23 June 2011: Afternoon

Nepal becomes the second Asian country declared free of minefields--though victims find the path to compensation blocked by red tape.

Op: By maintaining instability--through continued opposition and international support--the Bahraini royal family ensures it remains in power.

Indonesia stops sending maids to Saudi Arabia after the beheading of a domestic worker convicted of murder.

Painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, and industrial cleaning oil combine to make Russia's new (deadly) drug of choice.

A generation later, revisiting the "unexpected" collapse of the Soviet Union.

Inside Soviet torture chambers; buildings that defy most physics.

New metal alloy directly converts heat to energy without violating--we think--any laws of thermodynamics.

KLM tests biofuel, will use recycled cooking oil on 200 flights from Paris to Amsterdam.

The HR Director plays a key role in maintaining the mask of shallow cheerfulness. Finding solace (sort of) in de Botton's workplace treatise.

A New Yorker blindfold test: Try to identify the magazine's writers by paragraph alone.

I sometimes watch YouTube items, which I find through Twitter. I have a large Twitter following. How did I get that? I don't know. Margaret Atwood's media diet.

I have retreated too far into the music of old, weird America. Cian O'Day raves to John Fahey.

Are they having sex, these slouchy rageful parents? Not enough, perhaps. Let's psychoanalyze Go the Fuck to Sleep.

Once a cheap novelty, now a cash cow, vanity license plates aren't always about vanity.

Question: Does the Smithsonian consider tattoos works of art?