Link roundup for 24 January 2012

--- First of all from the department of I told you so: this article on possible cooperation between NASA, Russia and the ESA on moon colonization. Aside from the terrible launch windows to Mars, the fact that the moon is the only area that so-called second-tier spacefaring nations can help to colonize will make it the inevitable choice for first permanent manned colonization. In other words, if the US is not interested in colonizing the moon then it will end up watching other countries do it before it launches its planned Mars flyby in the mid-2030s.


--- Twitter is opening its third office in Europe, this time in Germany. Found about it here in Spanish.

--- The CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) is looking at sending some sort of joint mission to Guinea-Bissau. From here also in Spanish.

--- Xhosa, Zulu being axed at state schools - "Last year, 68455 matrics countrywide wrote Afrikaans as their first additional language, whereas only 10943 wrote Zulu and a mere 1547 wrote Xhosa." Chock full of comments below, as is always the case with articles of this nature.

--- Cape Town's new fully bilingual talk radio.

--- Incoherent party, incoherent candidates. The Economist on the current state of the GOP in the United States.