For years analysts have held that democratic elections are key to spurring economic development in Africa and therefore ought to receive greater U.S. support. But the African democracy consensus is beginning to crack, and even Kofi Annan is skeptical. A new report by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), with Annan as chairman, tells us […]

When Obama was first elected, our national press breathlessly likened him to Abraham Lincoln. Thankfully, the Lincoln comparisons have disappeared, but a strange new similarity between the two presidencies has emerged. In the wake of Obama’s reelection, some pathetic loons in South Carolina and Texas are trying to organize secession from the union.Talking Points Memo has […]

Gangs of lawyers in Lahore are using their fists to settle disputes, the Washington Post reports. At least fifteen cases have come to light this year of “marauding” lawyers beating up people involved in judicial cases, including police officers. “Storm troopers,” Ayaz Amir, a politician and commentator, called them in a June column. “Time was when […]

In the shadow of L’Affaire Petraeus, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Steven Kinzer which adds some needed perspective to much of the overheated media coverage these days. Kinzer is the author of an upcoming book on the Dulles brothers, the younger of whom, Allen, was the head of the CIA from 1953 to […]

The American energy miracle continues to make waves as more and more people realize just how big it is. The FT reports: The US will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest global oil producer by 2017, according to the International Energy Agency, in one of the clearest signs yet of how […]

Obama’s first term had some notable foreign policy successes, but his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was decidedly not one of them. Indeed, his mishandling of the issue early in his first term has rendered his subsequent peace initiatives ineffective and left a legacy of strained relations with both the Israelis and the Palestinians.Now the […]

Is Japan flirting with a triple dip? Japan’s economy contracted sharply at 3.5 percent on an annual basis last quarter, leading many to believe that the world’s third largest (and second most sophisticated) economy is headed for its third recession since 2008. A recession is conventionally defined as back to back quarters of decline in […]

Tunisia is the poster child for the Arab Spring in many ways. Not only is it the country where the revolts against authoritarianism began; it has also long been considered among the most Westernized and secularized of the Arab countries. When Islamists were defeated in the country’s first free elections, Tunisia looked like a place where something […]

After some false starts last week, the various Syrian opposition factions agreed to form a tentative umbrella organization to present a unified front against Assad. The New York Times reports: After three days of haggling at a luxury hotel here, opposition negotiators agreed to the new coalition and then elected as its president Sheikh Ahmad Moaz […]

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month came word that guns of World War One had stopped firing; the war that ripped Europe to pieces had come to an end.The consequences of that war were only beginning. In Russia, the Civil War was picking up steam as the Bolsheviks crucified […]