The dismal Chinese economic data continues to roll in. What had initially been considered a blip on the radar is looking more like a long-term slowdown. Many analysts (including, somewhat surprisingly, a Chinese government think tank) now believe China’s GDP growth will likely have a 7 in front of it; if so, it would be the […]

California is falling to pieces but its administrators are far too busy banning luxury foods to care. The state is failing to educate its kids, cannot house its prisoners or pay its bills; what was once the most vibrant and forward-looking state in the country has become a dismal failure — a social catastrophe that is […]

Relations between India and Pakistan seem always to be, well, strained. For Pakistan, these days, one big reason for the strain is America’s preparations for India to become more involved in Afghanistan. US defense secretary Leon Panetta will encourage India to take a more active role in Afghanistan as international forces draw down after a decade […]

India has big plans for Burma. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit there last week was the first of its kind in over 25 years. To mark the occasion, the PM came prepared with a dozen trade and transport agreements to replace the shoddy railways and stifling tariffs between the two countries.The estranged nations are […]

In a vivid illustration of Mali’s present instability, on May 21 protesters stormed the presidential palace in the capital city Bamako and beat the country’s interim civilian President, Dioncounda Traoré, into unconsciousness. As Traoré flew to France for treatment, war continued in northern Mali, where ethnic separatists, armed Islamists and reactionary militias are vying to […]

Since the beginning of the recession, America’s “brown jobs” revolution has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise shaky recovery. States like North Dakota and Texas have led the country in growth due to their strong energy sectors, and the discovery of vast quantities of shale gas in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, […]

With Europe in crisis and a French parliamentary election in mid-June, François Hollande has his work cut out for him. He has to placate his supporters by advancing the left-leaning reforms he promised on his campaign, or they may not deliver him a parliamentary majority in the upcoming election. At the same time, he has […]

Sixty-eight years ago this morning, young and not so young men from across the free world splashed ashore or descended from the sky in the final assault on Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.”  It was their blood, and that of the millions of Soviet citizens fighting and dying in the east, that rescued the world from Nazi […]

As manufacturing costs in low-wage Asian countries such as China creep steadily higher, the United States and its neighbors are witnessing the rise of a phenomenon known as “reshoring”: previously outsourced manufacturing jobs coming back to North America.According to a new report by AlixPartners, a global business advisory firm, lower freight costs, improved speed to market, […]

The murder of nine Muslims in western Burma by Buddhist vigilantes—claiming revenge for a Buddhist woman killed by Muslims last week—reveals the toxic difficulties Burma must confront as it attempts to liberalize.There are some poisons for which political liberalization is no antidote: ethnic and religious tensions are rarely dissolved suddenly by the introduction of freedom […]