Once more the old adage that the fat and self-contented cannot outrun the lean and hungry is playing itself out.

Amid a growing consensus that Americans have lost faith in their country, ideas about strengthening institutions, on the one hand, and inspiring individual virtue, on the other, ought to be integrated.

As protests rage in Hong Kong and authorities sharpen their response, Chinese President Xi Jinping is finding it harder to connect with even pro-unification voters in Taiwan.

It’s easy to find oneself talking about the Ebola outbreak using generic terms, and for the numbers of casualties being bandied about to become a kind of numbing abstraction to the real human cost being borne by people all across West Africa—especially the children.

A Cuban pharmaceutical company was going to release fruity perfumes in honor of Hugo Chavez and Che Guevara. Alas, the project will never see the light of day, as the killjoys in Havana stopped the project.

Having brought Ukraine to heel militarily, Vladimir Putin is now applying economic pressure as the EU looks lamely on. In Tehran, Beijing and across the world, the message is clear: Western statesmen are not serious, they don’t think before they act and they don’t mean what they say.

Russia requires high oil prices in order to balance its budget, but crude prices have been dropping recently, despite supply disruptions in the Middle East and North Africa. What’s at play? In a word, fracking.

China’s Muslim ethnic minority has long bristled at government repression, but unrest and violence are now on the rise as the distinct forces of Islamist ideology and nationalism grow in tandem.

If polls were held tomorrow, AfD could be the official opposition.

Germany’s grand energy transition was like something out of an environmentalist’s dream at the outset, but initial enthusiasm for the growth of renewable energy has given way to the harsher realities of a country more reliant on coal than ever.