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 […]

Here’s something we don’t see every day: A NYT op-ed that Via Meadia can support — at least to some degree. In a Times piece, Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein argue that health care aides should be covered by the same labor laws — including the right to overtime — as other workers: The title […]

Last week a WRM essay on America’s immigrants appeared in the WSJ. “The world’s best, the world’s hardest-working and the world’s most ambitious are still coming our way,” he wrote.A story at Bloomberg Businessweek backs up this point. America’s immigrants, writes Elizabeth Dwoskin, are responsible for some of the most innovative, cool, useful, and lucrative stuff […]

In the ongoing struggle between northern Mali’s secessionist Taureg fighters and a local Islamic jihadist group, Ansar Dine, the Islamists claim to have driven all remaining rebels from a third and final large town in the region. If the reports are accurate it would complete their control over a lawless area that may serve as […]

Three years ago, the conservative political world was wowed by Jonathan Krohn’s speech on the floor at CPAC, the country’s largest gathering for the conservative movement. In his speech, the 13-year old delivered a defense of conservative principles, which while perhaps a bit simplistic by adult standards, displayed a level of eloquence and conceptual understanding […]

Could Britain be moving towards a Fourth of July of its own?“A burning building with no exits.”That’s what the current British Foreign Minister William Hague called a European monetary union in 1998. Now, despite urgings from Washington to stand by and help its European neighbors, Britain shows no desire to rush into the burning building. […]