And speaking of Chinese infrastructure projects, surf on over to The Atlantic and take a gander at this this gem of a photo (h/t Francis Fukuyama): Homeowners Luo Baogen and his wife refused to allow the government to demolish their home in Wenling, Zhejiang province, China, claiming the relocation compensation offered would not be enough to cover the […]

A new paper released by the IMF confirms: China is heavily overinvesting—ten percent or more of GDP—with the cost mostly borne by households. Although this won’t be shocking news to Via Meadia readers, it’s good to see the IMF exploring what might end up being the biggest economic bubble in history. From the paper’s conclusion: […]

Just a few weeks after a high profile, months-long corruption case drew to a close in Brazil, another big one popped out of the woodwork. On Wednesday, a group of Brazilian government officials were charged with taking cash in return for jobs and other political favors. While the new case does not match the scope of the recent […]

The British press stinks, or at least a lot of it does. Sleazy tabloids run wild with reporters hacking cell phones, getting stories under false pretenses and hounding relatives of soccer stars and other pop idols within an inch of their lives. Ghoulish over reporting of personal tragedies like missing children wreak havoc and ruin […]

According to a Reuters estimate, 200,000 Egyptians marched in support of President Morsi and the Islamist-backed proposed constitution for Egypt. Widespread reports yesterday suggest that the opposition mustered tens of thousands of supporters in Cairo yesterday. As there were both pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrations across Egypt and many had no international press observers, it’s not […]

Surin Pitsuwan, the Secretary-General of ASEAN, has denounced China’s plan to stop any foreign ships in ocean areas it claims, and to search and/or seize those ships.Pitsuwan fears that the implementation of this policy could lead to something more dangerous, as the BBC News reports: “My reaction is [this is] certainly an escalation of the tension that has […]

We are kind of old fashioned at Via Meadia: we think a pig, even in green lipstick and wearing a military uniform, is still a pig. Apparently, we would be a bad fit in the Senate.On Thursday the Senate voted to extend the DoD’s unconventional fuels initiative, an oft-criticized program aimed at developing biofuels to power […]

The purported leader of Boko Haram, Abubakr Shekau, appeared in a video released recently urging his followers to wage a global jihad against the US, the UK, Israel, and others, and identifying the Nigerian movement with its “mujahideen brothers.” According to SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based organisation, Abubakar Shekau gave the speech in Arabic in […]

On November 21, five days before the fourth anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai terror strike that killed 126 people, India executed the only attacker captured alive by the police. Ajmal Kasab, found guilty of murder and waging war against India and scores of other offenses, was hung with little fanfare in the early hours of […]