For years, analysts have been predicting that China, like Japan before it, would experience a rapid slowdown in growth after its initial economic burst. While it’s still too soon to tell if that is happening, some recent data is suggestive. CNBC reported Sunday that China has revised its growth targets down to 7.5 percent for […]

This week, the Turkish press covered several points of ongoing debate regarding the country’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Reporting by Seymour Hersh on Turkey’s pursuit of its first aircraft carrier received front-page coverage. (Takvim) In an interview with Milliyet, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja described Turkey, which maintains the world’s ninth largest army […]

President Obama’s policy of pressuring Iran through economic sanctions got a big boost over the weekend: India’s biggest oil importer announced plans to cut its Iranian crude purchases by 44 percent in 2012-13, Reuters reports. The cutbacks suggest that Indian imports from Iran will fall by about 20 percent overall, with much of the replacement […]

As the blue social model collapses across Europe and the United States and Britain grope to replace it, China is trying to build a blue social model of its own.That at least is the message of outgoing premier Wen Jiabao in the speech China-watchers compare to the US State of the Nation. As the Washington […]

Frank has written a tribute to his friend and colleague James Q. Wilson on his TAI blog.Writes Frank: Jim Wilson was known as a conservative who cherished limited government in the American tradition. But he also understood that government was needed for all sorts of functions, and that it could do its job better or […]

In news that surprises no one, Vladimir Putin has been elected President of Russia with almost two thirds of the vote — well over the fifty percent he needed to avoid a runoff.Via Meadia suspects the Great One would have won in an honest count; Russia has been through Hell since the collapse of the […]

Its been a wacky winter in Europe: snow in Naples, people freezing to death across Poland, Russia and Ukraine, and the daffodils and crocuses are in full bloom in Britain.The economy is just as confusing. Anybody who bet on Europe made tons of money in the last couple of months; yields on Italian bonds dropped […]

Travel is great, but there is no place like home. I’ve spent the last week in London at a conference hosted by the Legatum Institute and organized by a group of think tanks based in South Africa, India and Brazil. There was enough time for some long and leisurely walks through London, down along the […]

I never studied with Jim Wilson while getting my degree in the Harvard Government Department, though he was there at the time. My contacts with him came later, when we served together on the President’s Council on Bioethics in the early 2000s, and as fellow members of the Board of Governors of the Rand Graduate […]

Everybody wants to read good news from Africa, and Via Meadia is no exception. Any signs that democracy and prosperity are making progress are welcome. To find some optimism for Africa amid the many ominous signs, a recent article in The Atlantic is a good start, and The Economist a good next stop.As both point […]