In a move that’s sure to further dispirit liberal opposition groups in Russia, Vladimir Putin’s administration made a bold move: The Kremlin’s provocative decision to end two decades of work in post-Soviet Russia by the United States Agency for International Development — with little warning ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline — was announced on […]

In Russia, diamonds really are forever. According to new reports from Moscow, trillions of carats of super-hard “impact diamonds” lie in an ancient asteroid crater know as the Popigai Astroblem in eastern Siberia. Russia has kept its existence secret for decades in order to reap greater profits from existing diamond supplies. The Christian Science Monitor has more: […]

Foreign institutional investors have been stampeding into Indian equity markets over the past week. On September 14 alone, $522.1 million in Indian shares was purchased with foreign funds, the highest level since July. Late last week, India announced plans to open certain industries to foreign investment including the on-again off-again and now on (but maybe off) again promise to […]

Quick: what important world event happened one year ago yesterday? Give up? Don’t worry. We didn’t get it either.Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street—the movement that was to be the Left’s answer to the Tea Party, the one that had the chattering classes abuzz with excitement that History had reached an inflection […]

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief who usually stays hidden from public view because he fears being assassinated by Israel, made a rare appearance at a massive rally in Beirut yesterday, calling on hundreds of thousands of supporters to prolong protests against the U.S. because of the now notorious anti-Islam video.The unrest will continue, Nasrallah vowed: […]

The media is abuzz this morning over the leaked video of Mitt Romney speaking in what he believed to be a closed meeting, claiming that 47 percent of Americans are hopelessly dependent on government, pay no taxes, and that he was “not to worry about those people.” This is the latest gaffe for a Romney […]

Tensions between China and Japan continue to rise. Japanese factories, shops, and even cars were attacked across China during riots over the past few days. Time has excellent photos of the protests.Official media warn darkly of more Chinese economic pressure to come as some Japanese firms shut down production in China, Bloomberg reports: Fast Retailing […]

Less than two months ahead of the election, Obama is losing support from a surprising group: black pastors. As the Washington Post reports, a number of black pastors see the election as a choice between Obama’s support of same-sex marriage and Romney’s Mormonism, and are advising their congregants to skip the vote entirely. “When President Obama made the […]

The violent outburst of anti-Americanism that started around 9/11/12 continues to spread eastward across the Muslim world. At first a Sunni Arab phenomenon, the riots have now spread as far as Pakistan and Indonesia. Even Shia Hezbollah leader Nasrallah has come out in favor of the violence, in what appears to be a sad unity […]

Henrique Capriles, the biggest challenger to Hugo Chávez for the Venezuelan presidency, had a tricky time getting to his campaign rally last week. Fighting between rival supporters of the two candidates erupted when Chávez’s supporters cut off Capriles’s route from the airport to the rally. Capriles was then forced into a helicopter, followed by a […]