H/T to Foreign Policy for bringing this to our attention. It appears from a 2008 cable released by Wikileaks that the US envoys in India were a little frustrated by Indian delyaing tactics and decided to let off some steam in a cable to the home office. Read the cable here on Wikileaks, and some […]

From the NYT: In a gale wind from [Hurricane Irene], a hollowed-out branch of an enormous tree was ripped off, exposing a hive of 30,000 to 40,000 honeybees. The hive’s discovery was a jackpot for the beekeeping community and word spread quickly on Facebook and Twitter that a feral hive was up for grabs.This being […]

The latest threat facing Iran’s theocratic paradise? Water fights and squirt guns. As a story in the WSJ says, After heeding a call on Facebook, a group of nearly 800 young men and women were among those who showed up at the park…They chased strangers around a giant water fountain, screaming and laughing as they […]

Dear readers of Via Meadia: The American Interest has a new homepage! Take a look around.

South Africa’s political façade has begun to crack. Fissures within the ruling African National Congress party became more pronounced Tuesday, as violent demonstrations erupted in Johannesburg to protest a disciplinary hearing for Julius Malema. From Reuters: South Africa’s ruling ANC will hold the second day of a disciplinary hearing of youth leader Julius Malema at […]

Martin Wolf has an excellent analysis of the struggling global economy in today’s FT. He writes: What has the market turmoil of August been telling us? The answer, I suggest, is three big things: first, the debt-encumbered economies of the high-income countries remain extremely fragile; second, investors have next to no confidence in the ability of […]

An article in today’s FT describes another arena in the Asian Great Game: water. The writer is also the author of Water: Asia’s New Battleground, and as the article notes, China’s “construction of upstream dams on international rivers such as the Mekong, Brahmaputra or Amur shows China is increasingly bent on unilateral actions, impervious to the concerns […]

Having been studying religion in all its magnificent diversity, I am now on every sort of mailing list—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Eastern Christian Orthodox. I get print and electronic publications from all these sources, as well as from some others (including a shrilly anti-American bulletin from a supposedly progressive Islamic center in Malaysia). For some time […]

Nigeria’s sad summer of religious rampages got worse this week with reports that a group of Christian youth, apparently seeking revenge for earlier attacks, attacked Muslims during Ramadan in Nigeria’s “middle belt” city of Jos, with at least 20 dead. Jos has historically been a religious flashpoint but recently such incidents were mainly confined to […]

Nobody can accuse Business Insider political editor John Ellis of thinking small.  His latest plan for Barack Obama: merge the US and Canada.Via Meadia supports this concept 100% as have all red blooded Americans since 1776.  As Ellis lists them, the advantages are irresistible. What would a United States of North America (or the United […]