Coal and gold production was shut down in three more South African mines on Tuesday as the mine strikes that have rocked the country for over a month continue to spread. These latest strikes were largely inspired by the workers at the Marikana platinum mine, who ultimately received a sizable pay raise after a month-long struggle.South […]

When Mario Draghi announced the ECB’s massive bond-buying program earlier this month, many began to wonder whether this might be the real deal. Would the bond-buying program finally calm the markets long enough for Europe to get its house in order, or would it meet the same fate as past rescue efforts and wear off […]

Sunday’s labor riots at China’s iPhone manufacturing plants shed more light on one of the deep structural problems facing the Communist Party. As the WSJ writes: The riot raises questions about the sustainability of China’s vaunted manufacturing machine. And it poses a challenge to the government that is struggling to satisfy the soaring expectations of […]

Is Hezbollah helping Assad stay afloat? Sure looks like it, says the Washington Post. The terrorist group is reportedly helping to train the Syrian army, advising Syrian state media on propaganda, and even sending fighters to battle the rebels. And the U.S. government is taking notice: This month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against Hasan Nasrallah and […]

College tuition is going up. By a lot. This Bloomberg chart shows tuition fees increasing four times faster than the Consumer Price Index over the past three decades, and nearly twice as fast as medical expenses. The recent data is even worse, with costs increasing even faster than before since the mid-2000s.Apologists for the current higher-ed system […]

Via Meadia readers have known about the unexpected and costly consequences of the war in Libya for months now. In particular, we’ve been writing about how the “humanitarian” intervention in Libya has dangerously destabilized the region and raised the risks of new conflicts that could be substantially worse than anything that NATO operations in Libya […]

The euro mess is getting worse again.With Greece seething over the strict austerity measures required as terms of its bail-out, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is hoping that biting the bullet now can keep his government and even his country together. With Spain’s interest rates now retesting the six percent level, the alternative to a dramatic […]

Japan’s “lost decade” of economic stagnation has been dragging on for nearly a quarter century now, but it may be set to get a lot worse, according to The Atlantic. Forget mere economic stagnation: the danger now is of a full-scale financial collapse fueled by a crushing debt burden.Like the U.S., Japan has long had access to […]

Thus far universities have taken the greatest strides in the online education movement, but high schools are beginning to get in the act as well. The Wall Street Journal reports that many of the nation’s elite private schools are making use of an online venture called Global Online Academy. Under this program, participating schools offer […]

WSJ: Japan’s main opposition party picked former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as its new leader Wednesday, a move likely to jack up pressure on the government to take a hard line against China.In a rare political comeback in Japan, Mr. Abe is likely to lead the Liberal Democratic Party into a general election that is […]