China’s brinkmanship over the South China Sea looks like it will be kicked up a notch in the New Year, reports the Sydney Morning Herald: From January 1, Hainan police will have the authority to board and seize control of foreign ships which “illegally enter” Chinese waters and order them to change course or stop […]

The latest round of climate talks in Doha began Tuesday in the usual fashion—with a spate of bickering and accusations between developing countries and the West. China and India led a group of 15–20 developing countries calling for their developed peers to reduce emissions (in particular, Annex 1, the group that took part in the […]

If American policymakers want to keep America out of a war with China in the Pacific, they should start by reading Thucydides’ account of the origins of the Peloponnesian War. At least that’s what the Diplomat’s James Holmes thinks as he advises policymakers on how to go about revising the defense agreements with Japan.Holmes notes that the Peloponnesian War […]

The Department of Education has just released its first state-by-state comparison of education statistics, and the report has a few surprises. Texas performed extremely well, tying five other states for the third-best graduation rate in the country, at 86 percent.And Texas isn’t the only high-performing red state: Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Tennessee all place within the top […]

More bad signs in the ongoing China-Japan spat: Chinese tourists are staying away from Japan, which has become a popular tourist destination over the years. Big-spending Chinese have been canceling their trips en masse since early September, when the Japanese government bought the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Besides leading to angry demonstrations and vandalism against Japanese […]

There is perhaps no better indication of the pickle higher ed finds itself in than this: Even as the online education freight train bears down on universities’ business models, they are still spending millions bloating their administrative staff to previously unheard-of levels: The number of Purdue administrators has jumped 54 percent in the past decade—almost eight […]

If we are to believe ASEAN’s Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, the Game of Thrones in the South China Sea risks turning the region into a never-ending conflict that could destabilize the whole region.He warned the Financial Times that “Asia was entering its “most contentious” period in recent years as a rising China stakes out its […]

The showdown between bankrupt San Bernardino and the Calpers pension fund we discussed last month is now underway.Sam Bernardino, now bankrupt, has suspended payments to Calpers, the largest government worker pension fund in California and the county. The city is already so broke it is having trouble paying for normal services and is worried that it will […]

Syria’s rebels are still on the move after impressive victories against regime forces over the past few weeks (rebel brigades overran the Syrian Army’s 46th Regiment outside Aleppo, scoring valuable heavy weapons, crates of ammunition, and tanks in the process). Yesterday, two regime air force bases fell to rebel brigades, and in separate incidents a military helicopter […]

The New York Times has an article out today about California’s gradual recovery. Though it admits that the state is not out of the woods yet, and that the recovery is geographically limited to the coastal cities, the tone of the article is generally upbeat and optimistic. A taste: After nearly five years of brutal economic […]