Last week union leaders and the French government traded barbs in the run-up to a new report on the country’s chronically underfunded pension system. Now the report has been released and its proposals are likely to make waves. According to the WSJ, the study recommends raising the minimun number of years French workers must pay into the pension […]

The UN commissars of doom and gloom have just armed themselves with a new statistic: according to a recent study, world population is on track to reach a higher level than anyone realized. The new report predicts that the earth will hold 11 billion people by 2100. This number is 8 percent higher than the one the […]

Here’s some distressing news for Southern California’s coastal elite: a new smartphone app called Our Malibu Beaches offers a “beach-by-beach battle plan” for all and sundry to access beaches claimed as private by Malibu millionaires. The NYT reports that the app will let hoi polloi in on the 74 percent of Malibu coastline made inaccessible to […]

It is a case of plus ça change in Iran this weekend. The Iranian presidential elections weren’t going to change the world, and they didn’t. The Supreme Leader is Iran’s ultimate decider, and he doesn’t run for re-election.That’s probably a good thing from his point of view; Iranian voters turned on him this weekend, with a […]

China’s leadership is finally taking the country’s horrific air pollution seriously, putting in place yesterday a slate of measures aimed at solving the problem. And what a problem it is: every year, air pollution kills an estimated 700,000 people in China, and costs the country 5.78 percent of its GDP in health care costs, premature […]

Though we already weighed in the other day on the Obama administration’s change of heart (and, seemingly, policy) over what to do next in Syria, we’d be remiss not to point to our colleague Adam Garfinkle’s essay on the same subject. As always, Adam is both erudite and incredibly entertaining to read. A taste from […]

The other day we noted a Pew poll which indicated that a majority of Americans was comfortable with the recently-revealed NSA surveillance program as long as it kept them safe–an outlook we attributed to a Jacksonian mindset. Well, it turns out that the attitude may not be quite so quintessentially American after all. Buried in […]

Despite Europe’s problems, thrifty and well-organized northern European countries have so far managed reasonably well—but that is beginning to change. Negotiations in the Netherlands next week will focus on how to cut the country’s budget deficit by €6 billion, or one percent of GDP, to meet EU budget laws. The WSJ reports: The government aims […]

The wheels are falling off of Germany’s green energy revolution. In recent years Europe has attempted to position itself as a first mover and global leader in renewable energy, and Germany has led the way with ambitious domestic programs to boost solar and wind energy. But green hopes are giving way to economic realities: Europe […]

Though we were cheered earlier this week by the prospect of a new farm bill passing that could, among other things, curtail the wasteful $5 billion a year direct cash subsidy program to farmers, it appears that the agriculture lobby has figured out creative new ways to keep getting its government handouts: price floor guarantees. […]