Kenya has once again become a frontline in the Lord Voldemort War: the war that must not be named, the conflict once known as the Global War on Terror. So far, as many as 59 people are reported dead as the result of an ongoing siege at Nairobi’s Westlake shopping center. The BBC is reporting […]

George Bernard Shaw once quipped that “if you laid all the economists in the world end to end they still would not reach a conclusion.” If Shaw were still around he might amend his observation with “except when they do and it’s wrong.” Or, reading a certain article in Friday’s Washington Post, he might opt […]

Obama’s failed Syria policy has brought renewed attention to the Russian-US relationship, and Putin’s headline grabbing NYT op-ed on the Syria situation has only increased that attention. In light of that, American Interest publisher Charles Davidson’s interview with Hermitage Capital co-founder and CEO William Browder is particularly timely.In the interview, Davidson and Browder discuss the Magnitsky Act, which denies […]

Mara Hvistendahl made waves in 2011 with Unnatural Selection,  her book profiling the global rise of sex-selective abortions. But two new studies highlighted by The Economist say the problem is poised to get worse.The studies look at the Caucasus, where the popularity of sex-selection rivals Asia’s high rates of male preference. The natural ratio of men to women is […]

Thanks to shale, the US is sitting on a glut of natural gas. American gas is dirt cheap, currently trading at just $3.60 per million British thermal units (mBtu), while Asian markets currently pay more than four times that amount for liquified natural gas (LNG). Even after liquifying the gas for transport—a process that adds […]

Since April of this year, Nigeria’s army has been pushing back hard against Boko Haram, the extremist Islamist insurgency responsible for the death of more than 4000 people since 2009. The fighting has often been brutal, with allegations of atrocities on the army side have damaging the army’s ability to win the hearts and minds of the […]

We are increasingly at the mercy of deadly germs that are resistant to our existing weapons. The CDC has released its first ever report on antibiotic-resistant germs in the US, and the results are pretty shocking. Wired summarizes some of the central ones here: Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and […]

We might have been doing school wrong all these years. The Atlantic profiles “the flipped classroom,” a new educational model in which students listen to lectures at home via digital technology and do their “homework” in the classroom. The benefits of this model may seem obvious—when you most need a teacher’s or professor’s help is when […]

During the Pussy Riot trial last August, Russia observers began to note the “unholy alliance” that was growing between Putin and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the time, we remarked that the vitality of the Russian faith often resided in the people, many of whom are suspicious of power and wealth. “The spiritual light […]

Sky-high tuition rates may be driving millions of students into debt, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping colleges from pouring money into fancy amenities. A new piece in The New Republic discusses how colleges are increasingly turning to posh construction companies to build state-of-the-art dorms with granite countertops, pools, and personal bathrooms that have more in common with […]