Champagne corks were popping in the French presidential suite last night after the socialists won a commanding parliamentary majority in Sunday’s elections. Following nearly a month of walking a fine line between drumming up support for his socialist party and placating nervous conservatives and investors, Hollande’s Socialists have finally emerged with a clear victory.This is […]

For the past few years, Los Angeles schools haven’t been making the grade. Teacher evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive, yet all measures show that proficiency in elementary reading and math continue to fall well below the national average. Clearly, something doesn’t add up.An L.A. judge has taken notice of this fuzzy arithmetic. The WSJ reports: […]

Iran’s leaders may be flirting with the possibility of exploiting an enormous loophole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear technology. And by “nuclear technology”, we mean nuclear weapons.Wired.com’s Danger Room reports: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which limits nuclear weapon states to five countries (not including Iran), also removes IAEA safeguards for nuclear materials […]

In Europe the debate over the euro rescue plan has been simple. Southern “Club Med” countries and other states in need of bailouts have been begging Germany to shut up about austerity and just give lots of money to its needy European partners — which is to say, themselves. And they don’t want that money […]

It’s that time of year again—time for yet another of the  profoundly unimportant and overhyped summit meetings. Once again, the G-20 is meeting for a vapid talkfest, and once again the legacy press, as always determined to utter platitudes to power, is trying to whip up some interest in the recurring photo-ops when heads of […]

Financial markets staged the usual relief rally overnight at what looked like good news from Europe. It appears that the pro-bailout parties New Democracy and Pasok won a parliamentary majority in Greece, so that if they can agree on a coalition, Greece will have a government that can work with the EU.But these relief rallies […]

Our big essay this week focused on the consequences of this administration’s humanitarian intervention in Libya—the most prominent of which has been the destabilization of Mali to the south, where Gadaffi-armed Tuareg rebels have partnered with an al-Qaeda affiliate against the relatively weak central government and have taken over the north of the country. The […]

While we try to make sense of the Greek election returns, it’s worth stepping back for a moment to think about the bigger picture. For the past few decades Turkey has been seen as a country on the border between East and West. Countless articles have been written about “Turkey’s turn towards the East,” and […]

As anyone with children well knows, raising a child is expensive. What is surprising, however, is just how expensive it truly is. ABC News reports that the US Department of Agriculture has released a report that quantifies the cost of raising a child —from birth to age 18—and the resulting figure is staggering: $234,900.This is […]

With a typhoon conveniently churning in the distance, the Philippines has withdrawn its forces from the Scarborough Shoal in what Manila said was a temporary, weather-related move. So far, a larger, Chinese naval deployment shows no signs of going away.Philippine sources say there was an agreement that both sides would withdraw if the Philippines left […]