The Palestinians are sticking to the plan, in spite of last ditch attempts by the Obama administration to stop them going for independence at the UN general assembly this month. From the Washington Post: Even if a last-minute formula for resuming peace talks were found before then, the Palestinians would go to the United Nations […]

More good news for energy diversification: Tullow Oil PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC have struck it big off the coast of French Guiana. The WSJ reports: “The importance of this result cannot be overstated,” said Oriel Securities analyst Richard Rose. If drilling on these adjacent prospects is successful, Tullow might be sitting on 3.5 […]

[Over the next few days there will be some posts reflecting on the world 10 years after 9/11.  This is one.] Sometimes it’s important to step back from the daily news and look at the bigger picture. A new Gallup poll on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 brings some welcome news — there appears to […]

It wasn’t Boston and it wasn’t tea; this time it was west coast ports and grain. From the WSJ: Hundreds of International Longshore and Warehouse Union members stormed a newly built grain terminal as a labor dispute led to violence Thursday and the closing of the West Coast ports of Seattle and Tacoma.Longview police said […]

The British Guardian newspaper reports that an elementary statistical error has been found in half the published scientific papers in which the error could be made.  Examining published articles in prestigious, peer-reviewed neuroscience journals, researchers found that a howling error was widely and routinely made and accepted. How often? Nieuwenhuis looked at 513 papers published […]

President Obama’s much ballyhooed jobs speech had no discernible effects on world markets or investor sentiment. Any potential impact was crushed by the bad news out of Greece and more generally in Europe, and rather than rejoicing at the President’s plans to turn the US economy around, European, US and Latin markets mostly fell two […]

There will be no prayer service at this year’s 9/11 commemoration ceremony in New York. Mayor Bloomberg apparently wants to keep this a secular affair. Ten years after a city-sponsored interfaith remembrance service was held at Yankee Stadium, New York City officials apparently feel uncomfortable with allowing religious leaders to take the podium. From the […]

I’m not quite sure what time it is on my body clock; I woke up at 6 AM Moscow time, spent some time at Heathrow three time zones behind Moscow, and returned to glamorous Queens jetport JFK.I’ve had a feeling of disasters dodged on this trip; as readers know, my flight was one of the […]

China’s latest crop of migrant workers – young, fashionable, restless and ambitious – may want more from Beijing than they can hope to get. The FT writes: Li Feifei, a 19-year-old migrant factory worker from China’s Hubei province, dreams of becoming a clothes designer. Ms Li… got the idea of attending a fashion college and […]

In an insightful piece at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson argues that lack of productivity in the service sector is the main reason for the decline of the middle class: The reason why toasters are cheap and health insurance is not is that the productivity gains that made toasters — not to mention computers, media*, durable […]