President Obama announced today that his planned summit with Vladimir Putin in Moscow was canceled. The proximate cause appeared to be Russia granting NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum last week: Although U.S. frustration with Moscow has been growing over other key issues such as missile defense and human rights, it was Russia’s decision to grant […]

The EPA will extend the deadline for ethanol producers to meet this year’s mandated 16.55 billion gallons of biofuels by an extra four months, it announced yesterday. It also said next year’s targets will be lower than those demanded by the 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) law.The 2007 RFS charted a course for drastically ramping up biofuels, […]

North Korea has apparently blinked. The DPRK has agreed to reopen the Kaesong industrial plant, run jointly by both countries, just minutes after the South signaled its willingness to let the facility remain closed for good. South Korea also promised to pay out $250 million to companies that have suffered because of the closure.Reuters has […]

After years of crisis in Europe, key economic indicators are beginning to look up, and a calm is settling in. Manufacturing is on the rise, markets are less turbulent than they were a few months ago, and the euro no longer seems bound for imminent destruction as it did last year. Even the latest installment […]

There have been hopeful signs and some positive rhetoric emanating from both Tehran and Washington after Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, formally entered office this week. At his first press conference Rouhani called for “serious and substantial” talks with the US. The Obama administration responded by saying that if Rouhani is serious about negotiations, then […]

Japan unveiled the Izumo, a hulking grey destroyer that will patrol and protect the Japanese archipelago, in a cheerful ceremony at a harbor outside Tokyo yesterday. The Izumo resembles an aircraft carrier, with its flat top and 820-foot long flight deck, and it is indeed designed to carry 14 helicopters, with the potential to be outfitted for fixed-wing, […]

German federal parliamentary elections are a month away and the outcome is still uncertain. While Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has held office since 2005, remains personally popular, her Christian Democratic party and their junior coalition partner, the liberal FDP, may have trouble collecting the necessary votes in September. Poor regional election results for the ruling […]

Spain has had a rough couple of years, struggling with a moribund economy and a massive government deficit. Unemployment prospects, especially for the increasingly disillusioned young, is at grimmer than ever. Restive provinces have joined the Basque country in pushing for independence.The country’s leaders can’t seem to get their own house in order, much less […]

There was a slew of good economic news this morning, starting with reports that state and local pensions gained more than 12 percent in fiscal year 2013, driven by a strong US stock market. This isn’t going to be the new normal; Fed policy has pushed stocks up to record levels. But for now both […]

Which country is more likely to steal business secrets, Russia or the US? If you ask the Germans, it’s the US in a landslide. A new survey by EY found that within the German business community, 26 percent of those surveyed said that America is a “high-risk place for industrial espionage and data theft,” a close […]