In The News

China's Imperial New Consumers

May 2, 2013
The world’s most populous nation has 1.3 billion consumers and plenty of purchasing power – enough to buy one seventh of the world’s total products by 2015, reports the Asia Sentinel. Foreign investors should be aware of trends in the Chinese market, as identified by a study from the Samsung Economic Research Institute. Hundreds of millions of young Chinese have migrated from rural to urban...

End the Campaign to Spread Democracy

Dov Ronen May 1, 2013
Global citizens are familiar with democracy’s joys and pains, and there is no need for proponents to promote the system of governance. Citizens in any given land must exercise self-determination in selecting a government, argues Dov Ronen of Harvard University. Referring to Woodrow Wilson, who as US president prioritized self-determination in the Covenant of the League of Nations, Ronen suggests...

Turn to Religion Split Suspects' Home

Alan Cullison, Paul Sonne, Anton Troianovski, David George-Cosh April 25, 2013
Investigators are scrutinizing every routine for the family of two brothers, 26 and 19 years old, who set off two homemade bombs at the Boston Marathon. The hope is to prevent a tragic repeat. The Wall Street Journal presents one of the more comprehensive reports, with attention focused on the family’s divide over religion. The mother and farther met in Elista, provincial capital of the Kalmykia...

Is Tourism the Most Destructive Enterprise?

Elizabeth Becker April 23, 2013
Travel has grown exponentially since the 1960s, and tourism employs more people than any other industry. As political developments have opened borders, as new technologies in aviation and communications provide new access, few destinations go unexplored, suggests Elizabeth Becker, author of Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism. She explains that any human endeavor can be...

US Could Be World’s Most Populous Country

Joseph Chamie April 15, 2013
Nations that manage to satisfy a large population politically, economically, socially can become beacons of hope for the rest of the world. The US is the world’s third most populated country, trailing China and India, but could aim to become most populated by the end of the century: An eightfold increase in annual immigration would lead to a fivefold increase in the US population, explains...

140 Countries Ranked on Openness to Foreigners

Katka Lapelosa April 11, 2013
A warm welcome depends on the place – and the visitor. The World Economic Forum released the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report for 2013, and the Washington Post prepared a GIS map based on data collected from a single-question survey: “How welcome are foreign visitors in your country?” The question may be too broad, vague and subjective, suggests Katka Lapelosa for Matador Network....

US Embassy in Cairo Scrubs Twitter Feed of Link to Daily Show Commentary on Egypt

Robert Mackey, Liam Stack April 10, 2013
Internet users can close down Facebook pages, correct blog entries or scrub Twitter logs, but global observers take notice of prominent censorship. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show came to the defense of Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian comedian under investigation for mocking Egypt’s president and Islam. Youssef’s show in Egypt adopts Stewart’s format of a mock news show, exposing hypocrisy and...