Wealthy and even comfortably circumstanced Brits tired of their country’s famously dreary weather head to France, where some 200,000 of them have second homes. Those homes are about to get more expensive, thanks to President François Hollande’s plans to raise taxes on foreigners who own property in France. The tax is expected to bring in 7 […]

In what was an otherwise slow 4th of July news day, Mitt Romney’s declaration that the core element of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate—is in fact a tax did provide some political fireworks. Romney’s comments came just two days after his chief campaign spokesman said the governor believed the mandate should be called […]

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones asks a version of a question Via Meadia has been asking lately: “Why does it take so damn long to build stuff these days?” It’s a question that many frustrated Democrats have been asking as they look at the failure of the Obama stimulus to generate the economic growth that […]

Julian Assange might not like it, but his Wikileaks organization continues to serve the interests of the American imperial machine.Months ago, when Wikileaks released hundreds of thousands of State Department diplomatic cables, his attempt to embarrass the American government didn’t go off exactly as he hoped. Where was the corporate skullduggery Noam Chomsky says guides […]

The geopolitical battle in Asia—what Via Meadia has been calling the Game of Thrones—doesn’t always take place on the high seas, on land, or in diplomatic meeting rooms. A true 21st -century conflict, the Great Game of Thrones also takes place in cyberspace. BBC: The Indian Navy is investigating a suspected hack attack.A spokesman confirmed […]

Some Pakistanis are nostalgic for military rule, writes the FT: Only 15 per cent of Pakistanis have a positive view of Asif Ali Zardari, their president, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Centre, while 39 per cent still view Gen Musharraf favourably…Pakistanis still express overwhelming support for the military as an institution, […]

“Knee high by the Fourth of July” is what New England farmers want their corn crop to be. In the Middle West this year the corn is wilting and drying out instead of growing this month. The heat sweeping across America this summer is stunting or killing the crops of the world’s most important corn-producing […]

Enrique Peña Nieto’s victory in this week’s presidential election in Mexico is a big one for Mexico, and not only because it means the return of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power. It also means new (or perhaps a return to the old, pre-Calderón) policies towards the country’s out-of-control drug trade.The FT reports that Peña […]

This one comes from the glamorous borough of Queens. The NY Times reports today that the greatest borough in New York has another feather in its cap: Dr. Olivia Cousins, who traces her ancestry back to a 17 year old volunteer in the Continental Army, was elected regent of a new chapter of the Daughters […]

Like all political prisoners-turned politicians, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is coping with the endless demands of actual politics that she was safe from while in prison. But not every dissident enters politics in a country as hopelessly divided by religion and ethnicity as Burma. (And, one might add, not every dissident has […]