Protestors were beaten back by water cannons, batons and bullets when they took to the Indian streets in recent days, angry over corruption scandals that continue to undermine India’s businesses and government. Voice of America reports that thousands of protestors marched in New Delhi yesterday while three protestors were killed in the western state of […]

The rapidly escalating Eurocalypse has reached a dangerous new stage.  The markets are starting to panic about France.  The panic is overstated; the concern is real.  France by many measures is less worthy of an AAA credit rating than the US and slow growth threatens to undo France’s planned deficit cuts.  The French equivalent of […]

Days after being accused by a private internet security firm of dozens of hacking attacks on international organizations, China responded with charges that the US and India were behind thousands of “Trojan” attacks on Chinese computers. The Hindu reports: An official report released on Tuesday claimed that about half of 493,000 cyber attacks on the […]

Leila Ahmed, who teaches at the Harvard Divinity School, is the author of a recently published book, A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America. She tells a very interesting story.Ahmed originally comes from a middle-class background in Egypt. In her early years no women in her circle were veiled, even […]

The news that Apple is challenging ExxonMobile for the capitalist crown — the most valuable company in the world as measured by stock market capitalization — shows that despite all the green gloom, capitalist progress is good news for Gaia.Stock values fluctuate, and Apple’s moment may be fleeting, but the fundamental direction of the global […]

Bad, though not surprising news from South Africa.  Textile firms are fleeing rising wages and strong unions in South Africa for the greener pastures of Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mozambique. Ekkehard Oelz, chief executive of clothing maker Peter Blond & Associates, told the WSJ: A business is a business, and investors want their returns…There is no growth potential […]

Twice now the public sector unions and their allies have tried to change the balance of power in Wisconsin.  Twice they have failed.The battle isn’t over; an attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker appears inevitable next year.  And fans of the blue social model can draw some hope; both the judicial and recall elections in […]

Amazon.co.uk has seen a huge spike in the purchase of baseball bats and a police weapon called a “Telescopic Tonfa” over the past several days. Seven of the top ten “sports and leisure” items experiencing the rapidly increasing sales are baseball bats. Yikes. H/T Andy Carvin.

The most recent issue of The American Interest has a profile of the Afghan National Army by Alim Remtulla, one of the only Western journalists to spend any length of time in the Afghan Army without NATO supervision. The article, over a year in the making, is here; excerpts are below. A clutch of soldiers […]

The latest Mead column in the WSJ is out today. It’s called “Europe’s Less Than Perfect Union: The EU’s weak response to its financial crises highlights the failings of multinational institutions.” You can find it here.In the same vein, here are some wise words from Otmar Issing in the FT.