The US is enjoying a glut of cheap natural gas, courtesy of the shale boom, but it has largely kept the benefits of this revolution to itself. America needs to build liquefaction facilities—places where natural gas is compressed into a liquid form more conducive to shipping overseas. The Obama administration has dragged its feet on […]

India’s ruling Congress party might have opened Pandora’s box on a whole host of social and religious grievances across India with its attempt to create a new state, Telangana, in India’s southeast. Far away to the northeast, for example, different ethnic groups have gone on strike and staged violent protests in support of separate homelands for […]

The CEO of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly, doesn’t think much of the shale boom. In a recent interview with RT, he seemed downright dismissive of the new supply of natural gas, insisting that Russia won’t need to pursue unconventional gas reserves (read: shale) until next century.The interviewer asked CEO Aleksandr Medvedev about Gazprom’s relationship with […]

The former chief of staff of the Turkish military was sentenced to life in prison today at a high security prison west of Istanbul. Retired General Ilker Basbug was among dozens of people convicted on charges that included plotting to overthrow the government, running death squads, and organizing a terrorist network called Ergenekon. The FT reports: Others sentenced included Veli […]

Political scientists are the next in line to feel the pinch as the US government tightens its belt. Due to last-minute language added to the 2013 omnibus spending bill by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the National Science Foundation canceled the rest of its funding for political science for the rest of the year.Political scientists […]

One of the most difficult challenges facing China on its road to superpowerdom is its looming demographic cliff. If China’s population crests in 2020 as some are predicting, the retiree-to-worker ratio will get more lopsided in every subsequent decade, putting enormous strains on China’s public finances and pension schemes. Chinese Party officials, central planning technocrats […]

If you dream of never paying another traffic ticket for the rest of your life, become a government employee in California. The OC Register reports that, thanks to a long obsolete program, hundreds of thousands of drivers in California can run red lights, drive down toll lanes without paying, and park illegally—with total impunity.Those drivers […]

The Egyptian army is taking every opportunity to twist the screws on the Muslim Brotherhood. By going through with the trial of its most senior leaders on charges that they incited supporters to the murder of three people during the events surrounding Mohamed Morsi’s ouster, Egypt’s military leaders are hoping to pressure the Brotherhood to […]

The Chinese Foreign Minister said on Monday that China is in no hurry to solve territorial disputes with its neighbors. For years ASEAN countries have sought to jointly negotiate with Beijing to establish a Code of Conduct (CoC) for civilian and military operations in territorial waters claimed by several countries, but China has resisted. Even […]

We chose to take a step back and review the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East in this week’s essay: We’ve said from the beginning that the Arab Spring was going to present the administration with some horrible headaches and impossible choices. George Washington was the first US President to learn just how […]