After half a century of staggering population growth (from 700 million in 1960 to 1.3 billion today), China is about to enter a new demographic phase characterized by slower growth and rapid aging. This Bloomberg report shows that China’s working-age population will start to shrink in 2020, while its median age will continue to increase rapidly.For […]

Over the crackle of an audio tape posted online Sunday, the leader of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia warned the government of Iraq that it plans to renew its violent campaign and “rock your seats of power.” The Iraqi Islamist surge may get some backup from the Syrian civil war next door.Monday’s devastating string of bombings and shootings have […]

A combination of low interest rates and aggressive market return goals is driving pension funds toward more complicated, more dangerous and high-fee investments. Wall Street is happy to help out.The FT has the story: Mr Ablin has steered clients towards real estate investment trusts, preferred stock and master limited partnerships for infrastructure and pipelines, while […]

Although New Orleans has always been known as an exciting and vibrant cultural center in the deep South, the reputation of its political and governmental institutions has been less sterling. The schools weren’t educating children, the police (in New Orleans especially) weren’t protecting the people, and, as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, state, city and […]

WRM was on NPR today to talk about the geopolitics of the European financial crisis. Check it out here.

Oswaldo Paya was the founder of the Varela Project, a campaign to force the Cuban parliament to consider new human rights laws. He was one of Cuba’s most prominent political dissidents and the winner of the EU’s Sakharov Prize, an important human rights award. On Sunday, his car swerved off the road and hit a tree, killing Paya […]

In Iran’s northeast city of Neishabour, thousands have taken to the streets to protest the price of chicken as a result of Western sanctions on the Islamic regime’s nuclear program. In the face of soaring prices of eggs, meat and fish, most Iranians have resorted to chicken as a cheap and accessible source of protein. But […]

At this point, the troubled Eurozone has endured two years of policy fixes from Brussels. The net result? Sick countries are even sicker, and the formerly healthy countries are starting to sneeze and sniffle. On the weight of the threat of Greece’s exit from the euro and the cost of seemingly endless bailouts, Moody’s has lowered […]

With the presidential race essentially tied and the final 100 days of the world’s most grueling marathon almost here, Governor Romney gave what was widely billed his first big foreign policy speech at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nevada.It was not a speech that will change the election or […]

AFP reports that the European Union declines to consider Hezbollah as a terrorist organization: The European Union turned down a request on Tuesday by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to blacklist Hezbollah as a terror group after last week’s deadly bombing in Bulgaria. “There is no consensus for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist […]