With the accelerating euro crisis in Europe, the geopolitical revolution in Asia and increasing doubts about the Chinese economy, the increasingly misnamed Arab Spring sometimes has to struggle for airtime these days.  But the struggle in Egypt has entered a new phase, one which will test the strength of the various groups struggling to control […]

The New York Times editorial page is doing its level best to kill any chance of American recovery and prosperity by crusading against anything anywhere that might help our energy woes, but sometimes its news pages inadvertently remind us that prosperity and energy development are closely connected.This story on the “woes” of the midwestern oil […]

At least someone is making money in these difficult times.  Arms dealers in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley are making out like, well, bandits as unrest in Syria sends black market gun prices through the roof says this story in Lebanon’s Daily Star.  Rocket grenade launchers appear to be the hottest investment grade item, with prices more […]

This is what bad energy policy looks like: as the US dithers over Canadian tar sands oil, China is ready to buy.  Access to reliable oil from a friendly neighboring country like Canada is one of America’s greatest geopolitical blessings.  Throwing this away would be the height of folly; those seem to be heights we […]

George W. Bush allegedly once pointed out that there is no word for ‘entrepreneur’ in French; there is, however, a word for hawk.  It is faucon, and there seem to be plenty of them in Paris these days.In the midst of the greatest European crisis since the 1940s, and at a time when France stands […]

One of the big arguments proponents of the ‘green jobs’ scam often bring out is that the argument that China, thanks to its support of green tech companies, will own the future while the United States is left behind.Think again.  According to a report on Bloomberg, the Chinese solar power industry is on the ropes; […]

So far, the European meltdown has been a relatively orderly affair.  Other than the occasional outbreak of (mostly) mild riots and the odd strike, Europe’s economies have imploded and its governments fallen in a stately and decorous decline.  Prices on financial markets have jumped around, output is down — sharply in some countries — and […]

Most Americans have never heard of the Dexia Group, a Franco-Belgian financial company that could be the next big turning point in the European debt saga.  Dexia has already been rescued once, as France and Belgium stepped in to provide guarantees and liquidity to keep the troubled group alive.The ever-helpful though not always cheerful FT […]

If true, this is probably the scariest story you’ll read all week: Thousands of homes in Illinois had their water shut off by hackers in Russia. The BBC reports: Hackers are alleged to have destroyed a pump used to pipe water to thousands of homes in a US city in Illinois…The net address through which […]

The most important unrest in today’s world may not be on Tahrir Square or even in Syria.  A growing wave of strikes across China may ultimately say more about where the world is headed than anything in the Middle East.As this piece from the Financial Times reports, export orders are declining and factories across China […]