A few weeks ago, we wrote about the upcoming elections in Venezuela, where incumbent Hugo Chavez is fighting off the young upstart Henrique Capriles in an election which could have profound implications not just for Venezuela, but for the region as a whole. We wondered what Capriles’ chances are, given Chavez’ tendencies to, uh, tip […]

The UK is heading for yet another bruising fight with the EU, this time over the grotesquely swollen budget that the Eurocrats have drawn up. Here’s the lede of the FT story on the coming budgetary High Noon: Brussels is bracing itself for a battle with David Cameron as fears grow that the British prime […]

A reader wonders: You wrote yesterday, “We don’t want a war and we don’t want an Iranian bomb; now is the time to redouble our efforts to bring this standoff to a peaceful and successful close.”I don’t recall reading in your blog what you think a peaceful and successful close in Iran would look like, […]

The U.S. and other countries have spent billions subsidizing electric cars, an environmentalist solution which has been met with only lukewarm enthusiasm from customers. And it turns out environmentalists are split over whether these things are in fact worse for the environment than what we’ve got. A new research paper from the Norwegian University of […]

China isn’t very good at foreign policy; that is the only way to make sense of the apparent decision by a number of large Chinese banks to boycott the annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF scheduled for Tokyo next week.As the WSJ tells us, the decision comes as a result of the […]

In Europe these days they tell a joke about Angela Merkel landing in Paris and being questioned by a customs official as she gets off the plane.“Occupation?” asks the official.“Not this time,” she says. “Just a visit.”They will be laughing bitterly about this in Greece this week; as the WSJ reports, Chancellor Merkel is coming […]

Washington is backing away from the Afghanistan objectives President Obama laid down when he announced the troop surge. As the NYT reported earlier this week: American generals and civilian officials acknowledge that they have all but written off what was once one of the cornerstones of their strategy to end the war here: battering the […]

Case closed: circumcision is about to be made legal in Germany. A new bill is wending its way through the Bundestag and will likely pass early next week. The Times of Israel has the details: Ritual circumcisions can be performed by “a person chosen by a religious community who is especially trained” for such procedures, the […]

WSJ: The small agricultural town of Atwater, Calif., has declared a fiscal emergency, as it seeks to avoid becoming the fourth municipality in the state this year to file for bankruptcy protection.Located about 100 miles east of San Francisco, Atwater is grappling with a $3 million budget deficit, declining city revenues and cost overruns for […]

For years, China’s unelected top officials nurtured the carefully crafted image that they were above the corruption and scandal that plagues lower leaders. The FT reports: A year ago, when citizens in the Chinese village of Wukan rose up in rebellion against corrupt local officials and fought running battles with riot police, they continued to insist […]