California, once a staunch Republican state, flipped to the Democrats in 1992 largely due to demographic changes. Twenty years later, Democrats have won two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature: Liberal Democrats in California were already talking about new oil severance taxes, higher taxes on commercial real estate and the end of tax […]

Vietnam’s economy is quietly humming along. It has become a haven for manufacturing all around, and technology exports have become its largest source of export revenue, soaring by a staggering 91 percent in the first ten months of this year.The most important reason for this shift is one we’ve been noting for a long time: […]

Over the next few days, Via Meadia will be keeping track of the most significant ballot initiatives that passed or were defeated on Tuesday. One of the biggest was in California, where voters endorsed, by a margin of 54-46 percent, a $6 billion tax hike proposed by Governor Jerry Brown. The revenue will ostensibly be used to pay […]

The Telegraph reports: Syrian opposition groups were due to convene in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday to appoint a new and supposedly more representative leadership. But on the eve of the conference three of the dissident bodies included in the US-backed initiative refused to attend, diplomats and opposition figures told the Daily Telegraph. “There […]

While New York City picked up the pieces following Hurricane Sandy last week, we argued that the hurricane laid bare the true failure of blue governance: The endless tinkering with bureaucratic regulations distracts the government from the large, important functions it needs to focus on. And we aren’t alone in this assessment. A new WSJ piece by William […]

The Indian Ocean will become the “heart” of Australian strategic planning, said Defense Minister Stephen Smith at the Asia-Pacific Chiefs of Defence Force Conference in Sydney yesterday. Smith also met Indian defense officials, proclaiming that India and Australia will jointly lead the development of a maritime security architecture in the Indian Ocean.Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper […]

The stakes are much higher for China’s upcoming leadership change than they appear at first glance. The country’s economy is beginning to slow after a decades-long meteoric rise, and both domestic factionalism and greatly worsening foreign relations with have set the stage for political unrest. Theoretically, a technocratic consensus is handling the power handoff, but the reality […]

Just when it looked like the Bo Xilai saga was finally over, a new wrinkle has emerged. New reports out of China claim that Neil Heywood, the British businessman whose apparent murder by Bo’s wife sparked the scandal, was suspected by the the Chinese Ministry of State Security of being a spy.These suspicions may have been […]

In her six years in office, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not exactly developed a reputation as a fiery or controversial orator. But her comments at a church on Monday have her critics fuming. The Times of Israel reports: Opposition MPs have criticised the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, for claiming that Christianity is “the most persecuted religion worldwide”.Merkel’s comments came […]

A video depicting more than 20,000 Australian sheep being inhumanely slaughtered at a Pakistani port has started a row between the two otherwise friendly nations. Outrage within Australia has grown strong enough to compel Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard to hold talks with her Pakistani counterpart to discuss the incident. The Telegraph has the story: “I did raise […]