Apologies to readers wondering why we have been running fewer posts this week.  My schedule in the Middle East has been packed, with teaching and meetings on both sides of the 1948 armistice lines.  I’ve been dividing my time between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Tel Aviv, and everywhere I go I find people are transfixed by […]

Despite growing dissatisfaction with the Indian bureaucracy’s culture of bribery, attempts to overcome it only reveal how deep it runs. The NYT’s India Ink continues its commendably rich and detailed India coverage with a story that helps Americans understand just what is wrong: Waiting at any government office is usually a hassle – lines are […]

In a heartening bit of good news, a federal government report logged the fourth consecutive year of falling crime rates across the country. The Wall Street Journal reports: U.S. violent-crime rates fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2010, as police agencies across the country reported significant decreases in murders, robberies and property crimes, the […]

The Great Loon may be out of power, but his soldiers continue their acts of violence against civilians.  CNN has the story: Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi are creating a humanitarian disaster in Bani Walid, the National Transitional Council’s military spokesman charged Monday.Col. Ahmed Bani told reporters that Gadhafi forces are robbing food stores, leaving […]

Most of the eyes that follow the Middle East are focused on the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN this week; that is not the biggest question facing the region or the United States.  Egypt, Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, Palestine, Bahrain, Yemen: for now, these are sideshows.  The main event, the thing that history is […]

Something surprising happened during legislative elections in Berlin on Sunday: A scruffy bunch of young men with dreadlocks, beards, and sweatshirts became the city’s newest legislators. The NYT has the story: By winning 8.9 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election in this city-state, these political pirates surpassed — blew away, really — every expectation […]

Only six years after the resolution of its civil war, Burundi is again on edge. A bar shooting this week resulted in the deaths of at least 36 Burundians, and the violence has roots in the ongoing conflict between the governing party and the opposition. The New York Times reports: Burundian officials immediately accused an […]

Things have been heating up in the Persian Gulf over the past few months. Iranian boats and aircraft have assumed threatening positions toward American vessels, and the two sides have come close to firing on each other on a few occasions. This tension has prompted the Navy to consider a military hotline with the Islamic […]

Energy-independence types like to say that America is the Saudi Arabia of coal; developments of the past year reveal that the Americas may also be the Saudi Arabia of… oil! The NYT has a remarkable piece on the effects of new technology and massive oil discoveries throughout the Western Hemisphere. Brazil has begun building its […]

In Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, corruption of the health care system kills, directly and indirectly.  The New York Times, which deserves some applause for stepping up its India coverage despite tight budgets, has the story: The first doctor to die, a senior government health administrator, was shot on his morning walk last October by […]