That’s what a recent report from an organization called DARA claims. The international media seized on the report and blasted terrifying headlines across the web. But not so fast. We should take a closer look before swallowing these claims whole. Thankfully, Bjorn Lomborg has done just that at Foreign Policy: Unfortunately, this message to the […]

Is economic pressure driving Iran into national bankruptcy?Israel’s finance minister Yuval Steinatz seems to think so, claiming that sanctions could push Iran of an economic cliff by next summer.He’s got some evidence to which he can point: Iran’s currency, the rial, has plummeted by almost 57 percent since June. Last week alone, it lost more […]

In a sign of Europe’s relative decline in the world, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan did not mention Turkey’s EU accession plans during his party’s most recent congress this past Sunday. Today’s Zaman reads the tea leaves: Not mentioning such major political goals as reforms and EU membership was indeed attention-grabbing, and the prime minister notably saluted […]

Reuters reports some disturbing news from China: Policy makers and economists have long been worried about the financial burden of China’s expanding patchwork of pension schemes, but those concerns have recently escalated as its rural pension scheme took off in the past three years.The funding shortage is daunting: economists say it could blow out to […]

Regime and rebel forces traded blame for a fire that raged in Aleppo’s Old City over the weekend. No matter who is responsible the end result is the same: the beautiful ancient marketplace with its network of stone archways and cobble streets has been torched, bombed, and nearly demolished. A few pictures are available here […]

Those hunting for hope that the world economy is on the road to recovery have some more bad news to digest: the grim outlook for global trade. The World Trade Organization is the latest to sound the alarm, notes the WSJ, as the WTO is projecting that the global volume of trade in goods would […]

The New Orleans Times-Picayune just went from being a daily to a thrice-weekly. The NYT has the story: In May, the parent company of The Times-Picayune, Newhouse Media, announced large-scale cutbacks as well as plans to reduce publication to three times a week in favor of an expanded Web site. Saturday’s edition represents the official end […]

Today is one of those days in which we are particularly grateful that George W. Bush is no longer the president of the United States.The news from Afghanistan is grim. With the latest round of deaths, we pass a milestone: 2,000 US combatants have died in what is now the longest war in American history. […]

In another dispatch from a war we’re not fighting, the U.S. is gearing up for a major counterterrorism push in North Africa: The government is considering additional deployments of Predator or Reaper drones to supplement those already in the region. While the pilotless aircraft carry missiles, current talks under way revolve around their utility as […]

What a surprise: The Greek economy yet again is going to be in “worse than expected” shape, shrinking almost 4 percent next year instead of staying flat like all those highly qualified, well trained economists at the IMF thought. The WSJ has the story: Greece’s economy will contract more than projected in 2013, its sixth […]