Much attention has been focused on China’s confrontational actions and attitudes in the South China Sea. Less attention is given to the internal political dynamics that shape these actions and attitudes. A report released this week by the International Crisis Group lays bare the competition between government agencies within China for influence in the South […]

The foreign minister of Spain has a metaphor to describe Europe’s situation: the Titanic. “Even the first class passengers will drown,” he says, if the ship goes down.The ship is sinking. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the eurozone, and nothing is going right for it. Bad real estate loans in a collapsing housing […]

In an interview with an AP journalist yesterday, the president of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq threatened secession—a move that could exacerbate tensions in an already fraught political scene.As Fox News reports, “What threatens the unity of Iraq is dictatorship and authoritarian rule,” Barzani said in a 45-minute interview in his sprawling office outside […]

Every year Gallup surveys Americans about their expectations for retirement. The results for 2012 are in, and they look bleak for defenders of the blue model. The expected retirement age is now 67, a considerable increase from 1996, when Americans expected to kick back and put up their feet once they hit 60. Gallup also […]

While selling his healthcare overhaul, Obama repeatedly reassured skeptics with a promise: If you like your current plan, you can keep it. Some workers may soon find out this isn’t exactly true. As companies, particularly small businesses, face rising healthcare costs under the new law, consultants are beginning to advise them to drop healthcare when […]

Conflict between the two Sudans has escalated over the past few days. John Campbell at the Council on Foreign Relations sheds some light on what’s happening: Last week, Sudan (Khartoum) president al-Bashir escalated his rhetoric against South Sudan (Juba) in the aftermath of the latter’s forces occupying an oil-rich region, Heglig, inside Sudan’s borders. Al-Bashir has characterized […]

One characteristic the blogosphere shares with the legacy media is an endless fascination with itself; increasingly, academics are jumping into the conversation about the nature and the consequence of this dynamic new medium. According to a recent paper by Aaron Shaw (a PhD candidate in sociology at Berkeley) and Yochai Benkler (a Harvard law professor known for his writings on collaboration […]

Here at Via Meadia, California has received considerable attention for the poor handling and shaky finances of its state pension funds. Yet California is hardly alone in these problems, and recent news out of Louisiana suggests it may not even be the worst. Three major public pension funds put money in a fly-by-night enterprise—and now […]

Are the sins of the father being visited upon the son? The Bo Xilai saga swirling through the top echelons of Chinese politics has reached the manicured lawns of Harvard, where Bo’s son, Bo Guagua, is enrolled in the Kennedy School of Government. Guagua has attracted significant media attention of late, most of which has centered […]

Turkey and Iraq are accusing each other of meddling in one another’s internal affairs in a diplomatic spat that could have wide ramifications across the Middle East.Baghdad is supremely unhappy with the warm welcome Turkey gave to Tariq al-Hashemi, a former Iraqi vice president who barely escaped being arrested after Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government accused him of […]