An article in today’s FT describes another arena in the Asian Great Game: water. The writer is also the author of Water: Asia’s New Battleground, and as the article notes, China’s “construction of upstream dams on international rivers such as the Mekong, Brahmaputra or Amur shows China is increasingly bent on unilateral actions, impervious to the concerns […]

Having been studying religion in all its magnificent diversity, I am now on every sort of mailing list—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Eastern Christian Orthodox. I get print and electronic publications from all these sources, as well as from some others (including a shrilly anti-American bulletin from a supposedly progressive Islamic center in Malaysia). For some time […]

Nigeria’s sad summer of religious rampages got worse this week with reports that a group of Christian youth, apparently seeking revenge for earlier attacks, attacked Muslims during Ramadan in Nigeria’s “middle belt” city of Jos, with at least 20 dead. Jos has historically been a religious flashpoint but recently such incidents were mainly confined to […]

Nobody can accuse Business Insider political editor John Ellis of thinking small.  His latest plan for Barack Obama: merge the US and Canada.Via Meadia supports this concept 100% as have all red blooded Americans since 1776.  As Ellis lists them, the advantages are irresistible. What would a United States of North America (or the United […]

“And the king said, Bring me a sword.” German business leader Hans-Olaf Henkel offers a Solomonic solution for Europe’s terrifying debt crisis—cleave the Euro in two. Henkel’s plan would create a new currency for the northern eurozone countries that aren’t buckling under massive debt – the “neuro.” The reeling Latin countries would then be left […]

An interesting article from the Moscow Times by CSIS researcher Alejandro Sueldo analyzes the effect of Russia’s competition with China on its nuclear policy and its general world stance.  One of the most common mistakes Americans make in foreign relations is analyzing each country’s relationship with the US through an exclusively bilateral focus.  We ask […]

Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation (full disclosure: WRM is a founding board member of that organization), has an essay in Foreign Policy that shows how important the reported death of “al Qaeda number two” Atiyah abd al-Rahman al-Libi really was. As Fishman writes, “Atiyah was the node that connected” al Qaeda’s […]

At Via Meadia we’ve been following the critical story of President Obama’s currently troubled relationship with the African-American portion of his base for some time.  Today Politico has a useful and comprehensive look at the situation.The President’s problem is a simple one: in the absence of an overall economic recovery, how can he keep enthusiasm […]

Christine Lagarde, the new IMF chief, is doing now what should have been done long ago: urging Europe’s governments to help its banks shore up their capital base to offset losses on their holdings of bad bonds from troubled European countries.  European banks, partly because misguided (and politically influenced) bank regulations favored government bonds, hold […]

A Pew poll out today shows an interesting trend in the attitudes of American Muslims toward various aspects of American society. The Washington Post has the story, and below are a few highlights: 43 percent of American Muslims view US counterterrorism efforts as sincere, up from 26 percent in 2007. Since 2007, more American Muslims […]