The Indian cabinet on Thursday gave the green light to the creation of Telangana, a new state to be carved out of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. According to the WSJ, Hyderabad, the current capital of Andhra Pradesh, will function as a joint capital for one decade while the country hammers out the specifics of […]

On Monday the Swedish home-furnishing retailer IKEA announced that it would be offering cheap residential solar panels in their UK stores on a trial basis. The retailer will be partnering with the Hong Kong based Hanergy Solar Group Ltd., which will handle the installation and maintenance of the panels. The panels will be offered for […]

The news about Obamacare right now is tightly focused on the messy implementation that has gone about as bad as the ACA’s critics could wish. But assuming the administration fixes these glitches, and we move on to the next phase of Obamacare, measuring whether the law is actually succeeding or not will be tricky business.Two […]

While most of the United States media class is distracted by the spectacle of feckless politicians squabbling away in Washington, real news is happening halfway around the world. Japan and the US have signed a landmark agreement that includes provisions for a new missile defense system in Japan, stations American surveillance drones at Japanese air bases, […]

After Germany passed a law permitting ritual circumcision last December, it seemed like we could start putting the circumcision wars behind us, and that Jews would be allowed to carry out their traditional practices in peace.No such luck. On Tuesday the Council of Europe took up the issue again, calling circumcision a “violation of the […]

Two stories from Bloomberg News paint an ugly picture of Puerto Rico’s economy. First, investors are starting to think Puerto Rico’s credit has been overvalued and have started to price it like distressed debt: Yields on some general obligations set record highs last month. Investors demand about 5.2 percentage points of extra yield, or 520 basis […]

The latest news out of Italy is that Silvio Berlusconi has been shown out the Senate door after he failed to rally his party to leave Enrico Letta’s coalition government. It’s not a final verdict, but the full Senate is unlikely to overturn the ruling of the special committee that ruled that he should go. WRM, […]

The BRICs have had a rough year, but none has fallen quite so far as Brazil. After a few years in which it seemed poised to set the world on fire, economic growth is now below 1 percent, riots broke out across the country earlier this year, and the optimism of the Lula era is […]

We mentioned before how the blunders of the Obama administration’s Middle East policies would alienate our closest allies in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia. The proof is in the pudding: The NYT reports that the Saudis passed on their turn to speak at the UN General Assembly this week: They said it was the first time that the […]

Saim Saeed, WRM’s student not so long ago and currently Via Meadia’s man in Pakistan, has an excellent piece today in The News that takes aim at the mindset—all too prevalent among Western policymakers but also fashionable among Pakistan’s elites—that the resolution of Pakistan’s long-running conflict with India is a simple matter of transcending differences: There are […]