Royal Mail, the UK’s postal service, expects to lay off more workers in the wake of its privatization earlier this year. The 500-year-old institution has already trimmed more than 50,000 workers in the past decade and says more job cuts will come regardless of who owns it.Not surprisingly, roughly 96 percent of Royal Mail workers […]

Lithuania’s big bet on shale gas to rid itself from the clutches of Russia’s Gazprom is looking more and more like a bust. The eastern European country is, like the rest of Europe, frustrated with high Russian gas prices and the long-term contracts Gazprom requires that tie the price of its gas to oil. As […]

Two startling stories about sex selective abortion in the West hit papers this week. First is one about Dr. Mark Hobart, an Australian doctor who is under investigation for refusing to preform a sex selective abortion and then failing to refer the couple seeking the abortion to another doctor. Dr. Hobart could lose his job or […]

Here’s a case where we don’t mind seeing the US lose: China is now the world’s top oil importer. The US held the title for awhile, but increased energy efficiencies and (more importantly) the recent shale revolution have cut down America’s energy deficit. Meanwhile, demand for energy in China continues to grow (oil demand is […]

Wal-Mart announced today that it would end its six year old joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, an Indian firm. It is a sucker punch for those who hoped for greater international investment in India’s enormous retail market. Wal-Mart, like others before it, balked at India’s overly strict regulatory regime. NYT: Despite India’s potential market of […]

North Carolina’s pension system is by some measures the third healthiest in the nation (funding 95 cents on every dollar in liabilities), but the defined-benefit program is pushing officials to turn to high-risk investments. Bloomberg reports that Democrats and Republicans in the Tar Heel state are turning to “alternative investments” to make the kind of […]

Metro UK reports on a new centralized facility to house Indian women bearing children for wealthy Westerners: The multi-million-pound complex—which will have a gift shop and hotel rooms for people coming to collect newborns—is being built in India by controversial doctor Nayna Patel.One floor will be home to the surrogates, who make babies for a fee […]

Pakistan would love to have a powerful navy. The trouble is it can’t build one. $58 billion in debt, the Pakistani government can’t afford much else either.But such small details won’t stand in the way of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s goal of bumping Pakistan up to naval parity with its neighbors. On Tuesday, the Pakistani Defense […]

Bill de Blasio, the odds-on favorite to become New York City’s next Mayor, has declared war on the city’s charter schools. Yesterday, thousands of charter school teachers and students marched on the Brooklyn Bridge to protest his promise that, if elected, he would no longer let charter schools use empty or underused public school buildings […]

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going a lot worse than its supporters ever predicted, but the ultimate fate of the law will depend a large part on whether it makes health care more or less expensive in the long run.As Obamacare rolls out, many current health plans will be cancelled because they don’t meet […]