The dollar is getting stronger compared to other world currencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. It was not so very long ago that the chattering classes were prophesying the end of the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency. In the FT, an economist worried, “The US will unavoidably account for a declining fraction of global gross domestic product, […]

Yesterday President Mohamed Morsi announced that the country will hold parliamentary elections this coming April. Bloomberg reports that, while Egypt’s Islamists are pleased, the liberal opposition is furious: “Holding the elections amid the persisting social tension and fragility of state institutions and before reaching a national consensus is irresponsible and will inflame the situation,” ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate […]

China’s armchair generals and active military officials alike are fully confident of a quick, decisive, and overwhelming victory against Japan if territorial disputes ever escalated into war. Time has the story: “The real fight would be very short. It is very possible the war would end in a couple of days or even in a few hours,” […]

The French “Mission Accomplished” moment in Mali is over. After fleeing the major cities in the north of the country, the insurgents have gone back on the offensive, repeatedly pounding the town of Gao for hours on end until French troops intervened to drive them away. The Wall Street Journal now warns that the insurgency could last for […]

Twelve-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran was shot five times in the chest in May 2009. In pictures, moments before his death, Prabhakaran appears alert, munching on something in a sandbagged army bunker. Subsequent photographs taken not even two hours later show his chubby, lifeless body sprawled on the ground, punctured by bullet holes analysts say were made […]

Illinois voters aren’t sure what to make of the pension crisis. Despite a months-long, heated battle between pension reformers and unions in Springfield, voters are relatively evenly divided on what to do and are opposed to making any radical changes. As the State Journal-Register reports: “There’s a general feeling that state employees are going to have to […]

The further the Eurozone sinks, the bigger the abyss between Germany and France. Relations between the continent’s two biggest economies won’t get any better today, as the Eurozone is expected to contract for the second straight year. The WSJ: The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, forecasts a 0.3% contraction for 2013 and sees falling […]

Japan’s hotheaded new Prime Minister has turned up the heat in Asia another couple notches. Just before leaving Japan to meet Obama in Washington, Abe gave China a serious tongue-lashing.In an interview with the Washington Post, he accused China of having a “deeply ingrained” need to confront Japan over disputed territory. Abe believes that ongoing […]

“Two years ago they were writing our obituary. Well, it didn’t happen. California is back.” So said Gov. Jerry Brown in his State of the State address last month.Despite 9.8 percent unemployment and a mass exodus of businesses to friendlier states, many in the media have been reporting a recovery for California. The WaPo is the […]

Earlier this week, two leading conservative scholars may have come up with the first serious Republican health care proposal we’ve seen in years. Writing on the Reuters  “Great Debate” blog, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Avik Roy argue that conservatives should welcome the opportunity Obamacare presents to construct a truly market-based health care system: The great irony of Obama’s […]