The mainstream media is shocked and bewildered today at how spectacularly each of the President’s gun control proposals flopped in the Senate. After weeks of a full court press by the media and countless speeches by the President, there were more votes in the Senate yesterday to gut gun control than to tighten it; a proposal […]

In one of the more bizarre events to befall Pakistan’s election season, Pervez Musharraf, the former military dictator, fled the Islamabad High Court building today after a judge ordered him arrested for treason. Musharraf and his security detail literally hustled out of court and, as numerous police watched, jumped in a black SUV and fled.Musharraf had been […]

Chinese investment in clean energy jumped twenty percent last year, helping the world’s biggest producer and consumer of energy to vault past the US as the world’s top investor in clean tech, according to a new report by Pew Charitable Trusts: In 2012, China advanced its position as the epicenter of clean energy finance, attracting $65.1 […]

If the golden beaches and high quality of life aren’t enough, the cost of health care should be enough to tempt boomers to retire abroad. Kathleen Peddicord’s piece on medical tourism and health care for expat retirees offers one anecdote in particular that illustrates the comparative cheapness of foreign services: My friend, Lee Harrison, has been retired outside the […]

Editors’ note: What follows is the sixth part of an exchange on Russian-Western relations following from David Kramer and Lilia Shevtsova’s monthly column at The American Interest Online (see especially their February 21 essay, “Here We Go Again: Falling for the Russia Trap”). The exchange, a complete listing of which may be found below, has also provoked […]

Reports touting the bottom-line benefits of telework keep rolling in. Earlier this month we reported on a study that found a correlation between revenue growth and telework in small businesses. Now, the WSJ is reporting on a new study that finds a similar correlation for medium-sized firms as well: Businesses that allowed employees to work remotely at least three […]

Government reports, private analysts and the media all see trouble ahead for pension plans; now the IMF is joining the chorus. The organization’s new Global Financial Stability Report warns that public pension funds, along with life insurance companies, have been loading up on dangerous investments that have left them vulnerable to collapse.The IMF report adds an […]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faced a near catastrophe this week when three Emirati men clearly too handsome to appear in public attended an annual cultural festival. Thankfully, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was on the scene, and quickly dispatched the Saudi religious police to seize and deport the […]

Seven people were killed and more than sixty injured during sporadic riots over the past couple days, following the controversial election of Hugo Chavez’s chosen heir, Nicolas Maduro, to the Venezuelan presidency. Already faced with allegations of vote rigging and the surprisingly narrow margin with which he won office, Maduro turned to a tactic from page […]

Be warned: there is a growing consensus of thoughtful observers, both Chinese and foreign, who think China’s local government debt is dangerously inflated. Joining the chorus this week is Zhang Ke, the head of an important Chinese accounting firm.“It is already out of control,” Zhang told the Financial Times. “A crisis is possible. But since the […]