Adventure-seeking tourists will soon have new a reason to flock to Abbottabad, the Pakistani city where U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden: a $30 million amusement park, with “a zoo, water sports, a mini-golf course, rock climbing and paragliding.”Osama enthusiasts and haters can both rest easy, the 50-acre park reportedly has no connection to […]

We need to institutionalize government design review and reform. This would have been a good idea in earlier times, but today and for the future it is essential.If we can put some kind of a brake on the logic of collective action, and get the plutocrats and their rental of our Legislative Branch under reasonable […]

The busy malls that dot the wide American landscape will soon be deserted. Up to 15 percent of suburban shopping concourses will close in the next five years, driven out of business by online retail outlets: “I think 200 [malls] are going out of business,” said Gerry Mason, executive managing director at property group Savills. “We’re […]

In an effort to increase its faltering birthrate, Russia declared a National Day of Conception in 2007, offering any woman who gave birth exactly nine months later a refrigerator. Russia may have picked one of the more creative concepts for a fertility drive that we’ve seen, but it is not alone in looking to boost birthrates. […]

Is the EU finally ready to officially name Hezbollah as a terrorist organization? The NYT reports that Bulgarian officials have confirmed Hezbollah’s responsibility for the July 2012 suicide bombing in Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists and wounded many others. The Bulgarian government’s announcement might force the EU to reconsider its détente with the Iranian-backed terrorist group: […]

The East China Sea inched another step closer to open conflict this week when Japan accused China of aiming missiles at a Japanese destroyer. According to Japan, Chinese vessels have locked fire-control radar at Japanese military vehicles twice in the past month, an action which is one of the first steps in preparation for firing […]

The GOP has a plan to regain the upper hand on the national stage. They’re going to put their ideas to the test in red states. Finally, instead of the usual political struggle, replete with hot air and grandstanding, we have an honest-to-goodness policy race. The WSJ looks at the implications: If successful, the combined tax cuts […]

They called it the “rainforest Chernobyl.” When Texaco left Ecuador, in 1992, it allegedly left behind open pits overflowing with black sludge and rivers laced with chemicals. The damage was so bad that a number of indigenous tribes almost died out completely. Those that remained, according to a group of Ecuadoreans who waged a nearly […]

Late last year, HSBC agreed to pay a record-breaking $1.9 billion fine to regulators following a report of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that revealed serious anti-money laundering failures. But even with a whopping fine, the settlement HSBC has reached won’t be enough to stop banks from accepting dirty money. Senior individuals must […]

Elections are coming to China—to Chinese factories, at least. Foxconn, manufacturers of all things Apple and China’s largest private sector employer, is preparing free labor union elections for its Chinese factories, a first for a firm of its size in China. The Financial Times reports: The move is part of Foxconn’s attempts to tweak its manufacturing […]