There is bad news and good news from the latest comprehensive survey of world fisheries. As reported by the Financial Times, a recent study carried out by the University of California at Santa Barbara looked at the consequences of intensive fishing around the world, and found a situation that is both worse and better than […]

Surreal is how many people around the world describe the situation in Iran: one of the world’s great and sophisticated cultures under the rule of backward-looking mullahs who think stoning adultresses, hanging homosexuals, threatening Israelis with annihilation and building a bomb is all in a day’s work. Complete with a hate-spewing, Holocaust-denying demagogue who thinks […]

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez calls him a pig, a Nazi and other names that don’t pass our strict, family-friendly editorial policies here at Via Meadia, but in spite of all that, and in spite of Chávez’ shameless and blatant use of state resources and media power, challenger Henrique Capriles is making a surprisingly strong run […]

Scientists, economists and ordinary enthusiasts have all been excited, each for their own reasons, about the potential of 3D printers. We doubt many had this in mind: WikiWeapon, a small tech project founded by a group of young libertarians, has just received thousands of dollars to create a blueprint for a plastic gun which users […]

France’s Socialist government today revealed its solution to the country’s economic malaise: soaking the rich so it won’t have to cut spending. The Wall Street Journal has the details: [T]he government aims to lift revenue from household income taxes by 23% next year, while revenue from business taxation is expected to rise almost 30%.The budget […]

The U.S. wind energy market may be about to be hit by a massive bombshell. A wind power tax credit is set to expire at the end of the year, and if it is not renewed, the market could shrink by an astonishing 95 percent, according to the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines. With […]

Rebel commanders are calling a renewed assault on Aleppo a “decisive” battle, but in reality neither regime forces nor rebels have been able to make decisive gains in a civil war that is sputtering into stalemate. Martin Chulov reports for the Guardian: Fighting in Aleppo is reportedly heavier than at any point since rebel groups […]

The collapse of the U.S. Postal Service is rivaled only by Europe’s ongoing currency crisis as the slowest train wreck in progress. As in Europe, every month brings more bad news about the USPS’s shaky finances, and as in Europe, politicians seems unable or unwilling to make the necessary but difficult institutional changes.This week, the Postal […]

In case the mining strikes weren’t bad enough, Moody’s Investors Service lowered South Africa’s debt rating one notch from A3 to Baa1 on Thursday. The downgrade is largely in response to the continuing political unrest in the country, where the mine strikes are slowly spreading to other industries, choking the economy and revealing the powerlessness of […]

This was the real trial, and it is now over. Without the involvement of a judge or jury or lawyers, Bo Xilai has been found inconvenient to the Party.Any other decision was impossible. Bo was a bigger threat to the Chinese leadership system than anything since the Gang of Four. The BBC reports: …Mr Bo’s career […]