One of the more interesting details to come from the Snowden-leaked federal ‘black budget’ for 2013 is the extent to which Pakistan is now one of the biggest targets for US intelligence: Pakistan appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps. It is named as a target of newly formed analytic cells. […]

A new week has dawned, and the Indian rupee has continued its precipitous decline: The rupee was down another 0.5 percent against the dollar on Monday and a further 0.6 percent in early trading on Tuesday, to 66.43 rupees to the dollar, bringing its decline since early May to a little more than 20 percent.[…]Exporters […]

Happy Labor Day to our dear readers.

You may have heard of Uber, the innovative taxi startup that’s faced legislative roadblocks in city after city as entrenched interests in bed with local politicians dig in their heels.Well once again Uber is in the news for upsetting the status quo, this time for introducing fuel efficient vehicles into its fleet of luxury sedans […]

The lack of  price transparency in the health care system is one of those things that most people would agree is a problem if they think about it for a second. Nevertheless, given the tone of the mainstream debate on healthcare, most people seem to not think about it very much.If you end up in […]

Duke University’s first year MOOC offerings through the Coursera platform have been successful, attracting over 725,000 students from all across the world. And though Duke is enthusiastic to continue its experiments with online-only courses, the really interesting outgrowths of its success are the changes coming down the pike for Duke’s resident, paying students: after their largely positive […]

This summer we’ve seen a shocking slew of anti-Semitic remarks from high ranking Turkish officials: the deputy prime minister blamed the “Jewish diaspora” for Turkey’s recent domestic turmoil, the biggest AKP-friendly newspaper blamed the “Jewish lobby” in the US for the Gezi Park protests, and even the prime minister joined the party when he accused […]

As President Obama turns to Congress for approval of any action against Syria’s Assad, America’s allies in the Middle East are quietly rolling their eyes. Reuters has an excellent write-up of how relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia have fared in light of the US’s largely reactive and rudderless policies in the region.Here’s how the […]

I could spend the next ten posts or so describing how poorly crafted legislative mandates have led to bad administrative outcomes, but I’ll provide just one here that is quite typical of many developing-world public agencies.The city of Hyderabad, India, has been one of the fastest growing over the past two decades, and one of […]

Though we pointed to the economic crisis in India as the big story this week, President Obama stole the headlines yesterday when he announced his intention to seek congressional approval for a strike against Syria. Here’s our reaction to his Rose Garden speech: The President’s smartest step now would be to surprise on the upside; […]