Are you frightened about what’s going on in markets these days? Perhaps you should be. The EU’s euro is shrinking, like a summer ice cream scoop; Our own overspending has left us, awash in that old debt soup; The struggling Dow and Nasdaq, can’t seem to find a floor. And investor fears are rising, rising, rising, Investor fears are rising, Are rising more and more. The days are past when investors...

The day many families of the 270 victims killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been waiting for has arrived: if will never be closure for those who look at photos of the innocent men, women and kids murdered in a political lives that cost lives and forever changed others — but it is the closing of a chapter. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing is dead of cancer...

UPDATE: Safely in the U.S. — in “the heart of Greenwich Village” — Mr. Chen held “the kind of open-air news conference that he could have never imagined while under virtual house arrest in China,” says the New York Times. Speaking through a translator, Mr. Chen said, “I hope to see that they continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the people.” Some additional excerpts...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

UPDATE: The New York Times has just reported that Chen Guangcheng has left China aboard a commercial flight bound for the United States, “according to friends who have spoken to him.” Mr. Chen left Beijing on a United Airlines flight bound for Newark with his wife and two children at around 5:30 p.m. after facing earlier delays. Earlier Saturday Mr. Chen told friends over a cellphone that he was...

By Ali Ezzatyar (For part 1, see here.) Iran and the international community (read: U.S.) are set to retake their seats at the negotiation table next week in Baghdad. If these were real chairs, one would hope they were made of a durable mahogany, as they have been frequented for ten years by fidgety, tough-talking diplomats on both sides, and there is still no likelihood that they will be retired soon. The talks...

In all of the content we have posted since President Obama declared his support for same-sex marriage, it is the content from Africa that has proven the most disturbing. In this 3,000 word investigative report by Modern Ghana correspondent Stephanie J. Wearne, we are offered a glimpse at the bizarre and frightening reality for homosexuals in the nation of Uganda. For Modern Ghana, Stephanie J. Wearne writes...

U.S. Congress members appear to be considering redeploying American nuclear assets to the Korean Peninsula. Would such a decision make matters there go from bad to worse? This editorial from China’s state-run Huanqiu warns of the unintended consequences of pointing nuclear weapons in North Korea’s general direction. The Huanqiu editorial says in small part: Right now, the two Koreas target one another...

Matter of months , Paul Krugman predicts. 1. Greek euro exit, very possibly next month. 2. Huge withdrawals from Spanish and Italian banks, as depositors try to move their money to Germany. 3a. Maybe, just possibly, de facto controls, with banks forbidden to transfer deposits out of country and limits on cash withdrawals. 3b. Alternatively, or maybe in tandem, huge draws on ECB credit to keep the...

Tom Janssen, The Netherlands It looks now like Greece will hold new elections in June andd that the “spend whatever we need to spend” coalition will win,even though most responsible politicians from mainstream left to mainstream right recognize this is a bad move. We may think that such elections don’t matter to us but they do. The Greek economy is already in chaos and if this continues then...

Will gay marriage be just the first of a series of societal issues that the Obama campaign will use to win in November? In this interview with Le Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, French author, historian and America watcher François Durpaire asserts that Obama’s embrace of the issue of gay marriage betrays a carefully-calculated strategy by a political master to take advantage of emerging changes in...

The news that 49 decapitated bodies were found dumped near highway in Mexico continues Mexico’s double-pronged nightmare. One is a law and order nightmare: the war raging between drug cartels themselves and with law enforcement continues unabated. The other is a p.r. nightmare: news of a large number of headless bodies isn’t the kind of publicity that attracts tourists — or investors. Forty-nine...

Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE First Greece had its economic meltdown. And now it seems as if its heading towards a political melt down that will culminate in new elections: Greek politicians traded insults and accusations Sunday following an effort by President Karolos Papoulias to broker a coalition government, increasing the possibility of new elections in the debt-stricken country. Papoulias called...

Hey, these French socialist men-of-the-people sure know how to live in style: France’s new Socialist president [Francois Hollande] owns three holiday homes in the glamorous Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today. The 57-year-old who ‘dislikes the rich’ and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers is in fact hugely wealthy himself. His assets...

Petar Pismestrovic, Kleine Zeitung, Austria This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

It is hard to believe, but according to this news roundup from around the Western Hemisphere from Spanish-language U.S.-based news aggregator La Informacion, just one Latin American head of state – Argentina President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – has come out in support of gay marriage. According to the article, thanks largely to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, the few that have...

These days a lot of people are dabbling in other than their usual professions, given the economy. If he decides to moonlight, Prince Charles looks like he has a new professional set. While touring BBC’s studios in Scotland, he tried his hand at being a weatherman – and turned in a world class (if brutally honest) performance: And after? After [his wife] Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, too had...

WASHINGTON — Can a Republican primary in Indiana have even the remotest connection to a presidential election in France? Richard Mourdock, the tea party giant-killer who defeated Sen. Richard Lugar on Tuesday, clearly thinks so. “Just yesterday, France elected a socialist,” Mourdock declared in his victory speech. “There are those I’m sure in the administration and in the left...

What do journalist Daniel Pearl, Holocaust victim Anne Frank and now members of the House of Orange – the Dutch Royal family – have in common? They are all posthumous members of the Church of Mormon. According to Mormon Church records recently uncovered by the Trouw newspaper of the Netherlands, a number of now-dead members of the Dutch Royal family, formerly members of the Dutch Orthodox Church,...