In a case legal experts say will redefine public corruption, two former California government officials were convicted on Tuesday of misappropriating taxpayer money, paying themselves inflated salaries, and doing little work in return. The LA Times has the story: During the month-long trial, prosecutors used a novel legal argument that Lynwood officials broke the law […]

“For besieged Syrian dictator Assad, only exit may be body bag,” warns an ominous title of a Washington Post dispatch from Syria today. Senior officials in the West see Assad “backing himself into an increasingly narrow corner” and, soon perhaps, going the way of Qaddafi: chased out of town, caught on the run, executed or […]

At the Huffington Post, Kil Huh, Director of Research at the Pew Center on the States, feeds Via Meadia with more ammunition in our ongoing struggle to publicize the coming pension disaster. Huh warns that 34 state pensions are less than 80 percent funded and falling, and underfunding of these pensions is just as much of a long-term problem […]

Japan’s assertion of its claims to disputed islands in the East China Sea has earned it stern rebukes from both China and South Korea. Tokyo released its annual defense white paper on Tuesday, and for the eighth year in a row it avowed ownership of the disputed Senkaku Islands. China also claims the uninhabited islets.Bloomberg […]

As Governor Romney returns to the U.S., somewhat battered by foreign and domestic press responses to his three-nation swing, most observers are paying attention to the impact the turbulence will have on the presidential race.That’s a mistake; it won’t have much. We are still more than three months away from the election, and although political […]

The boundary disputes unsettling the peace of Asia don’t just involve tiny islands in the South China Sea. Himalayan glaciers and valleys are also involved — and it’s not just India and Pakistan who are at daggers drawn in the Asian high country.India and China have never settled their disputed land border. They fought a […]

A string of deadly bombings, ominous threats broadcast online, and a chain of assassinations of city councilmen: witness the opening act of the return of al-Qaeda in Iraq.The NYT reports that local representatives, or mukhtars, in Baquba have resigned en masse after being targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda fighters attempting to renew their presence in one of their old neighborhoods: [The […]

We’ve called for a national debate on the so-called Asia pivot announced at the start of this year, and it appears we’re starting to get one. The New York Times has a brief article summarizing a study commissioned by Senators Carl Levin, Jim Webb, and John McCain.The main criticism found in the report seems to be that the specifics […]

The economy is so bad that even Harvard is having to cut costs these days. The Wall Street Journal reports that, after the recession lowered the university’s endowment by nearly $5 billion, it has been putting a number of projects on hold to save cash.At first, the cuts were skin-deep ones, limited to postponing construction projects […]

Almost two weeks since the terrorist bombing of a busload of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, officials in Sofia remain reluctant to assign responsibility for the attack, despite firm insistence by U.S. authorities that a Hezbollah cell carried out the deadly strike.Bulgaria’s reticence undoubtedly reflects the fecklessness of the European Union, which is determined to avoid […]