Tariq Rahman wrote an insightful piece in the Express Tribune on Monday about the current dilemmas surrounding the language of instruction in Pakistan’s schools. Here’s an excerpt: My concern was injustice, inequality and the continuation of privilege for the elite. More precisely, I was appalled by educational practices from the dim past in the subcontinent. […]

Pemex, the state-owned oil company on which the Mexican government relies for a third of its budget, is having a bad year, even by its sluggish standards. It lost $3 billion dollars in the third quarter after the value of its foreign sales dropped nearly 10 percent. Costs rose a whopping 13 percent, underscoring the […]

Studies on the costs of commuting have been making their way into academic journals with increasing regularity, and the mainstream media is starting to take notice. The average American commutes 25.4 minutes each way to work, suffering strains on mental and physical health, relationships, civic engagement, wallet, and carbon footprint. The New York Times reports on the toll: Millions […]

The WSJ has begun a series that everyone should start following: documenting the fiscal health of America’s 250 biggest cities. The first installment came out today, and it isn’t pretty. A deadly combination of static revenue and big (and growing) liabilities is keeping many American cities from achieving the kind of recovery seen in other […]

China publicly unveiled its first generation of nuclear submarines, built several decades ago, for the first time this weekend. The subs will “gallop to the depths of the ocean, serving as mysterious forces igniting the sound of thunder in the deep sea,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a dramatic article, and be an “assassin’s […]

One of the biggest challenges military families face is ensuring the children get a solid education despite frequent moves, which require them to shift between schools that may have very different curricula and educational styles.Unsurprisingly, then, some families prefer the relative stability afforded by homeschooling. As its popularity has grown, the military has become more […]

While the decision has not been made yet, Turkey has said that it is likely to buy a new missile defense program from a Chinese firm, unnerving NATO and American diplomats. A Reuters report from earlier this month said that Turkey is “highly likely” to buy the $3.4 billion program, from a firm under American […]

Once upon a time, government was able to get things done. Big things. The space program, the Hoover Dam, and other big projects of the early 20th century were all conceptualized and completed in a short time frame that would be unfathomable today. Now, a much more modest project, the Obamacare website, has taken three […]

Oregon implemented the nation’s first gas tax way back in 1919, and now it seems ready to blaze a new trail once again. The state has been testing out a new tax based on miles driven rather than fuel consumed.The gas tax is broken, advocates claim, and this vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) tax could be the […]

The scandal over the NSA spying on Angela Merkel heated up over the weekend, with many in the German press piling on to the story. The FT is on top of it: According to leaked documents seen by the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, US intelligence intercepted the German chancellor’s phone from 2002, before she became […]