- 'No President of the Fifth Republic has become so unpopular, so fast.' Francois Hollande, one year on.
- When Americans meet, one of the first questions they ask is 'Where are you from?' That's because Americans move a lot (though not as much as Kiwis, interestingly).
- Softball Ian Bremmer interview with Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent contains this notable assessment of Japan: 'It's too late to fix the demographics in Japan to convert it into an open, dynamic, growing population in short order.' (Thanks Steve.)
- Extraordinary colour photos of Russia, a century ago. (Thanks Dirk.)
- 'Only three of the 17 euro zone nations — Germany, Austria and Belgium — have bigger economies now than they did in 2008.'
- High levels of racial tolerance in the Anglosphere.
- Lowy Institute Military Fellow James Brown appears before Parliament's Defence Sub-Committee today to discuss his submission calling for more parliamentary oversight of Defence.
- A follow-up to yesterday's preview of the Arctic Council meeting by Linda Jakobson: sanity prevailed, and six applicants (including China) were granted permanent observer status.
- Notable quote from the NY Times piece cited above about the Arctic Council:
In 2010, only four ships carrying 111,000 tons of cargo made the northern passage; by last year, 46 did, carrying 1.26 million tons. Among those was China’s first ship through the Arctic, an icebreaker called Xuelong, or Snow Dragon.