In the 1990s, Western supported and funded democracy assistance programs, including support for civil society and rule of law, technical assistance to political parties and legislatures, and election monitoring to ensure free, fair and democratic elections, played an important role in the expansion of democracy throughout much the former Communist block, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. […]

If Maureen Dowd’s evisceration manqué of President Obama’s gun control strategy in the New York Times is any indication, Ms. Dowd is in the wrong line of work. She doesn’t understand American politics. She doesn’t know how votes are gained and lost, she doesn’t know what presidents do or understand what powers they have, and above all […]

The news this week was dominated by the tragedy at Monday’s Boston Marathon. We wrote on Tuesday that the gap between the crime and the politics of the culprits’ capture gave us an opportunity to see the bombing for the inexcusable, evil act it was. Boston’s finest lived up to their name and the whole […]

Secretary Kerry announced this morning that the US would double its support for the Syrian rebels, with total of a quarter of a billion dollars in assistance heading their way.The New York Times has the story: A portion of the new American aid, the State Department said, will help provide additional “nonlethal” supplies to the […]

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO, has finally spoken about her decision to ban telework in her company. Mayer made headlines in February for her decision to end that practice, which some employees were allegedly abusing. Speaking at a conference on Thursday, Mayer at last addressed what she described as the elephant in the room. Fortune reports: She […]

In an age of declining revenue and readership for newspapers it is interesting that a battle is shaping up between the left- and right-leaning zillionaires for control of the Tribune Media group of eight newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel, and others.The New York Times quotes the usual media enthusiasts […]

Azadi stadium in Tehran can hold 100,000 people, but barely half the seats were filled when Iran’s president Ahmadinejad hosted a rally there on Thursday. The president, who will step down after elections in June, gave a rousing speech in support of his chosen successor, but by the end of the three-hour event only a […]

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is under investigation by a Paris prosecutor over allegations that his first presidential campaign was partially funded by Libyan dicator Muammer Gaddafi. Sarkozy denounced these allegations when they emerged last year, but the French government opted to open an official investigation after a businessman with connections in both countries backed […]

Is the PC market collapsing? Global shipments of PCs are down almost 14 percent over last year, the biggest drop since market-research firm IDC started tracking the data in 1994. And, as the WSJ reports, a private-equity firm has withdrawn a bid for the PC-maker Dell: [Private-equity firm] Blackstone on Thursday told a special Dell board committee […]

More than 100 people are dead after a powerful earthquake struck a mountainous province in China this morning, in a disturbing echo of the 2008 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people in the same region. In the aftermath of that 2008 quake, the country was horrified both by revelations of shoddy school construction (schoolchildren were […]