China is famously resistant to lectures and harangues from foreign governments, but it is learning the hard way that making large investments abroad makes a country more vulnerable to foreign opinion.Once you’ve made large fixed investments in another country — mines, dams, factories — you become hostage to the politics of those countries.  You don’t […]

Thanks to what China and Russia perceive (accurately, if that matters) as NATO overreaching in Libya, there will be no UN-blessed intervention in Syria. There will be no no-fly zone, no targeted financial sanctions, no arms embargo, not even a resolution to “consider” unspecified “measures” against Syrian President Assad. As the WSJ reports: Mr. [Vitaly] Churkin […]

In a windowless room within a giant government compound in Bangkok sit technicians whose job is to scour the web for material that could offend the Thai king or his family. They have been very busy: about 60,000 websites have been banned because of anti-monarchy content. As the NYT tells us, The technicians work in […]

Do welfare states always end by eating their young?As Greek employers in the public and private sectors trim wages and payroll, the younger generation has less and less reason to stick around. NPR discusses Greece’s crisis of the young: The financial crisis gripping Greece is having a major impact on the country’s young people. A […]

When it comes to China’s purported sins, currency manipulation usually hogs the limelight and this week the US Senate, edging towards a trade war with China, got a nudge from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.  The FT reports: The chairman of the US Federal Reserve has accused China of damaging prospects for a global economic […]

The NYT has an encouraging story on the how an urban school near Boston is using Advanced Placement classes to promote an environment of learning.  The number of students opting to take AP classes has increased dramatically with the help of monetary incentives for students and teachers: South High students said Mr. Nystrom and his […]

The Palestinians’ UN bid last month doesn’t seem to have done anything to advance the peace process, much less secure a state. If anything, the UN stunt may have set things back.The UN announcement was never meant as an exercise in state-building — Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is the one actually doing that work — […]

Preamble: What follows is not an argument for the truth of religion. It is an exercise in the phenomenology of religion—that is, a description of what the phenomenon of religion is all about. It is not an exercise in theology—that would be a reasoned proposition that the phenomenon is true. Anyone, atheists included, could engage […]

America’s labor market isn’t getting better, and it is hardest on people who haven’t worked in a long time.  The Economist reports: AMERICA’S great labour market slump continues to cast its pall over the economy, leaving one lonely group in particular shrouded in shadows. Over 6m Americans, more than 40% of all those unemployed, have […]

Here’s an issue on which Via Meadia and Greenpeace can agree: government subsidies to scofflaw fishing companies who routinely and flagrantly violate the law. As the Independent reports: In one case alone, European Commission (EC) officials are investigating subsidy payments to a group of companies affiliated to the Vidal family, from Galicia, which are thought […]