As the Berlusconi conviction spreads, confusion and disarray follow, the FT reports: The jail sentence handed down to Silvio Berlusconi with his conviction for tax fraud by a Milan court is set to intensify a power struggle within his centre-right party while adding to the mounting problems of Italy’s government under Mario Monti.Twenty years ago, […]

As election season heads into the home stretch, all eyes are on the presidential race. But while Obama and Romney are hogging the spotlight, another very important fight over labor unions is brewing in Michigan. We reported last month that Michigan’s unions scored an important victory when a measure enshrining collective-bargaining rights and outlawing right-to-work legislation was […]

The WSJ reports from Herat, Afghanistan: “Iran is the real influence here. With one snap of their fingers, they can mobilize 20,000 Afghans,” said a high-ranking official in Afghanistan’s presidential palace. “This is much more dangerous than the suicide bombers coming from Pakistan. At least you can see them and fight them. But you can’t […]

Fidel Castro is fading away as nature achieves what 50 years of American policy did not. The FT reports: Mr Castro of late had become a mere shadow in the background who had been neither seen nor heard from for months, leading to the latest spate of death rumours and his retort: get used to […]

South African government officials gingerly express hope that the worst of the crisis is over as the national union of mineworkers announces a deal over wages and miners continue to go back to work.The FT reports: Pravin Gordhan, South Africa’s finance minister, predicted on Thursday that the crisis in the country’s mining sector was past […]

The ceasefire in Syria didn’t last long, Reuters reports: Opposition activists in Syria said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had renewed their heavy bombardment of major cities on Saturday, further undermining a truce meant to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha religious holiday.The conflict is spinning out of control, causing serious problems for its neighbors […]

The violence in Burma that began earlier this week has gotten much, much worse. Burmese security forces have begun to use force to stop the clashes between the stateless Rohingya Muslim community and the Buddhists who are trying to displace them. As a result, more than 80 have now been killed. Meanwhile the tens of thousands […]

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution points us to an interesting development in higher-education taking place in Florida. Concerned by the growing student-debt bubble and the number of liberal-arts graduates who can’t find jobs, Governor Rick Scott is considering a plan to guide more students into the more technical STEM fields, where job opportunities are relatively abundant. […]

As with most presidential contenders, Obama and Romney don’t agree on much. But as a recent piece in the New York Times points out, there is one notable exception: Energy and climate change. Despite the fact that both candidates believe in anthropogenic climate change, neither one has discussed plans to address the issue using green policies. Instead, […]

The Washington Post has been investigating the Obama administration’s expansion of the conflict formerly known as the global war on terror, and the article that ran in today’s paper focuses on a rapidly growing remote drone airfield and military base in Djibouti called Camp Lemonnier. Increasingly, the orders to find, track or kill those people […]