As Via Meadia has reported in the past, the smart money has been quietly edging out of Greek banks for a long time. As concern spread, the bank walk turned into a bank jog. This weeks, there are signs the jog is breaking into a bank run: Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from […]

Mere hours after his inauguration, the bad news is piling up for French President François Hollande.First came reports that the day before he took office, a group of French Catholics took to the streets to protest his social policies, which include support for gay marriage, euthanasia, and reducing funding to religious schools, according to the […]

For all his bluster, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has never held the kind of authority over Iran’s nuclear program he would like. That responsibility has remained squarely in the hands of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Financial Times reports that a bitter power struggle is developing between the two men—and Ahmadinejad appears to be losing.Rumblings from Tehran suggest […]

U.S. states aren’t the only places facing pension crises at the moment: Underfunded and unsustainable pensions are wreaking havoc in Europe too. The Scotsman, in particular, is up in arms over new rules tying retirement to life expectancy; the paper describes the future under the rule changes as “a grim picture of aged toil.”The gradual […]

This weekend’s fighting in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, has not abated. The Daily Star reports: Lebanese troops backed by armored vehicles deployed Tuesday in the northern coastal city of Tripoli to end three days of clashes between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen that led to the killing of at least […]

Burma’s turn away from its former relationship with China and North Korea reached a dramatic milestone in Asia overnight. According to a Voice of America report, Burma’s reforming president Thein Sein told visiting South Korean president Lee Myung-bak that his country will now enforce sanctions against North Korea.In the past, Burma (aka Myanmar) has been […]

Via Meadia recently commented on the rise of Abdul Lateef Al Kindi, a Salafist preacher who likes to whip up anti-West, anti-Israel feelings in his sermons and ridicules the more peaceful Sufi brand of Islam that is more popular in Kashmir. Al Kindi is not the only one preaching hatred in this extraordinarily dangerous corner of […]

The situation continues to deteriorate in post-Arab Spring Egypt. We’ve previously charted the alarming rise of Egyptian-Israeli tensions since the overthrow of Mubarak, and noted that most Egyptians want to annul their country’s peace treaty with the Jewish state. Now comes this: A leading Islamist candidate in Egypt’s presidential election has branded Israel a “racist […]

California’s budget woes combined with poor economic results have long made it a poster child for poor fiscal management. The state’s credit rating has been downgraded to an A- by S&P, the lowest rating for any U.S. state, and its budget and pension shortfalls are infamous. Even more so than in other states, the main political […]

For China watchers and human rights activists, the continued harassment of Chen Guangcheng’s family members is receiving considerable attention, and rightly so. But of more long term significance may be the latest head to roll in the Bo Xilai aftermath: Zhou Yongkang.Until recently, Zhou was head of China’s vast domestic security apparatus, responsible for the […]