stronger language on sustainable development… and happiness.  The Japanese government is pushing for the inclusion of a ‘happiness/well-being measure’ as part of the Rio Sustainable [...]

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      昨天夜晚，相信很多网友和我一样，拼命刷屏人民网。我估计这是人民网第一次迎接来这么多真正的人民。刷屏的目的只为了三个字，......>>点击查看新浪博客原文

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Google, Amazon and Adobe defeated a patent claiming ownership over online video, image rotation and search auto-complete. TYLER, Texas — After threatening web companies for more than a decade, Michael Doyle and his patent-holding company Eolas Technologies — named after the Irish word for knowledge — may be finished. An eight-member federal jury in East Texas deliberated Thursday for just a few hours before concluding that all of Eolas’ asserted claims of ownership to technology allowing access...  show all text

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Twitter has announced a new partnership with major satellite providers to give their subscribers access to Twitter SMS, the original text-based Twitter service. According to a statement released Thursday, the company has partnered with Iridium and Thuraya, the world’s two largest satellite providers, to increase the number of people that can use Twitter SMS worldwide. The company said the new partnership will help guarantee greater global access to the microblogging network. “Now, even if phone...  show all text

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A 23-year-old Saudi Twitter user, Hamza Kashgari, fled the country Sunday to avoid being arrested for his religious tweets, only to find himself in the hands of the Malaysian police today. He was heading to New Zealand to request political asylum. On Saturday, the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, Kashgari tweeted three times, expressing his religious beliefs about the founder of Islam. Within hours, he was inundated with violent threats. Despite a full renunciation, a warrant was...  show all text

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TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th ...

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One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming. That unless you can give your business all your thoughts and hours, you don’t deserve success. You are unworthy of the startup call. This myth neatly identifies those fit for mission: Young, without obligations, and few if any extra-curricular interests. The perfect cannon fodder for 10:1 VC long shots. They’re also easier to rile up with tales of milk and honey at the end of the rainbow, or the modern equivalen...  show all text

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The international community may be forced to 'militarise' the crisis in Syria unless president Bashar al-Assad stops the onsalught on his people, a senior US official warned on Wednesday.

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Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman isn’t paying enough attention to growing U.S. government debt as he promotes deficit spending, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said.

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On Feb. 3 millions of Beijing families woke up to some odd news from the All-China Women's Federation -- the city’s oldest, and most important, women’s organization. To be eligible for their new "Capital Harmonious Family" award, a family living in Beijing should own a library of at least 300 books, have an Internet connection and subscribe to at least one newspaper. It also wouldn’t hurt if your family traveled frequently, ate out regularly and practiced a low-carbon lifestyle.

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U.S. Embassy Damascus wrote a note titled A note from Ambassador Ford on recent events in Syria. Read the full text here.

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This might just be the sweetest Valentine’s Day story I’ve ever heard. It’s definitely the sweetest Valentine’s Day story I’ve ever written. Kaitlyn Trigger is a marketing director at Rally.org. She also happens to be Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger’s girlfriend of two and a half years (The 26 year old Krieger and 27 year old Trigger met at a friend’s house in October of 2009 and moved in together in October 2010). And my hero. Last December, Trigger decided she wanted to be able to talk to h...  show all text

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THERE was a time when Devon Chang had difficulty reconciling his two chosen faiths: Christianity, which he embraced in 2005 at the age of 19, and the Communist Party of China, which had embraced him a yea

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The following post by CMP director Qian Gang was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime after 5:57pm Hong Kong time, Febuary 9, 2012.

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On February 9, 2012, following the widely-discussed leaks of pro-Kremlin mailboxes, LiveJournal, where the leaks were published, became temporarily unavailable, Lenta.ru reported [ru]. Russian representative of Anonymous group @OP_Russia, suggested [ru] that it was a DDoS attack to hide the evidence of massive wrongdoings (including corruption, thievery, political provocations, and cybercrime) [ru] by Nashi youth movement. Later that day @OP_Russia took responsibility for taking down 3 websites...  show all text

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A lawmaker representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said on Thursday that his party had not decided to push for sacking the military-appointed cabinet or forming a new government.

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بوابة 25 يناير :قال الدكتور عماد جاد، عضو مجلس الشعب، أن رئيس مجلس الشعب الدكتور سعد الكتاتني تعمد تجاهل طلب البيان العاجل الذي تقدم به حول حكم جلسة الصلح العرفي بطرد ثماني أسر مسيحية من إحدى قر

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Over the last decade the major music labels — and their trade organization, the Recording Industry Association of America — have established a repeated pattern of attacking consumers in the name of squelching illegal file-sharing. Piracy, they claim, has been the industry’s undoing, accounting for an over 50% drop in sales since 1999 (the industry likes to discount the impact of legal per-song music downloads via services like iTunes, and the myriad other changes facilitated by the rise of high...  show all text

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Although the Bureau of Investigative Journalism may have put a few noses out of joint in Washington...

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Twitter began as an SMS service. Today, we continue to build out SMS capability because we recognize the importance and value of making our service available to every person on the planet. No matter what device people use — from the most advanced smartphone to the simplest feature phone — people around the world should be able to send and read Tweets. Of course, there may be times when people cannot access SMS. We’ve been working on some solutions when that occurs: Satellite operators We’ve p...  show all text

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New Facebook group asks Prime Minister to postpone any plans to a strike of Iran's nuclear facilities until after the Queen of Pop's planned May 29 visit.

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By Richard Engel and Robert WindremNBC News Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S.

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IN AN earlier era, it would have been the sort of scurrilous rumour picked up by scandal sheets in Hong Kong but only whispered in Beijing: the high-profile right-hand man of a prominent Politburo member

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Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city, is increasingly divided over the uprising. Unlike Homs, it so far has escaped much of the violence in Syria.

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