Dear readers,Professor Berger was stranded by Hurricane Sandy in Germany and therefore did not have the opportunity to write an essay this week. He is on his way back to the United States now, and will resume writing again next week.–– DM

The New York Times notes that scientists and flood experts have been warning about the risks of flooding in New York for years and have suggested everything from levees to floodgates in New York Harbor to minimize potential damage. Yet neither the city nor the state government has taken serious steps to act on these suggestions: With […]

FT: China has started making concerted efforts to chase Japanese ships out of waters surrounding the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, ratcheting up tensions between Asia’s two largest economies.The Chinese State Oceanic Administration – which enforces the nation’s maritime interests – said four of its ships on Tuesday tried to expel Japanese vessels out […]

Two years ago, tragedy struck Poland when a plane carrying the Polish president and 95 other people crashed in eastern Russia. Although some suspected foul play on the part of Russia at the time, there had been little evidence to back this up and the consensus holds that the crash was just an unfortunate accident. […]

The new Greek coalition government of left-wing and right-wing moderates hasn’t exactly lived up to its (very low) expectations. Greece has repeatedly failed to meet its debt targets (which, admittedly, were seriously flawed to begin with), and it has done little to sort out the, um, byzantine regulations that are strangling businesses and stymieing the recovery. Worse, […]

Saudi Arabia wants to establish a “private court” in London to try major commercial cases involving foreign investors under English law. The Saudis apparently believe that this will step up foreign investment in the the country because foreign investors do not trust sharia-based law or the integrity of Saudi courts.In itself, this seems like an excellent […]

Regular readers know that we’ve never been optimists about the results of President Obama’s decision to wage an air war in Libya against the Qaddafi regime. The consequences of the war have more than justified our concern; this story in the FT, about the ongoing tribalist chaos around the town of Bani Walid, only underlines the […]

The first sentence uttered to describe the U.S.-Chinese relationship in the third and final presidential debate was President Obama’s, and it contained both the words “adversary” and “partner.” Messaging doesn’t get much more mixed than that, and the President’s opponent, Mitt Romney, was not much clearer. In such a hotly contested election, we might be […]

The Israeli police department has been hacked. Its servers have been disconnected from the Internet since last Thursday as it investigates the attacks.The attack itself was not terribly sophisticated. It took the form of an infected email attachment that copied itself across the network and presumably broadcast sensitive information back to its source. But an […]

Both sides of Syria’s civil war have been fortified by foreign fighters, including Chechens, Libyans, and now Iraqis.Iraqi Shiites are making their way to Syria to fight for the Assad regime. Iraqi Sunnis are fighting on the side of the rebels. Convoys of Iraqi buses ferry weapons to both sets of fighters. Armed Iraqi “pilgrims” […]