Exit polls from the regional elections in Catalonia show that pro-independence parties are winning a huge majority: up to 95 of the 135 seats in the regional assembly, according to analysis from the Financial Times. Worse, from Madrid’s point of view, the radical pro-independence forces are doing unexpectedly well. The next Catalan government will now […]

The major story this week was the outbreak of yet another round of fighting in the Eastern Congo, where troops backed by Rwanda are clashing with a motley comination of UN and Congolese forces. This has brought out the usual hand-wringing from the Western press and the development lobby, as Africa optimism has given way […]

Organic food is all the rage these days, but sometimes it’s difficult to see why. Earlier this year a group of Stanford researchers revealed that organic food is neither safer nor more nutritious than its cheaper generic counterparts. The only consistent benefit to organic produce was the lower rate of pesticide use.But in Canada, the organic […]

Abandoned factories, shuttered businesses, young people fleeing for better opportunities elsewhere: It sounds like a scene from the American Rust Belt, but it’s increasingly becoming a reality in China as well. A new report in the Washington Post paints a bleak picture of the once-bustling industrial towns that are quickly hollowing out as China’s manufacturing slowdown kicks […]

Israel’s Iron Dome was impressive, but the threat it helped defeat was relatively unsophisticated. Engineers are now hard at work at the next big thing in missile defense designed specifically to counter higher-tech threats: Unlike the homemade, rudimentary rockets used by Hamas, thousands of sophisticated missiles with greater ranges and payloads are being stockpiled in Lebanon […]

As the President and his staff gear up for a second term, American foreign policy seems to be making a shift. The Obama administration is moving from a realist, in some ways Jeffersonian approach to foreign policy—limiting commitments, looking for compromise solutions with opponents regardless of ideology—to something more Wilsonian: giving democracy promotion and human […]

Today we bring you something straight out of a science fiction novel: Scientists have found a way to produce nearly unlimited amounts of food in the desert, fueled by desalinated salt water and sunlight. It sounds like a pipe dream, but it’s not—it’s already happening in Australia and Qatar, and may soon spread further if […]

Today the Roman Catholic Church and Christians everywhere commemorate the Vietnamese Christians tortured and murdered for their faith between the 17th and the 20th centuries. The Vatican estimates that between 130,000 and 300,000 people were killed in these waves of persecution.As the Wikipedia entry on these events puts it: The tortures these individuals underwent are […]

Here’s the kind of email from Dad that you don’t want to get. A British father, retired from the Royal Navy, sent this to his three (sort of) adult children after what must have been a very dismal evening together: Dear All Three With last evening’s crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news […]

With parliamentary elections in Japan less than a month away and with aggressive nationalist Shinzo Abe likely to become the country’s next Prime Minister, it’s as good a time as any to have a look at Japan’s prospects for the future. Via Tyler Cowen comes an interesting profile in BusinessWeek of some bullish investors who see green […]