From the Associated Press: Most of the rebels fighting government forces in the city of Aleppo fit a specific mold: They’re poor, religiously conservative and usually come from the underdeveloped countryside nearby.They bring to the battle their fury over years of economic marginalization, fired by a pious fervor, and they say their fight in the […]

For the first time in its 237-year history, the USPS hit its congressionally mandated borrowing cap, which now stands at $15 billion. The organization will now have to rely on revenue from stamps and shipping, which has been falling for some time now. The holiday season mail flurry may keep the service running for a couple […]

Rising tensions in Asia are putting some old problems back on the front burner. One of these is the American military base on Okinawa.In some ways this is a dispute between Okinawans and mainland Japanese. The mainland of Japan has been happy to keep many of the Americans involved in Japanese defense on this remote […]

Via Meadia knows that Ivy league degrees are in high demand, but even we were shocked to learn how much some parents are willing to pay to get their children into top schools. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that a couple in Hong Kong are suing their two sons’ college admissions counselor for fraud and misuse of funds after paying […]

China is thinking long and hard about re-organizing the way foreign policymaking is structured in the government, says the FT. This comes as welcome news to those who worry about the apparent lack of coordination between different nodes of the Chinese government, especially when there are flare-ups over high-profile issues like the ongoing island territorial […]

WRM went on PBS Newshour with Zbigniew Brzezinski last night to discuss foreign policy, the elections, the Middle East, and much more. Check out the video here.

Is a wave of liberalization coming to Cuba’s shores? The Cuban government just announced a plan to ease restrictions on travel abroad for the first time since the 1960s. Previously, Cubans looking to leave the country were required to jump through a series of tough obstacles to earn the right to leave the country; now […]

Once in a while a more or less esoteric academic event is picked up by the media. This has happened in September following a gathering (of all places in Rome) of a scholarly association of Coptic studies. This must be a small and exclusive club. (It must be satisfying to belong. I’m a little envious. […]

Even as pundits debate the possibility of war with Iran, America and the Islamic Republic are already fighting an undeclared war in cyberspace. Last week, Defense Secretary Panetta confirmed that a possible Iranian cyber-strike against Saudi Arabia’s Aramco succeeded in damaging some of its vital infrastructure two monts ago. This week came further proof that America is already hitting […]

For a small country located in a very tough neighborhood, Georgia has not received lots of attention since 2008, when Russia invaded the country and declared South Ossetia and Abkhazia independent. And with the world’s attention focused elsewhere (elections in the U.S., the humanitarian disaster in Syria, the challenge of Iran), many might have missed […]