The Wall Street Journal reports that San Bernardino, which filed for bankruptcy two months ago, has missed a $5.3 million payment to Calpers, the state pension fund, and is projected to miss further payments in the future. This is the first time a California city has refused to make its payments. Amid the subsequent confusion, both […]

Japan’s exports to China are significantly down this month, the Financial Times reports: According to Monday’s preliminary data from the Ministry of Finance, shipments to China from Japan dropped 14.1 per cent in September from a year earlier, accelerating from a 9.9 per cent fall in August. . . .While Japan’s imports from China were up 3.8 […]

A report put out by the Committee to Protect Journalists paints a damning picture of Erdogan’s Turkey: The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has waged one of the world’s biggest crackdowns on press freedom in recent history. Authorities have imprisoned journalists on a mass scale on terrorism or anti-state charges, launched thousands of other […]

I’ve arrived in London for a week of conferences and lectures. I’ll be speaking at King’s College, London and giving other talks at Chatham House, Oxford and Cambridge. Later in the week it’s off to Belfast for another round of lectures; if any of these are available on video we’ll post links. Don’t expect live […]

Hillary Clinton jumped on the sword for the Obama administration over the Benghazi attack, but as WRM wrote in an essay, she failed to save Obama from himself: Just as George W. Bush couldn’t dodge responsibility for the decision to go to war in Iraq on the basis of nukes that never showed up, President […]

Via Meadia has been keeping a close eye on Golden Dawn, the far-right Greek political party that won its first ever seats in Parliament this year and has been growing more popular by the day. A weekend article at the Washington Post talks about why many Greeks are starting to love and rely on Golden Dawn, […]

At Via Meadia, we’re frequently writing about how the decision to invade Libya has had severe repercussions for some of its neighbors. But it’s not like Libya itself is in great shape. Armed militias still operate largely unchallenged by the weak central government, as became painfully obvious with the death of Ambassador Stevens and three […]

Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war last year, observers from around the world have been wringing their hands about the violence and loss of life in the country, where over 30,000 have already died as a result of the conflict. Now it looks like Assad may have been paying attention, as he has just […]

In an interesting experiment that’s certain to ruffle some feathers among left-leaning reformers, the ruling Conservative Party is set to announce a program of incentives to help improve the efficiency of UK’s private prisons: Owners of private prisons who fail to stop prisoners re-offending will be fined, under new plans to be announced by David […]

Regular Via Meadia readers are well versed in the ups and downs of the public pension crisis unfolding across the country. Having promised future retirees generous plans, state pension funds are proving to be woefully underfunded, having made overoptimistic assumptions of future growth before the financial crisis hit.Most people immediately jump to discussing what kinds of […]