This week India announced it would train Vietnamese sailors, a clear sign that military cooperation between Vietnam and India is strengthening. In general, policy-makers in Hanoi and New Delhi know that the relationship between their two countries is mutually beneficial. The announcement is also a sign that the coalition of Asian nations seeking to cooperatively balance a rising and aggressive China is growing stronger.

US leadership and innovation over the past 12 years has helped reduce the death rate from malaria among children under five by 51 percent. The mass production of life-saving technologies at affordable prices is beating back one of humanity’s oldest and costliest diseases.

A wealthy Texas teenager who killed four pedestrians in a DUI is being let off with only probation because he was diagnosed with a rare new disease: “affluenza”. Apparently, some psychiatrists are arguing, wealthy people have had their moral compasses de-calibrated by privilege. We’re not in a position to judge the case on its legal merits, but we’re pretty certain there’s a cure for this horrible disease: jail.

U.S. fatigue and distraction in the Middle East has made ample room for Russia to step in as the new patron, power-broker and custodian of the region. Washington should think twice about welcoming this development.

In Donetsk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, there are no protestors in the streets. There are no roadblocks, no barricades, no riot police. People there have a message for the protestors in Kiev, as Andrew Roth writes in the New York Times: Go back to work.

America averaged 8.075 million barrels a day in the first week of December, our highest total since 1988. It’s the latest in a string of milestones for the US, which continues to reap the benefits of shale. Fracking has changed the American energy landscape virtually overnight; the idea that the US might contemplate opening up exports of oil and gas would have been laughable ten or even just five years ago, but that’s where we are today.

Far reaching reforms like those passed last night in Mexico make it likely that our neighbor will see a huge job-creating bonanza in oil and gas production. The United States stands to benefit in several ways.

Representatives from China and Dominica put pen to paper on a multi-million dollar investment deal last month in what observers are calling a virtual takeover of the Caribbean island. Call it the Caribbean arm of China’s “cabbage” strategy.

We may soon be looking to our oceans for our freshwater. Or, more accurately, we’ll be looking underneath our oceans, where scientists have found vast reserves of fresh and near-fresh water. A new study estimates that there are roughly 120,000 cubic miles—more than 100 times the amount of freshwater we’ve drilled from the ground since 1900—of low-salinity water trapped underneath seabeds. Chicken Littles—wrong again.

Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovich announced that he does, in fact, plan on signing an agreement with the EU despite rejecting it last week. However, he wants something in return—about €20 billion. He appears to be holding an auction, but will power slip from his hands before all the bids are in?