Washington is backing away from the Afghanistan objectives President Obama laid down when he announced the troop surge. As the NYT reported earlier this week: American generals and civilian officials acknowledge that they have all but written off what was once one of the cornerstones of their strategy to end the war here: battering the […]

Case closed: circumcision is about to be made legal in Germany. A new bill is wending its way through the Bundestag and will likely pass early next week. The Times of Israel has the details: Ritual circumcisions can be performed by “a person chosen by a religious community who is especially trained” for such procedures, the […]

WSJ: The small agricultural town of Atwater, Calif., has declared a fiscal emergency, as it seeks to avoid becoming the fourth municipality in the state this year to file for bankruptcy protection.Located about 100 miles east of San Francisco, Atwater is grappling with a $3 million budget deficit, declining city revenues and cost overruns for […]

For years, China’s unelected top officials nurtured the carefully crafted image that they were above the corruption and scandal that plagues lower leaders. The FT reports: A year ago, when citizens in the Chinese village of Wukan rose up in rebellion against corrupt local officials and fought running battles with riot police, they continued to insist […]

China is facing an enormous oversupply of solar panels and wind turbines, and the problem makes the woes of Solyndra and the rest of the U.S. solar industry look tiny by comparison. The NYT reports: Though worldwide demand for solar panels and wind turbines has grown rapidly over the last five years, China’s manufacturing capacity has soared […]

Reuters reports: Toyota Motor Corp said it had been forced to shut its South African car factory for four days because of an illegal pay strike, the first sign of wildcat mine stoppages spreading into other parts of Africa’s biggest economy.Trade union leaders at the Japanese car giant’s Durban plant said workers would return on […]

WSJ: A consortium including Exxon MobilCorp., ConocoPhillips Co. and BP PLC said late Wednesday it is moving forward with plans to export natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope in a project that could cost as much as $65 billion. The long-awaited effort is expected to have a significant impact not just on Alaska and its economy, but also on […]

Iran’s currency is in massive flux. Fighting erupted on Wednesday when police tried to evict black market money changers near Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Hundreds of shopkeepers joined the protests. Yesterday many shops in the Bazaar remained closed. Police have clamped down in the city today. The NYT has the story: In the Iranian capital, all […]

News this morning that the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent is welcome. As we’ve been observing at Via Meadia, the United States is not only in better shape than other developed economies, there are some powerful trends—onshoring, foreign investment, the new energy revolution—pointing toward a more prosperous future than many pessimists assume.The White House […]

Has Romney shifted to the center? Is he spewing misleading numbers and making conflicting promises in an effort to be everything to everybody?Well, yes, to some extent. It’s what campaigners do. But the fetish of this New York Times piece in particular, and the wonk press in general, for “specific programs” and detailed numerical projections […]