Nigeria is the most important country in sub-Saharan Africa if only because one fourth of the total population of the region lives there. Boko Haram, the fanatical group whose name means “Western knowledge is unclean,” wants to plunge Nigeria into a vast sectarian war.This weekend bombers believed to be linked to the group took another […]

Wen Jiabao’s family attacked the New York Times story that alleged family members of the outgoing premier have amassed almost $3 billion in assets during his time in power, and Chinese censors vigilantly kept all mention of the controversy out of the local press and off the Chinese Internet. The FT analyzes the situation: It […]

Bad euro decisions threaten the break-up of Spain: In protests large and small, hundreds of thousands of Catalans are embracing a stark proposition: Only by breaking ties with Spain and becoming an independent country can Catalonia free itself from economic malaise.Catalans go to the polls Nov. 25 for a regional parliamentary election, and polls show […]

JFK was still operating normally this afternoon as my flight from Heathrow came in. Bizarrely enough, the checked baggage arrived so quickly that it was waiting for us after we cleared passport control and, though the descent was a bit bumpy as the pilot struggled with the winds that are already picking up a few […]

As WRM and Hurricane/Frankenstorm Sandy both race across the Atlantic towards the Eastern Seaboard, Via Meadia presents this week’s Week in Review.Our essay this week looked at a damning, must-read piece from the New York Times,  which outlines the misery and ruin that well-intentioned liberals combined with aggressive public sector labor unions inflict on the poor […]

If you’ve asked yourself that question in the weeks since Western darling Mikhail Saakashvili’s party took a drubbing in Georgia’s parliamentary elections, you owe it to yourself to read the FT‘s weekend feature on Bidzina Ivanishvili. To our knowledge, it’s the first good in-depth piece trying to find out more about the mysterious man who made […]

The Iraqi government is trying to walk a tightrope. A few weeks ago we noted how the crisis in Syria was pushing Baghdad further into the arms of Tehran, as Iraq’s Shiite-dominated leadership feared that the success of Syria’s rebels might strengthen Sunni groups in Iraq. But American influence still counts for something: Iraqi authorities […]

A week out from the U.S. election, the left-leaning London Guardian runs with a piece praising Jeb Bush’s education reforms in Florida—and touting Bush as the source of Obama’s own ideas on education reform. For over a decade now, schools in Florida have been graded from A to F based on the performance and progress […]

We still don’t know exactly what happened between the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and the White House as Americans in Libya requested support for Ambassador Stevens and his team in their final hours, and we almost certainly won’t before the election.But that doesn’t do the administration much good. As various departments and officials […]

The world’s eyes are firmly fixed on Ohio this week, and well they should be. It is mathematically possible that a candidate could lose Ohio and win an electoral majority, it is deeply unlikely.The close race in Ohio is partly a reflection of the tightness of the national race, but it also reflects a truth […]