The New York Times ran an article this morning that echoes the title of Samuel Huntington’s seminal book, The Clash of Civilizations. “Cultural Clash Fuels Muslims Raging at Film“. The article is really worth reading in full. Some interesting excerpts: When the protests against an American-made online video mocking the Prophet Muhammad exploded in about 20 […]

Here’s some more bad news for the economy: analysts are predicting that corporate profits may fall this quarter for the first time in three years. This comes as a bit of a surprise. Business hasn’t quite been booming, but most of the economic news over the past few weeks has been good—or has at least shown […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on two different Sunday talk shows  over the weekend in a direct appeal to the American public for “red lines”—moments in Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon that would trigger an armed U.S. response. Netanyahu’s offensive comes after the White House refused him a private meeting on Iran with […]

The polls still look good, but the news for the Obama campaign keeps getting worse. Despite appearing to be close to a resolution only a few days ago, the Chicago teacher strike escalated yesterday and is now pushing into its second week.Though a compromise deal appeared imminent over the weekend, Karen Lewis, the union president, said […]

The unrest across the Muslim world, ostensibly in reaction to a tasteless video defaming Islam, which led to the tragic death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya, dominated news coverage this week. Via Meadia’s two essays tried to grapple with what it all means.For Obama, his foreign policy choices are looking more and more like […]

A reader writes in response to our post on the sentencing to death in absentia of Iraq’s fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi: Your post Sunday, Sept. 9th, reminded me that Obama & his administration should have negotiated much more intensely to keep a substantial force in Iraq after the deadline that Bush had agreed to. Instead, Obama […]

Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain and…Slovenia? Say hello to the newest member of the euro club of troubled nations. The New York Times profiles the country: Small, affluent and westward-leaning, Slovenia was welcomed with open arms into the European Union in 2004 and slipped, almost unnoticed, into the euro union three years later. Yet five years later, this alpine […]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan (pronounced ‘rejep erdowan’ more or less) looked like Woodrow Wilson a year ago. Everywhere he went in the Middle East, crowds hailed him. Like Wilson, he brought a political movement out of the wilderness into power at home. Like Wilson, for his followers he embodied a mix of conservative religious […]

News comes from the London Telegraph that the South African army is prepared to step in to assist the police in the ongoing miner’s strike. The FT reports that 150 army personnel are already there — and that foreign investors are dumping their shares in South Africa’s troubled mine sector.That is just one more sign […]

For the first time, a senior commander has acknowledged that members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force are in Syria, Reuters reports. For now, they are providing non-military aid, Tehran says, but if Syria is attacked, Iran will use military measures to defend it.With the US administration shaken, off balance and frightened by the […]