The final presidential debate, on foreign policy, is scheduled for Monday, October 22. Moderator Bob Schieffer announced that the topics will be: “America’s Role in the World,” “Our Longest War—Afghanistan and Pakistan,” “Red Lines—Israel and Iran,” “The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism,” and “The Rise of …
On Tuesday, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced in the House of Commons that Gary McKinnon, who has acknowledged hacking into U.S. government computers, would not be extradited to the U.S. because he was mentally ill, and extradition would therefore violate his human rights. The U.S. Department of Justice responded …
Over the past few days, new strikes and riots have convulsed Greece and Spain. Conventional wisdom (including from economist Paul Krugman) suggests that cuts in government spending—often described as “austerity”—are a primary cause of the economic downturn in these nations and across much of Europe. This “demand deficiency” hypothesis leads …
Harvard economist Larry Summers claims in The Washington Post that aggressive fiscal austerity in the U.K. is the primary cause of its continued economic stagnation. But the former Obama advisor understates both the necessity for a credible British fiscal plan in 2010 and the structural factors that have been a …
The 2012 Review Conference for the U.N.’s “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects” (PoA) concluded with a consensus agreement on Friday. The agreement continued the PoA’s track record of over-promising and under-delivering, but, in the …
On Friday, the negotiating conference for the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) crashed to short-term failure. After four weeks, the clock ran out. The ATT was an effort to strike a deal between the Europeans and the Americans—who hoped (wrongly) that a treaty would force inept and dictatorial states to …
