Month August 2010

Mexico drug war

Scan the headlines in Borderland Beat, a “blog dedicated to the reporting of organized crime on the border line between the US and Mexico,” then ask yourself if the US will somehow be immune from the tsunami of violence and…

60 mile traffic jam in China is 11 days old

The gridlock shows no sign of improving. The problem is that since authorities forced closure of illegal and unsafe coal mines near Beijing, Inner Mongolia is cheerfully shipping bootleg coal along the G110 expressway. Why that expressway? Because there are…

‘Ground Zero Mosque’ as political Rorschach Test

The Cordoba House Initiative has become the summer’s defining political Rorschach test. Depending on whom you ask, the controversy surrounding Park 51 in downtown Manhattan, widely termed the ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’ is either a distraction or one of the most…