A new EPA report punches all kinds of holes in one of greens’ chief concerns about the American shale boom: methane gas leaks.Natural gas is a relatively clean fuel source when burned, but acts as an extremely potent greenhouse gas if allowed to escape into the atmosphere during drilling or transport, and many greens predict […]

Young people have heard time and time again that going to college is the key to success in life. But this can only work if you graduate, and many don’t manage to do it. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 47 percent of low-income college students manage to graduate from a four-year institution within […]

Beyond the beaches and posh resorts, much of the Caribbean is plagued by drugs, gangs, human trafficking, and broke governments still struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. As the IMF’s Arnold McIntyre says, the entire region “faces its most formidable economic challenge since independence.” The FT has more: Although ferocious storms cause periodic devastation, the […]

The King of Thailand, the world’s longest-serving monarch, has been the lynchpin of the country’s political order for several decades, with his personal prestige and authority keeping Thai politics close to even keel for a long time. Thus the recent news of the King’s deteriorating health sent a shudder through the upper echelons of Thai politics.While […]

A new generation of Palestinian boys aged 15 to 17 will learn how to use Kalashnikovs and throw hand grenades to fight “the occupation” at a weekly youth program run by Hamas that will seek to train 37,000 boys in “resistance.” (An optional two week camp in which Palestinian youth are trained by militants in […]

An Urban Institute study spotlights how the wealth gap between blacks and Hispanics, on one side, and non-Hispanic whites, on the other, has grown during the recession. As of 2010, white families were six times wealthier than black and Hispanic ones, up from four times as wealthy prior to the recession. The mere fact of this gap isn’t as […]

With just five months to go until Germany’s elections, two opposition parties are putting aside their differences to target a bigger enemy: Angela Merkel. It had looked for some time as if the current three-party center-right coalition (Christian Democrats/Christian Social Union/Free Democrats) was headed for re-election, but three developments are throwing that outcome into doubt.First, […]

In a development that should give hope to Republicans in the US, Icelandic voters have turned out the Social Democrats who led the country after the financial crisis—and returned to the pro-market parties once widely blamed for the crash. By Sunday afternoon, it looked like the Independence Party and the Progressive Party had together won more […]

The Mali War was blowback from the Libya War; now we have blowback from the Mali War… in Libya. The Guardian has details on increasing violence against Western targets in Tripoli, including an attack on the French embassy last week, likely in retaliation for France’s decision to extend its mission against the Tuareg nationalists and […]

Russia is regressing to the good old Soviet days. Under Putin’s watch, Moscow continues to tighten the screws, often quite arbitrarily, on contacts between Russian NGOs and foreigners of any kind. Paranoia, meet Xenophobia. The Washington Post reports that a recent visit by American diplomat Howard Solomon to a Russian NGO ended with a trial: Solomon met with […]