The Washington Post recently reported that, based on various estimates by well-respected Mexican newspapers (the Calderon government has not released any figures recently), around 12,000 people were killed in Mexico’s drug violence in 2011 alone, bringing the total to over 50,000 since Calderon initiated a campaign against drug trafficking in 2006. That’s comparable to the […]

As a kid I always had some trouble understanding the business about the three wise men. Gold always comes in handy so I could see why you would bring gold to a baby — but what on earth were frankincense and myrrh and why would anybody give them to a child? I figured myrrh might […]

Pastor Johnson Jauro of the Deeper Life Church in Gombe, a city in northeastern Nigeria, reports that gunmen fired through the windows of his church during services, killing six people and injuring ten. The pastor’s wife was among the dead.  (The BBC has the story.)Gombe is the capital of Gombe state, one of Nigeria’s smallest […]

Christmas was hot in Nigeria last month, when the country was ablaze with church bombings, terrorism and sectarian tension. The heat will only intensify in the New Year, as oil prices spike with an end to nearly four decades of fuel subsidies. From the WSJ: Nigeria had been spending 1.2 trillion naira ($7.3 billion) a […]

With friends like North Korea, who needs enemies? That’s probably what China was thinking after yet another round of needless chest-thumping by its “ally” North Korea reminded all Asia why it might not be such a bad idea to keep the U.S. active and engaged in the region. The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) […]

The Navy’s 27–21 victory in last month’s annual Army-Navy game, the tenth straight win  for the Midshipmen, isn’t the only way Navy is beating Army these days. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s new military budget proposal envisions extensive downsizing in the Army, from its current 570,000 to a much leaner 490,000; the Navy, meanwhile, gets to […]

The endlessly hyped Iowa caucus process has finally drawn to an inconclusive close. Here’s what acres of media coverage extending over months and months and months of stultifying boredom and pointlessness have told us: Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain and Rick Perry aren’t going to be president of the United […]

As the Christmas season draws to a close and the return of regular blogging looms, I’m looking back over my short life as a writer on religious matters and thinking about how writing on religion is and is not like writing on other controversial topics. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s important to […]

Anxious economists and investors have fresh cause for concern as Turkey’s economy falters, stumbling from a peak of 9 percent GDP growth in 2010. The FT’s beyondbrics blog has the story: In what Benoit Anne of SocGen described as “the first bloodbath of the New Year”, rates on Turkish one-year currency swaps surged by more than […]

Next time you want to stop a bloodbath, don’t send a war criminal to report on human rights abuses. In a bizarre turn of events, the head of the Sudanese military intelligence has been tasked with ending the crackdown on protesters in Syria as the leader of Arab League observers.Perhaps it doesn’t matter; the Arab League […]