Arriving in the middle of the International Studies Association annual meeting, here is your Thursday morning linkage…

• Man tries to smuggle 10% of endangered Madagascan tortoise population into Thailand
• DRC military facilitating poaching and pillaging in UNESCO world heritage site
• Just when the French thought it was safe to go home: suicide bombers in Timbuktu
• Bad Chinese air killing 1.2 million Chinese every year prematurely
• Chinese government study says pollution costs 3.5% of gross domestic product 
• Dude, where are half of China’s rivers?
• Thomas Homer-Dixon pleads with Obama to cancel Keystone XL: many Canadians don’t want it either!
• NASA scientist James Hansen retires so he can advocate on climate change full time
• Indian Supreme Court gives thumbs-down on Novartis‘ patent application for a cancer drug in major win for generic companies and poor people
• Dominic Tierney flags the contradiction: the same people who fear that the leviathan state will take away their guns also support high defense spending
• UN General Assembly approves global arms trade treaty: so looking forward to U.S. Senate advice and consent on that one (in 2072 – prove me wrong)
• Robert Farley bemoans the time it takes to publish academic articles: blogging more immediate (I wrote this line two years ago, only now coming out…)
• Austin, Texas featured in Kim Jong-un’s list of targeted bombing sites in the United States (keeping it weird!)
• Mali’s Bombino meets Black Keys‘ Dan Auerbach