First Russia and India reported disappointing growth numbers. Now add China to the list of BRICS that are slowing down. The Wall Street Journal has the figures: Gross domestic product grew 7.7% on a year-to-year basis in the first quarter, down from 7.9% in the fourth quarter of 2012 and lower than many economists forecast, according to […]

Today is the birthday of Kim Il-sung, traditionally an excuse for North Korea to very publicly flaunt its military might. The national holiday is usually celebrated with an ostentatious parade, but last year also served as an occasion to attempt to launch a rocket into space. The launch was a spectacular failure, but it did […]

In the March 23 issue of The National Interest Amitai Etzioni castigated Japan and the United States for jointly pursuing a policy of containing China. The United States, he said, would be drinking from a “poisoned chalice ” if it supported the nationalist ambitions of Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an LDP leader who […]

Germany owes Greece €162 billion in World War II reparations, according to a leaked top-secret report commissioned by Greece’s Finance Ministry. That amounts to roughly 80 percent of Greece’s GDP, and could go a long way towards helping the country right its finances. Der Spiegel reports: [T]he commission arrived at a clear conclusion: “Greece never received any […]

This week, we turned our attention toward the failure of the GOP to deal with the mistakes of the Bush Presidency, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. The next generation of Republican leaders need to get better at convincing the American people that the party knows what it’s doing overseas: The Republican Party like […]

The Lone Star State remains America’s leader in education innovation. As the nation’s leader in test-based accountability, Texas is graduating a higher percentage of students than California and New York and at a fraction of the cost. But now Texas is looking to make some changes to its rigid system of frequent testing, giving teachers […]

US efforts to rekindle peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have suffered their first major setback. After weeks of threatening to resign, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad fomally announced his resignation from President Abbas’s Fatah government on Saturday. Although Fayyad was extremely well-respected by many Western observers (Via Meadia included) for his efforts to […]

An editorial in the deep blue New York Times on the Stockton, California bankruptcy case offers a peek into the future. The Times editors are suggesting that retired public sector unionized workers may have to accept cuts in the unsustainable pensions that union leaders foolishly negotiated and that pandering politicians foolishly promised.The Times can’t quite come […]

Government scientists have just dealt an important rebuke to the professional Chicken Littles in the green movement. Last year a severe drought devastated farms across much of the lower forty-eight states. It didn’t take long for the Chicken Littles to claim the sky was falling and to blame the drought on climate change. But a new report […]

Important Asia news yesterday, via The Hill: Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis said after more than a year of consultations with Tokyo, the two nations agreed to “robust package of actions and agreements with Japan in the automotive and insurance sectors, as well as other non-tariff measures” for Japan to join ongoing negotiations of […]