This week, we published parts one and two of the “Beyond Blue” series.In America, segregation is at an historic low. Claremont McKenna College in California was caught repeatedly lying about its students SAT scores. In New York, the average price for private school tuition is approaching $40,000 each year. Camilla Williams passed away.Two Canadian teens sent […]

The French genocide law controversy did not fade from Turkey’s domestic news this week, with several newspapers endorsing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s characterization of the episode as an attempt to “Nazify” Turks. Newpapers also cited reported comments by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the law is incompatible with press freedom, and reported actions taken […]

Why did Russia veto the UN Security Council resolution over Syria? Vladimir Isachenkov has an AP piece that offers some background; with that piece and the vast database and computer resources here at Team Mead’s GHQ in glamorous Queens, it’s possible to explain why Russia did what it did. First point: domestic politics.  Putin is […]

India told the UK last year that it could keep the foreign aid money Britain sends each year to its former imperial possession.  According to the Telegraph, Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister and the head of the powerful lower house of its parliament told the Brits bearing gifts: “It is a peanut in our total […]

If Argentina and the UK ever go from words to war over the Falklands/Malvinas, the Duke of Cambridge (aka Prince William) would fly one of the first (rescue) choppers that would take to the air, the NYT tells us.That probably won’t happen, though, and that decision is mostly Argentina’s to make. Sending Prince William and […]

It’s hard to remember when an American president missed such an easy layup.  Canada has vast oil resources right next door.  Under a conservative prime minister it is ready and willing to enter long term agreements that would provide the US with secure and abundant supplies of oil for decades to come. Those safe and […]

With 260 reported dead by opposition figures (who, it should be noted, benefit from inflated death totals and cannot therefore be trusted completely), the latest phase in Syria’s slow motion civil war continues.  The government can no longer run the country; the opposition cannot organize an alternative; the international community cannot make up its mind […]

The results of Congo’s recent elections are in: President Joseph Kabila’s party is getting billions of dollars in foreign aid from western governments who for reasons best known to the development wizards and human rights lobby required an electoral farce as the price of continued support.Those are the numbers that mattered to Kabila, and those are […]

The terrible Costa Concordia disaster—a cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy, killing 17 people (with 16 others still missing)—has provoked the usual panic. Tourists are cancelling bookings and not making new ones; every ship in the harbor looks like the next Titanic waiting to happen.Royal Caribbean Cruises FT has posted “first-quarter earnings […]

In last week’s State of the Union address, Obama announced plans to encourage manufacturers to return to the United States and reverse a decades-long trend of offshoring manufacturing jobs to low-wage Asian countries. The devil is in the details, but the concept is not wrong. As Via Meadia has noted before, American manufacturing has had […]