Earlier this week, the redoubtable blogger and world’s greatest (living) zombie specialist Dan Drezner put on his language cop hat and took issue with our use of the ‘bubble’ word as a signifier for our continuing coverage of one piece of the higher ed story: Here’s the FT definition of an asset bubble: When the prices […]

It’s been one week since the horrific shootings in Newtown. Many questions linger—about the gunman’s mental illness, about his mother’s responsibilities, and, of course, about guns.The U.S. unfortunately has seen many tragedies like the school shooting in Connecticut. And after these horrific tragedies there is usually a great national outcry about gun control. And then, […]

When violent acts are committed by extremists in Pakistan who claim the mantle of Islam, people in the west sometimes ask, “Where are the moderates? Who is condemning these outrages?” Sometimes, whether because of conviction, political calculation or fear, those voices stay silent.But in Pakistan today they are being heard loud and clear, and are […]

Turkey’s Islamist government started life planning to spread peace and security around the Middle East. With war in Syria and tensions building with Iran, that ambition isn’t looking so good. And now the Turks are discovering that the peace of their own country isn’t that secure; the long sputtering Kurdish revolt is back with a […]

Just what the world needs: another heroic statue of Joe Stalin. The New York Times yesterday reported that the Municipal Assembly in Stalin’s Georgian hometown of Gori has just allocated $15,000 to restore a massive statue of the dear leader that had been taken down in 2010.Nobody likes a good Stalin museum more than we […]

As the Game of Thrones intensifies in Asia, India and the Southeast Asian countries are banding together against China. Japan is thrilled, China annoyed, and the United States is hoping the tensions stay under control.India and the ASEAN nations vowed closer economic and security ties at a meeting on Indian soil yesterday. With leaders from […]

A dull roller coaster ride is hard to imagine, but the world has two right now: they combine real importance with utter dullness. The scariest and the most boring is the endlessly running European agony over the future of the euro; the second big and boring ride is here in the United States over our […]

On Tuesday, four health workers were killed in Karachi while trying to distribute a polio vaccine to children. This is not an isolated incident: Four other health workers have been killed in the past four days. Police said that Taliban fighters based north of Peshawar were responsible for the deaths, although a Taliban spokesman denied responsibility.Sadly, […]

Russians are known for their national pride, but this seems excessive: In a fit of pique, the Russian parliament responded to the U.S. Magnitsky Act by proposing a ban on American adoptions of Russian orphans. The NYT reports: The Russian Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted in support of a bill that would prohibit the adoption […]

For all the discussion of the West’s Islamophobia, it’s fear of Christianity that most bedevils politics in the world’s largest country. Earlier this week we reported on China’s violent oppression of one (admittedly bizarre) Christian cult, but its attitude towards mainstream Christianity isn’t much better. A government memo leaked earlier this month suggests that Beijing […]