Germans have long since made up their minds about Mitt Romney. Only 5 percent would give him their vote if they had one, they say. The result of the most recent poll by Forsa is far from surprising. When America votes, the German heart traditionally beats for the Democratic candidate. To many, the Republicans are […]
The recent NIMBY movement against a PX chemical plant in the Chinese city of Ningbo ultimately followed the same trajectory as did protests in Shifang and Qidong in July, 2012. After a tense confrontation between citizens and the government and violent but ineffective intervention by SWAT agents, the government backed down on October 28 by […]
Sitting in the study of the prime ministerial bungalow in New Delhi, surrounded by manicured lawns and palm trees, Indian leader Manmohan Singh and his soon-to-be finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram pored over plans late into the evening to stem a growing sense of crisis. Singh, the 80-year-old soft-spoken architect of the country’s economic opening two […]
Two historically momentous events will unfold in the next few days. The Americans will decide who will run their country for the next four years, and the Chinese Communist Party will bring in a new leadership that would be responsible for shaping the world’s second-largest economy for the next decade. While there is little similarity […]
It is time for economists to admit that they are stumped. Four years after being blindsided by Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the profession is still stumbling in the dark. Policymakers and pundits still make confident pronouncements, but the conclusions are radically different. The expert disagreements give away the truth: ignorance reigns. Read Here – Reuters
It’s a state of lockdown so extreme that it feels like war. With China’s change in leadership at the 18th National Party Congress just nine days away, “stability and security” has become the number-one issue for all levels of Chinese government. Although “stability preservation” (“维稳”) is always a high priority in China, it has now […]
“We want to survive,” read signs carried by the hundreds of protestors who thronged the streets of Ningbo, a southeastern Chinese coastal city, from Friday through Sunday. Their demand: that the local government scrap plans for an $8.9 billion expansion of a petrochemical plant to be operated by a subsidiary of state-run oil giant Sinopec. By Sunday […]
A stake through the heart might keep Silvio Berlusconi out of Italian politics, but it better be hammered in hard. Last week he renounced all intention of running again for the premiership of Italy, then received a four-year prison sentence (later reduced to a year) for tax evasion. Read Here – Reuters
IS HURRICANE SANDY capable of altering the election result? The presidential candidates are hunkering down and trying to avoid looking partisan as this big, wet storm heads for the eastern seaboard. But any number of calculations are being made by the campaigns. Plausible arguments are flying, explaining why this storm is bad news, or is […]
One reason U.S. politics is almost as popular as NASCAR among American sports is that it gives the little guy someone to root for. Of course, that’s almost never the candidates of the major parties, most of whom are odious concoctions of their own egos and the corrupting forces of money and ideology. But dependably, […]
