It’s been a bad week for French President Nicholas Sarkozy, with polls showing his rival, Socialist candidate François Hollande, steadily gaining ground. The latest opinion polls show Hollande leading with 59 percent of the vote, nearly the 60 percent necessary to win a head-to-head contest in the first round of elections just under two months […]

Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai has been working overtime in Washington to polish his nation’s image, as well as defend and smooth over his country’s oil contracts with Iran. Writes the NY Times: India’s determination to continue buying Iranian oil, despite sanctions and growing political pressure from the United States and Europe, has frustrated officials in […]

In a piece entitled “Occupy Movement Regroups, Laying Plans for the Next Phase,” the NY Times gamely attempts to keep the hope for a left-wing counterweight to the Tea Party alive. But no dice. There’s nothing to see here but hand-waving, hyperbolic rhetoric, and vague promises of ill-planned action by career activists: Jumping on a […]

First the Obama administration managed to alienate both its liberal supporters and its religious critics by pushing and then pulling back its HHS contraception mandate. Now the White House has succeeded in hitting the political sour spot yet again by producing a compromise designed to placate the Catholic bishops…without consulting the Catholic bishops. Reports the […]

Another bump has appeared on the road to Palestinian unity. Last week’s agreement in Qatar seems to be doomed. The WSJ reports: A move to unite with the rival Fatah party in a Palestinian government has opened up a split in Hamas.The discord escalated this past weekend as Gaza leader Mahmoud al-Zahar criticized an agreement […]

The latest news from Europe is, as usual, not good. The weekend’s riots in Athens were significantly worse than expected, suggesting that the Greek political system is closer to a break point than many understood. Yet on examining the fine print of the latest Greek budget cuts, and taking note of a statement by the […]

Pro- and anti-Assad forces are engaged in a bitter fight not only within Syria, but outside it too, and Lebanon, not surprisingly, is once again a proxy battleground for troubles in the Levant.Street fighting erupted in Tripoli, on Lebanon’s northern coast, between Sunni Muslim and Alawite communities this weekend. Automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades […]

Millions of Americans will get new health coverage under Obamacare, which means that millions of new patients will need doctors—specifically, primary care providers. According to the Washington Post, Obamacare will require almost 30,000 new primary care physicians by 2015.Unfortunately, primary care is the road less traveled through medical school, less lucrative and prestigious than the […]

Liberal activists called for a day of strikes and protests in Egypt over the weekend. Only a few people turned out, to “very little impact,” reports the BBC: Strikes at universities attracted small numbers of protesters, and public transport in Cairo ran as normal……there was no disruption at Egypt’s airports.The industrial action also had no […]

During the worst days of the recession, many warned of coming catastrophes in state and local governments, whose massive revenue losses were supposed to force draconian cuts in employment and services. Only Federal aid could avert disaster in America’s states and cities.Maybe Washington should hold on to its money. A new story in USA Today […]