North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un can launch a rocket this month in defiance of international opprobrium and still look forward to better relations with South Korea’s next president. The candidates in the Dec. 19 election to head Asia’s fourth-biggest economy are outdoing each other in pledges to re- engage with the totalitarian state, undeterred by Kim’s […]
Until now, there has only been anecdotal evidence. But, finally, there are some hard numbers to show that the U.S. may be losing some of its charms as the destination of choice for Indian students. According to the U.S.-based Institute of International Education (IIE), the number of Indian students in the U.S. has dropped for […]
Angry mobs of Islamists battled secular protesters with fists, rocks and Molotov cocktails in the streets around the presidential palace for hours Wednesday night in the first major outbreak of violence between political factions here since the revolt against then-President Hosni Mubarak began nearly two years ago. Three senior advisers to Mr. Mubarak’s successor, Mohamed Morsi, […]
STATE-RUN television is not usually the place to find news of corruption scandals involving officials close to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Murky business dealings have never been a bar to government service. When high-level bureaucrats fall, they usually go quietly. But viewers have recently been treated to quite a spectacle on Channel One: evening broadcasts […]
LESS than a week after the biggest shuffle of China’s leaders in a decade, the prime-minister-in-waiting, Li Keqiang, set tongues wagging with a speech about the country’s economic development. A government news-agency gushed that if his words could be summed up in four syllables, they would be “reform, reform”; if in six, then “reform, reform, […]
Australia’s economy slowed last quarter as the government and consumers tightened spending, validating the central bank’s decision to cut interest rates yesterday. Third-quarter gross domestic product advanced 0.5 percent from the previous three months, when it expanded 0.6 percent, a Bureau of Statistics report released in Sydney today showed. The result compared with the median […]
China’s growth has slowed a bit this year, but the surge in vivid predictions about the country’s future continues to amaze observers. This observer, at any rate. Experts foresee imminent financial collapse or an uninterrupted rise to economic preeminence. The ruling Communist Party will either loosen or tighten its grip. The consequences for the U.S. […]
Anyone seeking to understand Afghanistan in general, the flaws in the United States’ effort there, or life on the ground as a political advisor in the midst of a counterinsurgency, should read The Valley‘s Edge by Daniel Green. The book is a detailed, first-hand account of how a team of U.S. soldiers and civilians, focused on improving […]
Turning around a modern naval warship at sea is a slow and difficult process. Turning around whole fleets of warships, aircraft carriers and other air and naval forces, and reorienting defense spending for weapons systems that are typically planned decades in advance, is a lot harder – especially when it’s being done in the context […]
