Earlier this week Secretary Clinton announced that the United States will continue its efforts to help Syrian opposition forces to form a unified leadership.Clinton withdrew U.S. support for the beleaguered Syrian National Council, the opposition group often criticized for having weak links to the groups fighting inside Syria. The NYT has the story: “We’ve made it […]

Don’t anybody tell Tom Friedman, but educated Chinese are leaving the Middle Kingdom in droves. As the New York Times reports, 508,000 people left China for the 34 countries in the OECD in 2010 (the last year with complete data): Individual countries report the trend continuing. In 2011, the United States received 87,000 permanent residents from China, […]

The health care of the future is coming faster than you think. Plans to use implanted microchips to monitor medical information have shown promise, as have experiments using 3-D printers to quickly and cheaply manufacture drugs from the home.And new advances are happening all the time. The Wall Street Journal reports that scientists at the Genomes […]

The New York Times reports that eight of the eleven governorships up for grabs this year are currently held by Democrats, leaving Republicans with an opportunity to improve on their 29–20 advantage. Republicans are leading in five of these races, with toss-ups in Washington and New Hampshire. If Republicans win these contests, the GOP would hold […]

WSJ: Opium cultivation in Southeast Asia’s main poppy-growing countries has more than doubled over the past six years driven largely by rising heroin demand in China and despite recent efforts by regional governments to eradicate the crop, the United Nations’ narcotics office said in a report released Wednesday. . . .The number of opiate users […]

First, one of Argentina’s navy training ships was seized in Africa after the Argentinian government refused to pay an investor in full. Then, last week, a U.S. federal court ruled that Argentina couldn’t continue stiffing bondholders. Now, Argentina’s sovereign credit rating is plummeting deep into junk territory. The WSJ reports: Mr. [Hernan] Lorenzino [Argentina’s Economy Minister] said […]

Shintaro Ishiara, the controversial 80-year-old governor of Tokyo, resigned last Thursday to start his own political party in a bid to challenge the gridlocked Japanese establishment. Shintaro, a prize-winning author who was befriended by Yukio Mishima in days long gone by, is the outspoken nationalist who was behind the fundraising scheme to buy the Senkaku/Diaoyu […]

The “pivot to Asia” has been one of Obama’s signature foreign policy moves, but it’s not entirely unique in the world. In a white paper released earlier this week, the Australian government unveiled it’s own pivot, Australia in the Asian Century.In order to take advantage of the forthcoming “Asian century,” the paper says, Australia needs to achieve […]

Even self-involved New Yorkers fretting about our own problems have had to take note of the suffering in New Jersey following hurricane Sandy. Though the storm raged up the East Coast, it has become increasingly apparent that New Jersey took the brunt of it. Officials estimated that the state suffered many billions of dollars in […]

The Syrian conflict isn’t just about Syrians fighting Syrians. Well into its second year, it has become a much larger conflict drawing in a wide range of states and ethnic and religious groups. Iraqis are picking sides. And Palestinians are getting involved as well. (Syria has been home to thousands of Palestinian refugees since the creation […]