Since his mother’s assassination in 2007, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has been chairman of Pakistan People’s Party, and heir apparent to a prominent place in the country’s dynastic politics. This past week the 24 year old Oxford graduate made his first major televised political speech to ten of thousands of PPP supporters gathered at the Bhutto shrine […]

Iranian authorities have realized that their longtime ally in Syria is on the way out and have held talks with members of the opposition about a transitional regime, reports the Los Angeles Times. From the piece (with excellent reporting from Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels) it appears that Iran’s government is still not willing to […]

While Russia is goes after orphans, China moves in the opposite direction, passing new laws to protect the elderly from neglect by their children. A new law passed Friday requires adult children to pay regular visits to their elderly parents—or risk facing them in court. The FT reports: State media say the new clause will […]

Yesterday I posted an essay about how theists and atheists are the not all that different from each other; we are almost all transcendentalists in the sense that almost all of us find some kind of moral, ethical and even spiritual meaning in life. Life, we feel, amounts to more than eating and scratching our […]

For the first time since 1746, a herd of wild European bison, close cousins of the American variety, will be roaming free in a German forest owned by Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg: Since he hit upon the idea almost a decade ago, Prince Richard has been at the center of Germany’s most interesting experiment in species conservation. […]

Australia has designs on becoming the leading natural gas supplier for not only Asia, but the entire world. Indeed, the country has the offshore resources and the thirsty markets nearby in Asia to pass Qatar as the world’s top supplier of LNG.However, Australia’s march towards energy superpowerdom is beginning to run into domestic problems—and new competition. Rising labor costs and […]

The US shale gas boom, drastically cutting the cost of gas, is shaking the foundations of the Saudi Arabian economic model—and more is coming. The highly profitable $100bn Gulf petrochemical industry is taking a hit as its biggest customer—the U.S.—is importing less and relying instead on domestic production.US petrochemical companies, propelled by cheaper access to […]

Remember how President Obama embarked on a “pivot” to Asia? Well China is pivoting the other direction, to the Arab world. The Chinese are hoping to Arab countries will become profitable economic partners and oil suppliers. China hopes to build up its Muslim dominated Ningxia province as a center of Sino-Arab trade, starting with increased exports of […]

Is the love affair between Silicon Valley and green energy coming to a close? The Wall Street Journal reports that Silicon Valley venture capitalists are learning what the rest of us have known for some time: most green energy projects simply aren’t profitable. A recent survey of venture capitalists suggests that these investors are preparing […]

Five go-old rings!Happy fifth day of Christmas, and welcome back to the 2012-13 Yule Blog, where we aim to keep the holiday fires burning right up through Twelfth Night on January 6.Yesterday King Herod’s massacre of every child in Bethlehem under the age of two shocked us out of the idea that Christmas is basically a […]