The bloodbath in Syria continues as the Assad regime tramples on its agreement with the Arab League. The Washington Post reports: Syrian troops on Monday routed government opponents in a neighborhood of Homs that had emerged in recent weeks as a center of armed resistance to the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad, dealing what […]

Governments in Greece, Italy and Spain are falling as the upheaval in markets spreads to the palaces and parliaments of Club Med.  But as has been the case throughout the long running euro drama, markets are moving faster than politics.  Even as Prime Minister Berlusconi announced his impending resignation, the yields on Italian bonds rose […]

According to the Wall Street Journal, the rising cost of a college education and the impact of the recession is causing even wealthy, affluent students to consider state and local schools over their more prestigious and expensive competition. Mr. Schwartz, 18 years old, was accepted at Cornell University but enrolled instead at City University of […]

Misha Glenny has an important piece in the FT that puts the Greek mess in more of a historical context and assigns much of the blame for Greece’s financial problems on oligarchs, business conglomerates, cheats, and criminals.  A handful of wealthy families control the commanding heights of the Greek economy, he argues, and many of […]

Coming on the heels of the democratic thaw which promises to alter the country’s politics, Myanmar has more surprises in store this month. A detailed article by the redoubtable Andrew Higgins in the Washington Post discusses the Burmese government’s recent shift on a Chinese dam project in Burmese territory: After five years of cozy cooperation […]

Could the growing crisis in American academia be eliciting some smart thinking from the inside?  Maybe so.  From the Washington Post’s “On Leadership” roundtable, president of Arizona State Michael Crow: What is missing at present are…pathways for more students to achieve higher levels of educational attainment while graduating at the lowest possible cost…[We] often lack […]

Hold on to your seats; according to The Conference Board, perhaps the most important business oriented forecasting group in the world, revolution is coming to China.That’s not what the group’s latest global forecast says literally, but this or something like it is the clear meaning of the forecast that China’s growth is likely to slow […]

The most marginalized and poorly served group of people in the United States is also the key to our future: young men. The WSJ reports that prospects for male twenty-somethings are bleak: The unemployment rate for males between 25 and 34 years old with high-school diplomas is 14.4%—up from 6.1% before the downturn four years […]

Stop the presses! Via Meadia has just received word that teenagers are both mean and rude. According to the New York Times, a new study shows that nearly half of student polled have experienced harassment of some form: Nearly half of 7th to 12th graders experienced sexual harassment in the last school year, according to […]

If they fail to oust President Obama in 2012, perhaps the Tea Partiers could seek political asylum in Germany. Germany has already passed a balanced budget amendment and now, gearing up for another election, the coalition government of Angela Merkel is planning on giving low- and middle-wage earners a tax cut. The WSJ reports: German […]