Strange Bedfellows in the Middle East
Israel, Jordan Get Closer to $15 Billion Gas Deal

The move puts Israel on the path to becoming an energy giant, as well as strengthening the emerging Sunni-Israeli alignment.

MegaBoondoggle!
The Most Expensive Train Station in the US

Typical: the World Trade Center train station is eight years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Chinese Democracy
China Puts Its Foot Down on Hong Kong

China has shut down hopes for real democracy in Hong Kong, instead instituting a system under which HK leaders must be approved by Beijing. Chinese leaders have wanted to do that for a long time, but they are following through now at least in part because the West has proven it will not stand up to authoritarians and expansionists.

Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images
The Middle East
The Biggest Winner in the Lose-Lose “Operation Protective Edge”

In the topsy-turvy universe of Middle East politics, nothing succeeds like failure on the battlefield and nothing fails like military success. So who won the Gaza war?

Africa's God Wars
Boko Haram Carving Out Its Own ISIS-Style State In Nigeria

The Nigerian Islamist group is rapidly approaching a point where, like ISIS, it becomes a territory-owning statelet with a conventional army.

Prices Prices Prices
With Health Care Deductibles, Consumers Get More Responsible

One-third of large companies will offer their employees high deductible plans next year. Everything we know so far about health care spending suggests big savings could be ahead.

China's Minorities
China Pays Muslim Uighurs to Intermarry

Local Chinese authorities are paying minority populations to intermarry with the Han majority. This tactic is part of the government’s program to solidify a coherent national identity that can legitimate its regime.

Fraternité
France Halts Mistral Deals

France’s plan to deliver powerful amphibious assault warships to Russia was one of many signs that the West did not have the resolve or the solidarity to take a non-nominal stand against Putin. Are Western leaders getting a clue?

Stark Choices
Fish or Cut Bait on Ukraine

America’s choices in Ukraine, as in the Middle East, are few and they are ugly. But a choice needs to be made. The half-hearted dithering that has passed for policy up until now from the West will no longer suffice.

Hail Shale
Old Texas Oil Fields Boom Anew

Horizontal well drilling and hydraulic fracturing have oil fields in Texas’s Permian Basin booming anew.

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