The beautiful and shiny new democracy in Libya continues to experience teething troubles; today the designated prime minister has been forced to step aside after his second failure to get a slate of ministers approved by a fractious parliament.Mustafa Abu Shagur, who spent the last few years in the United States as an optical engineer […]

Speaking of Latin American democracies shooting themselves in the foot, Hugo Chavez was re-elected to the presidency of Venezuela for the third time yesterday with a solid margin of 10% of the vote in his favor. Whether there was significant fraud is not yet being discussed—Henrique Capriles made no mention of it in his concession […]

It’s the oldest trick in the book: when your polls are in the dumps, try to drum up nationalist fervor over a foreign conflict and watch the voters forget what a terrible job you’re doing domestically. With growth forecasts down to as low as 1.5% for this year after holding at almost 8% in 2011, […]

A new Brookings study is cautioning that the global economy is on the verge of another slump. The only bright light? The United States. FT has the summary: The Tiger index shows momentum in the global economy dissipating despite action by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England to […]

The biggest story this week was Mitt Romney’s stellar debate performance. WRM assessed the likely impact on the race: Governor Romney didn’t win the election last night, he just stopped losing it. That may not last; the road to the election is still very long and we are more likely than not to see momentum […]

A reader wonders, How about the oil industry which receives vastly more subsidy through the tax system than wind energy receives. Does that industry deserve those subsidies after more than a century of operation? Perhaps the oil companies should also be billed directly for aspects of their operations like the cost of maintaining the Fifth […]

Ripples of panic should be spreading through New York City Hall and the Ivy League as staffers and students pass around photocopies of this story from the always informative FT. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has some thoughts about the financial industry: too many people work in the sector and they are making too much […]

You might have missed it: a revolution almost happened in Kyrgyzstan earlier this week.Attempts to topple the government in Bishkek have become an almost semi-annual event in Kyrgyzstan: in spring 2010, revolts in northwestern Kyrgyzstan metastasized into major protests that overthrew then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev and instated Roza Otunbaeva as interim President of the Central Asian republic. Since […]

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the upcoming elections in Venezuela, where incumbent Hugo Chavez is fighting off the young upstart Henrique Capriles in an election which could have profound implications not just for Venezuela, but for the region as a whole. We wondered what Capriles’ chances are, given Chavez’ tendencies to, uh, tip […]

The UK is heading for yet another bruising fight with the EU, this time over the grotesquely swollen budget that the Eurocrats have drawn up. Here’s the lede of the FT story on the coming budgetary High Noon: Brussels is bracing itself for a battle with David Cameron as fears grow that the British prime […]