European countries account for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free

Hong Kong has been named the world's freest economy for the 15th year in a row, according to an annual report released by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal that warns against government intervention amid the global economic crisis. The Chinese territory, known for its low taxes and looser regulations, was followed by Singapore, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, according to the current Index of Economic Freedom. European countries again accounted for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free, with Switzerland at No. 9 and the U.K. at No. 10. However, the U.S. slid one notch to sixth place, dinged for increased government spending and tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product, one of the survey's authors said. Ranking at the bottom was North Korea, followed by next-to-last Zimbabwe, Cuba, Myanmar and Eritrea. The southern African country, whose economy is in meltdown after years of state-endorsed violence and business controls, posted the biggest drop in the current report. The survey, which gauges 179 countries on 10 economic factors like trade barriers, property rights, taxes and market regulations, covers the year ending in June 2008, before the global meltdown led governments around the world to bailout financial institutions.

Muslim prison gangs on the rise as inmates seek safety in numbers

Prison staff in top security jails in Britain are confronting a growing gang culture with groups of Muslim inmates seeking to assert their authority on the wings. A prisons watchdog report recently published provides fresh evidence of the extent of gang activity among inmates jailed for the most serious crimes and of the growing proportion of Muslim inmates held in high-security conditions. 25% of the 430 population of Long Lartin top security jail in Worcestershire are now Muslim, according to an inspection report by Dame Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons. Prisoners told Dame Anne during her inspection that offenders at the jail are converting to Islam because they want the protection of belonging to a big Muslim group. One inmate quoted in the report said:"Yes, there is a gang culture here which is becoming an issue. A lot of people are becoming Muslim just because it a bigger group." Another inmate warned that all violence in the jail was gang related and that Long Lartin was in danger of turning into an American-style prison. He said: "If you are not in a gang, you’re in trouble. People are converting to Islam for protection." The comments reflect similar concerns at other top security jails such as Belmarsh in southeast London and Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire. The number of Muslim prisoners in jails doubled in the eleven years to 2007 to reach 8,864 - 11% of the total prison population. Muslim prisoners make up one third of the population of Whitemoor, 15% of Full Sutton top security prison in Yorkshire and 20% of Belmarsh jail.

African-Americans and sexually transmitted diseases

While representing 12% of the U.S. population, blacks had about 70% of reported gonorrhea cases and almost half of all chlamydia and syphilis cases (48% and 46%respectively) in 2007. STDs take an especially heavy toll on black women 15 to 19 years of age, who account for the highest rates of both chlamydia (9,646.7 per 100,000 population) and gonorrhea (2,955.7 per 100,000 population) of any group.

Israel bans Arab political parties from running in upcoming parliamentary elections

Knesset spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country's Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Illegal immigrant from Mexico arrested for allegedly selling daughter on the Internet

Police said Marcelino de Jesus Martinez was arrested after he approached them because the 18-year-old he sold his daughter to as a wife was failing to pay up. Authorities in Greenfield, a small rural town in California’s central coast, said Martinez was not aware of US law prohibiting arranged marriages involving underage teenagers and children. He was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking. Police also arrested Margarito de Jesus Galindo, 18, the man Martinez allegedly struck the deal with, on suspicion of statutory rape. The agreement apparently included a payment of $16,000, 150 cases of beer, 50 cases of Gatorade, a sports drink, 100 cases of soda, six cases of meat and two cases of wine in exchange for marriage to Martinez’s daughter. “I just don’t think it occurred to him that he was breaking any laws,” Greenfield police chief Joe Grebmeier said. He added that cultural difference could possibly explain the transaction. “Different communities have different cultures... Some things are legal in Mexico and not legal here.” Police believe the 14-year-old girl, who is under California’s legal age of consent and cannot legally marry, went willingly with Galindo. But after the payments stopped, Martinez, 36, contacted the police to get his daughter back. He initially told police she had run away from home. Mr Grebmeier said Martinez and Galindo, who are both from Oaxaca, Mexico, could faced deportation as illegal immigrants. He added that he wanted to ensure members of the farming community, where rumors of arranged marriages are common, understood they were breaking California law. “From what I understand this doesn't violate Mexican law or their customs where they came from,” Mr Grebmeier said. “We want to send a strong message with regard to the law on sex with minors and the sale of minors into marriage – that it’s illegal.”

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Police: Man sold teen daughter into marriage for cash, beer, meat

Jews and IQ tests

Guy White has a post showing the accuracy of IQ tests when dealing with different ethnic groups.

