The UN’s much-vaunted Green Climate Fund (GCF) opened its headquarters in South Korea today. You’ll forgive us if we don’t bust out the streamers and kazoos; at this point, there’s not much to cheer. The fund has raised just $40 million of the tens of billions of dollars originally envisioned.

Once again, Brazil seems to have missed an historic opportunity to transform itself and leap into the front rank of world economies. The FT reports that Brazil just had its worst quarterly slowdown in five years, its GDP is shrinking, and investment is drying up. Yet he finance minister did his best to shift the blame by talking about the global economy.

Hospitals are getting bigger, prices are going up, the system is getting even more complicated, and networks are getting smaller. Meanwhile, politicians continue to debate reforms that largely fail to address any of these problems.

The US “pivot”, and Washington’s enduring commitment to stability and prosperity in Asia, is one of the most important geopolitical strategies of the Obama administration. It is a bipartisan goal, and whoever takes office after President Obama will likely support it. But in this sensitive time, as rising China tests the US and other Asian powers, Washington mustn’t give its Asian allies any reason to doubt that the US is anything short of fully committed to the region for the long term.

Outrage is a spent emotion in Pakistan. Both terrorists and those terrorized are finding it increasingly difficult to shock, or be shocked any more, by anything. There was nothing surprising about this attack or its aftermath. Politicians and the police have promised a swift and thorough investigation and better security. It would be wise to be skeptical of their promises.

Melancholy and some relief filled the corridors of the Illinois state legislature last night as it finally worked up the chutzpah to pass modest but important pension cuts over the heads of union leaders and some demurring lawmakers. Predictably, dissenting Democrats called it draconian, a handful of Republicans said it didn’t go far enough, and unions, which prefer the bill vetoed, will contest it in court. This is only the first of many necessary reforms and it’s far from a comprehensive fix, but given Illinois’ dismal record over the past two years, any step forward should be seen as an accomplishment.

Boko Haram militants attacked an army installation in a northern Nigerian city yesterday. Civilians say hundreds of militants took part in the attack and that helicopters and planes were destroyed, and an army barracks completely leveled. There are not yet any reliable reports on casualties. One thing is for certain: Boko Haram is far from vanquished.

The President’s national security team begged him to do something about Syria back when the United States still had options. He turned them down flat, and the US and the world now face a problem for which few answers exist—and all of them are ugly.

Pope Francis was already the “most talked about person on the planet,” but lately the media obsession with him has gone into overdrive. Buzzfeed is running stories about how Francis used to be a bouncer, and Think Progress and Huffpo are excited that he currently spends his evenings sneaking out of the Vatican to distribute alms to the poor. But the biggest driver of the pope’s ubiquity was the release of Evangelii Gaudium, the apostolic exhortation heard round the world. The document was released just before Thanksgiving, and immediately made waves with its strongly worded claims about economics.

Feed-in tariffs for green energy are making many German farmers rich, though German households and businesses are bearing the cost through higher electricity prices.