Scotland: Separation may tear us to pieces
Proud Scots have made Britain great, so we have nothing to fear from any continuation of the Union, writes Brian Monteith
The demand from Yes campaigners for the No campaign to be more positive and offer a positive vision of Scotland’s future has been repeated so often that it has now become a tiresome cliché. It is all the more ironic then that the greatest advocates of the positive case for Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom are in fact Yes campaigners and politicians themselves. …
The Scotsman
Poland: Textile giant LPP has bumper year in 2013
Poland’s largest clothing retailer LPP has registered a 28 percent rise in revenue for 2013 compared with the previous year.
The company, whose brands include Reserved, Cropp and House, finished the year with a revenue of 4.1 billion zloty (982.4 million euro), and a net profit of 430.9 million zloty (103.2 million euro). Simultaneously, the company confirmed a 24 percent rise in its fourth quarter net profit for 2013. ...
The News
Russia: Mendeleev’s final conundrum
Hunt is on in Japan to find lost descendants of the Siberian-born chemist and inventor.
Generations of students have memorised Mendeleev’s periodic table but they were unaware of one detail about the great Russian scientist. In the latter years of his life he actively supported a granddaughter in Nagasaki, though it is not believed he ever met her.
Mendeleev’s son Vladimir was a sailor in the Russian Navy and a member of the crew that sailed with future emperor Nicholas II on his ‘eastern journey’. ...
The Siberian Times
Somalia: Five Challenges for Somalia’s Economic Reconstruction
Mogadishu is once again calm. Somalia’s economy has managed to survive state collapse, maintaining reasonable levels of output throughout the country’s two-decade-long civil war. Now, with political recovery and transition slowly underway, the country’s economy faces new hurdles. ...
All Africa
Japan: Scientists hope latest immunotherapeutic drug will lead to new cancer treatment
A new type of immunotherapeutic drug to treat skin cancer is expected to be released by the end of the year, and scientists are hopeful the new medicine will eventually prove effective in treating other cancers as well.
“(The new agent) may significantly change cancer therapy,” said Tasuku Honjo, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University, who discovered a key protein to develop the new medicine. ...
Asahi
Czech republic: Voskovec and Werich to get museum
The Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation has won a tender for renting the historical Werich villa in Prague, where it plans to establish a museum devoted to a popular duo of the late comic actors Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, daily Právo writes.
The villa in the beautiful and prestigious locality on the central Kampa island near the Vltava River is owned by the Prague 1 district. It has been unused and subject to disputes for many years and it is in a bad technical state. ...
The Prague Post
Estonia: Estonians More Optimistic About Economic Issues
The Eurobarometer survey indicates that Estonians are hopeful about the economy and their own futures, have strong support for the Euro, and are receptive to internationalism. ...
ERR
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