Bush, like Truman, has failed to understand what ruined his presidency

Patrick J. Buchanan reflects on George W. Bush's failed presidency.

Authorities in Papua New Guinea say they will toughen laws against murders blamed on sorcery, after a surge of them during the past year

The chairman of the Constitutional Review and Law Reform Commission said defendants were using accusations of witchcraft as an excuse to kill people. Police say at least 50 people were killed in 2008 across the country. In the latest suspected incident, a young woman accused of being a witch was burnt at the stake. Correspondents say deaths and mysterious illnesses are sometimes blamed on evil curses and suspected sorcerers are often blamed and then killed. Prosecuting those who kill these so-called magic makers within tight-knit communities is problematic, they add, and rural courts often acquit those who are made to stand trial. "It's the easy way out for someone to kill somebody else, and use sorcery as an excuse," the head of the law reform commission, Joe Mek Teine, said. "And you would find that the victim is totally innocent." Mr Mek Teine said that the new legislation would force rural courts to charge those accused of sorcery-related killings with premeditated murder. "It is a problem that has been existing in the country before the arrival of Western influence, and it's deeply rooted," he said. "The churches have done a lot to improve it but it's getting worse every time," he added.

Males, math and autism

Simon Baron-Cohen argues that there is a connection between autism and mathematical ability.

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If we screen out autism we run the risk of losing genius, too

The length of a man's fingers may predict his success

Scientists at Cambridge University found that financial traders whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers make the most money. The link could be down to testosterone exposure in the womb, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says. This exposure may improve rapid decision-making skills and has been linked with aggression. The same ring-to-index finger ratio, which is determined in the womb, has previously been associated with success in competitive sports. Researcher John Coates and his team reported in 2008 that testosterone seemed to boost short term success at finance after they found City traders with higher levels of the male hormone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day. Their latest findings are based on a study of 44 men working as traders in London, some of whom earned more than £4 million a year. Over 20 months those traders with longer ring fingers made 11 times more money than those with the shortest ring fingers relative to their index fingers. This biological impact on success was about equal to years of experience at the job. The most experienced traders made about nine times more than the least experienced ones. When the researchers looked only at the experienced traders, those with longer ring fingers earned far more than those with shorter ring fingers - £838,000 compared to £154,000 on average, respectively. The scientists believe that exposure to the aggression hormone testosterone in the womb may have improved the traders' concentration and honed reflexes necessary to follow prices and make trades on extremely short notice. This suggests that success on the financial markets is influenced by biology as much as experience, the researchers told PNAS. Meanwhile, Belgian researchers have found men with longer ring fingers become less socially minded - less willing to give money to a fellow participant - after watching aggressive movies. The reverse was also true - those with shorter ring fingers gave away the most money. Lead researcher Kobe Millet said: "These results tell us that levels of testosterone people are exposed to before birth go on to affect their behavior throughout their lives." He said studies suggested similar associations with finger length are also seen in women.

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Academics find that finger of destiny points their way

Finger length predicts physically aggressive personalities, study shows

Osteoarthritis risk linked to finger length ratio

Finger length helps predict elementary exam results, study shows

UC Berkeley psychologist finds evdence that male hormones in the womb affect sexual orientation

Aggressive tendencies may be revealed by asymmetry in body parts, study finds

Britain's white working class

The British government has released a study of attitudes to immigration which found that white, working-class families have been left with feelings of resentment, unfairness and betrayal by the government's refusal to listen to their concerns.

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We allowed a migrant free-for-all during Blair years, Cabinet minister Hazel Blears says

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Scientists have found a genetic risk factor for late onset Alzheimer's disease which is carried only by women

The discovery is the first evidence to suggest that genetics may partly explain why more women than men tend to develop the disease. The key variant was found in a gene on the X chromosome, of which females have two copies, but males only one. The study, by the US-based Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, features in the journal Nature Genetics. The Mayo team carried out a detailed genetic analysis of patients with Alzheimer's disease. They identified a particular variant of a gene called PCDH11X which appeared to be closely linked to a higher risk of the disease. However, further analysis showed that the association was almost entirely restricted to women. The raised risk of Alzheimer's was not statistically significant in men who carried one copy of the rogue gene variant, and only marginally so in women with just one copy. But the raised risk was much more significant in women who carried two copies - one inherited from each parent.

Israel and Bernie Madoff

Is it anti-Semitic to point out the truth about Israel?

