Sliding home prices in Britain are just the start of a plunge into a recession that will be deeper than that facing the United States and which will prefigure the demise of Britain as a global financial center. As the

The length and scale of present energy price increases threatens to start altering the profitability and desirability of marginal production processes. That will increasingly force a rethink of the balance between capital and labor. - Max Fraad Wolfff

Soaring food prices reflect the transformation of agriculture from a primarily local activity to a global business. When agricultural policy is made by international financial institutions with market fundamentalist policies and by big agribusiness whose primary concern is their own

Anyone sold a retirement plan by some fancy-suited sharpie must be looking at share prices with horror, even as central bankers inflate currencies at ever-more alarming rates and blow away whatever value is remaining. Investment for the long term? Losers

The voice of Beijing will be heard at the Group of Eight gathering in Japan of the world's so-called leading countries, if only in side discussions. Yet the present and future size of its economy and growing role in world

When the news "broke" in the United States last month that the occupation of Iraq had a little something to do with oil, it launched thousands of newshounds out to advance the story. In the spirit of collegiality, Nick Turse

Iran's seemingly positive response to the latest international initiative on its nuclear program is attributed in some Western capitals to Tehran buckling under the threat of an attack. This is unlikely. Iranian leaders are already looking beyond the George W

The Chinese government has maintained its silence on investigations into why so many schools collapsed during China's massive earthquake in May, suggesting that an earlier policy of allocating education funding to local governments is partly to blame for the deaths

The Taliban and Pakistan have denied responsibility for the devastating suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday. Delhi doesn't believe a word of it. The Taliban have frequently targeted projects sponsored and constructed by

India talks a good game, but it could play a much more proactive role in regional and international security, if not for the greater good, then for its own motives to stabilize its periphery and gain access to the natural

Usually apolitical Buddhist monks are making their voices heard in unprecedented ways and increasing numbers across Asia, and in the process bringing the Sangha directly into the cut-and-thrust of everyday politics. It is a potentially profound trend, but the agitated

Two weeks of isolated "incidents" underscore Beijing's concerns that internal issues may prove more problematic for the Olympic Games than international threats. It is evident in the change of the official pledge of "The best Olympic Games in history" to

Last night, we started upgrading our servers and we received reports that the site was unreachable. Server update has been completed and full service has now been restored. Hopefully, we are now more than adequate to handle future surges in

Dispute between Hindu and Muslim residents of Jammu and Kashmir brings down the Indian state's chief minister, as the tensions reverberates through local and national politics