The government of Thailand imposed a state of emergency in the capital as demonstrators and chaos on the streets continue to push Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration toward the brink of disaster. Only 11 days remain before snap elections on February 2. The question on everyone’s mind is: Can the country make it?

Economic buffoonery continues in Argentina, as the sinking government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner now requires consumers who make online purchases from foreign websites to produce a written declaration at a customs office, and then to pay a 50 percent tax on the items. Like Argentina’s recent 35 percent tariff on foreign credit card transactions, and all the various currency controls President Fernández has introduced since 2011, this latest effort is unlikely to stop the country’s reserves from drying up.

Almost six months to the day after Detroit filed for bankruptcy, Michigan’s state government may finally lend a hand to the troubled city. Earlier this month, a group of foundations, aided by a bankruptcy judge, came up with a plan to allow Detroit to get money from its precious art collection without losing control of the art. Now it looks like the state may be on board with the plan. The Governor’s office has been hinting that it plans either to match the contributions of the foundations or at least to pledge money to help Detroit pay its pensions directly.

Industrial electricity prices in Europe are double American costs, and 20 percent higher than what Chinese businesses pay. That’s the latest alarming news out of the European Commission, and it’s understandably got many on the continent worried about European industry’s ability to compete. The FT doesn’t like what it sees.

A team of reporters at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got their hands on leaked documents that reveal a startling truth about modern China: Communist Party leaders and their friends, family members and associates—22,000 of them in all—hid as much as $4 trillion in offshore accounts since 2000. This is pretty big news. The report took two years to investigate and China blocked the website of the ICIJ and the Guardian and other outlets that cooperated on the story. It reveals something that many of those following the Snowden-NSA hubbub seem to have forgotten: America actually has less to fear from leaks and hacks than many other countries.

Illinois’ modest but much-needed pension reform may not be the lifeline that spendthrift lawmakers were hoping for: a new report says that despite the pension bill, a legislature living outside its means is still running up a mammoth budget deficit to the tune of $13 billion.

Over the past several weeks a rift has appeared between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ideological former partner, a reclusive imam who preaches tolerance and runs a worldwide network of charities and schools from a refuge in the Poconos. The split is dividing Turkey, and it could have the effect of ending years of economic growth.

China is building a military and administrative outpost on Woody Island in the South China Sea, and according to Reuters will soon base a 5,000 ton coast guard vessel there to patrol disputed ocean territory. Woody Island, called Yongxing in China, is the seat of the Chinese prefecture of Sansha. Several nearby island groups come under Sansha’s administration, including the Spratly Islands, the Paracel Islands, and the Macclesfield Bank, all of which are also claimed by Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, or some combination of all the above.

The decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption—the ability to produce more units of GDP from each unit of energy consumed—is one of the most important trends going for the environment. The environmental movement has been slow to embrace this phenomenon, but as BP writes in its annual Energy Outlook, the world is figuring out how to grow green.

The conclusion to a four-part essay looking Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.