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In contemporary American public life, debates are won by denouncing inconvenient facts as "stereotypes"

Steve Sailer has another excellent column on America's racial future.

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Steven Pinker gets his genome tested ...

Robert Lindsay on Afrocentrists

Robert Lindsay:

Africans were surely out of the Stone Age and they had the full array of agriculture, which advances them at least beyond most Amerindians. Let’s give credit where it’s due. But they’re no challengers to the Chinese, the Hittites, the Indians, the Greeks or the Romans. In many ways, they were bested even by Filipinos and Indonesians.

The founder of scandal-hit Indian software company Satyam is to be held in custody until 23 January 2009, after he admitted falsifying its accounts

Ramalinga Raju, who said the firm had exaggerated cash reserves by some $1 billion (£661m), and his brother Rama have been charged with criminal conspiracy. Police have also detained Vadlamani Srinivas, Satyam's chief financial officer, for questioning. The affair is India's biggest-ever corporate fraud. Raju, formerly chairman, and his brother, formerly managing director, have been charged with criminal conspiracy, forgery, criminal breach of trust and falsifying documents, S.K Kumudi, a senior police officer, said. They could face life in prison, he added. The company, which employs 53,000 people and brought in about $40 billion in 2008, is now fighting for its life. Its clients include Nestle, General Electric and Ford. The scandal comes at a tough time for Indian companies, already hit by the global slowdown and faltering growth in India, one of Asia's tiger economies.

The college diversity racket is immune to economic downturns

Heather Mac Donald shows that even in a recession Harvard University's devotion to political correctness continues.

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Guatemalan girl describes alleged enforced prostitution by fellow immigrants

When Sandra agreed to make the perilous trek from her native Guatemala to the United States in 2006, she said, she was lured by the prospect of a job as a housekeeper that would enable her to send money to her impoverished family back home. Her father had a hernia that prevented him from working, and money was so tight that she and her 12 siblings sometimes didn't have shoes or enough to eat, the young woman testified in federal court in Los Angeles. But not long after Sandra was delivered to L.A. by human-smuggling "coyotes," she learned that the job awaiting her had nothing to do with cleaning houses. Instead, she said, she was told that she would have to "lay with men." "Did you understand you were going to be working as a prostitute?" asked Assistant U.S. Atty. Cheryl Murphy. "I did not know what that word was," Sandra responded through a Spanish-language translator. "Now I do." Sandra's last name was not disclosed in court because she is the alleged victim of a sex crime and because prosecutors contend she is a minor. She went on to testify how she was held captive, beaten, raped and forced to have sex with as many as 10 men a day by a group of fellow immigrants. She was the first in a string of young women to testify in what is expected to be a weeks-long trial before U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow. The defendants, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, are accused of luring 10 unsuspecting young women - in some cases, girls - to the United States with the promise of legitimate jobs such as waitressing or working in jewelry or clothing stores.

Worker ants in colonies with a queen are physically attacked by their peers if they try to reproduce, a study says

In ant society, workers normally give up reproducing to care for the queen's offspring, who are also their brothers and sisters. The researchers found that chemicals produced by the sneaky ants gave away their fertility status. The findings by a US-German team of researchers are published in the journal Current Biology. To test the idea, scientists applied a synthetic compound typical of fertile individuals to non-reproductive worker ants belonging to the species Aphaenogaster cockerelli. In colonies where a queen was present, the workers with the hydrocarbon chemical applied to them were attacked by other ants. The researchers reported that deceitful ants were bitten, pulled and held by their peers. But this was not the case in colonies without a queen ant, where workers were free to reproduce. Co-author Jurgen Liebig of Arizona State University in Tempe, US, said the hydrocarbon chemicals produced by the cheating ants were an "inherently reliable signal". This "reproductive policing" plays an important role in maintaining harmony in the ant world, Dr Liebig explained. "The idea that social harmony is dependent on strict systems to prevent and punish cheating individuals seems to apply to most successful societies," he said. For cheating to be a successful strategy for some ants, the researchers say, two conditions would need to be satisfied. Firstly, worker ants would need to suppress the hydrocarbon signals on their bodies. Secondly, they would need to continue to express the signal on their eggs, so that their offspring could not be distinguished from those of the queen. Some ant species are known not only to attack cheating workers, but also to destroy their eggs.

Religion, genes and Lebanese Phoenicians

Dienekes shows how religion can act as a barrier to gene flow.