Two court cases point out a disturbing loophole in one of the green movement’s signature policies: carbon trading. In both cases, the defendant is charged with selling millions of dollars’ worth of fake carbon credits—in one case $42 million. The NYT has the story: Under the E.P.A. program, initiated in 2009, a producer who makes […]

Pensions paid to public sector workers are killing President Obama’s hometown, and his former chief of staff is declaring an all-out war to fix this problem before Chicago dies.Mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t fight this war alone, however. Chicago taxpayers fund both city and state retirement costs, so any changes made to Chicago’s pension system will require […]

The U.S. is preparing for a role it hasn’t held in quite some time: exporter of crude oil. Although America has long been among the world’s largest producers of crude oil, the high level of domestic consumption has meant that most of this crude remained within the country for processing and use. But now the […]

Is this Africa’s golden age? An age when dusty streets and tin-roofed houses are replaced by office blocks and beach resorts? Or is it just the next stage in the exploitation and corrupt mismanagement of African riches?Perhaps it’s both. Canada’s Globe and Mail takes a fascinating in-depth look at “Africa next”—an analysis of the continent’s economic boom […]

Move over, UNICEF. Make some room, Pugwash Conference, United Nations and IPCC. American Friends Service Committee, Doctors Without Borders, and International Committee of the Red Cross, you have a new colleague. The European Union is joining the ranks of organizations awarded the world’s most sententious and self-regarding accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize.After a period in […]

Iran’s oil output is at its lowest level in 23 years, the FT reports: Iranian oil production has plunged to its lowest level for more than two decades because of the impact of US and European sanctions, the International Energy Agency has said in a report that highlights the growing economic pain of the sanctions.Meanwhile, as […]

In Brazil, a major corruption scandal is coming to a close as 20 of 38 defendants, mostly government officials, have been convicted for their involvement in in a vote-buying scheme. The convictions go as high up as former presidential chief of staff José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, who was convicted Tuesday of organizing the […]

The vice presidency was, said the first man to fill the position, the most insignificant office humanity had ever devised. It was another vice president who compared it to what, in a gentler day, the press called a pitcherful of warm spit.Tonight’s debate more or less lived up to the office. The current pitcherful, Biden, […]

A civilian Airbus A320 flying from Moscow to Damascus was forced to land in Ankara by Turkish F-16 fighter jets on Wednesday, under suspicions the plane was carrying military equipment to aid the Assad regime. Turkey says the plane carried military communications gear and missile parts, which both Russia and Syria deny. The plane’s 17 […]

Greg Scoblete at RCW takes us to task for advocating arming a faction among the Syrian militia as an advisable course of action. This is a common lament, both among pro-interventionist Western commentators and among Syrian rebel forces themselves. But how true is it? Let’s presume the U.S. arms the rebels – but only the […]