Earlier this month, Anne-Marie Slaughter toured the country, visiting companies and educational institutions to provide “a week’s snapshot from the front-lines of the work-family debate.”What she found is encouraging. Not only are women pushing harder for flexibility and equality in the workplace, but employers are also coming to see such policies as more than a […]

The Venezuelan government is making a frenzied effort to combat shortages of food and medicine. The FT reports that on Monday the country will begin auctioning off dollars to certain business in hopes of spurring them to import the basic goods it desperately needs. But critics claim that the new system won’t really do much to solve the problem: […]

A massive “blob” is stifling progress in public education. So writes John Stossel, who is challenging the notion that teacher’s unions are the sole obstacle to meaningful education reform. The other menace is the local politicians, PTA bureaucrats, and school boards who pool their influence to block any reforms that might upset the status quo. From RCP: […]

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just fought off a threat from within her own party. A member of Gillard’s ruling Labor party called for a leadership vote last week, worried that her faltering poll numbers would lead to wider defeat in September’s national elections. Though she won the vote unopposed, the Labor party’s outlook […]

There has long been a rift between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country’s clerical edifice, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which once supported him. That rift threatens to widen as Iran’s presidential election draws near. Ahmadinejad’s time is up, and between now and June’s election, a two-way battle could be waged between […]

Thank goodness that dreadful Bush administration has come to an end. Otherwise the US would be threatening to militarily intervene in a Muslim country to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass destruction.Except…in yesterday’s talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama did threaten just such an intervention. Amid growing concerns about […]

Labor shortages are forcing Chinese companies to offer workers higher salaries and better working conditions. China’s stagnant demography and schools are producing a smaller and better educated workforce, forcing Chinese firms to compete with one another for labor. The Financial Times reports: China’s working age population, defined as being between 15 and 59, fell by 3.5m […]

Silicon Valley companies have a new doctor, and he may be the future of health care. Dr. Jay Parkinson is founder of a digital primary care practice called Sherpaa, in which patients use email and phone tech to have their ills diagnosed from any distance: Have a mysterious rash? Send a photo of it to […]

Strange but true: the government doesn’t want you to understand how much your health care costs or make intelligent buying decisions about health insurance.Suppose you want to know how much insurance to buy and want to research the cost of health care. Too bad. According to the LA Times, a new national report card on health care […]

What’s Greek for “up a creek without a paddle”? (Google’s answer: Μέχρι ένα κολπίσκο χωρίς ένα κουπί, though we don’t put much faith in automated translation of idioms.) Whatever it is, we suspect it’s being said a bunch in the halls of power in Nicosia.Cyprus’s parliament yesterday afternoon voted down the EU-backed proposal to raise €5.8 […]