Public health professionals have warned about drug-resistant tuberculosis for years. Now comes news out of India and China to feed the concern. Doctors in India have documented more than a dozen cases of TB so tenacious, it responds to no known drug. This is a scary proposition in a country where 2 million of the world’s 9 million annual TB cases occur and where malnutrition, overcrowding and a weak health system create a hotbed for the often-fatal disease. Conventional drug resistance is also t

July 12, 2012

In the first of what is likely to be a series of confrontations between Egypt’s new elected leader and the country’s armed forces, President Mohamed Morsi has called for a parliament disbanded by the generals to return to work, pending the election of a new representative body under a yet-to-be-written constitution. As with much about Egypt’s transition from autocracy to democracy, the controversy over the legitimacy of the People’s Assembly is overlaid with legal issues. The Islamist-dominated

July 12, 2012

There is little doubt that plutocrats are trying to buy the November elections. Not just control of the White House, but control of the U.S. House and Senate, too.Freed from campaign finance limitations by five pliant Supreme Court justices, wealthy donors with no sense of shame are pouring record amounts of money into so-called super political action committees. Donors to super PACs eventually will see their names made public; being shameless, they don’t care.But what about plutocrats who have

July 12, 2012

Enrique Pena Nieto, the fresh-faced politician Mexicans elected this week to be their president, represents the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which completely dominated Mexican politics for 71 years until 2000. Many Mexicans are concerned that the PRI’s return will lead to a restoration of autocratic rule, an officially sanctioned detente with organized crime or a marked deterioration in bilateral cooperation. But these things are unlikely.Equally unlikely, however, is any kind of w

July 11, 2012

House prices, after falling for more than five years, are rising again. All the major sales-price indexes show that there have been modest national increases in recent months, even after adjusting for seasonal patterns. When foreclosures and distressed sales are excluded from the data, prices are up even more. And we should expect further gains: The asking-price index, a leading indicator of sales prices, published by Trulia Inc. (where I work), climbed at an annualized rate of 3.3 percent in th

July 11, 2012

In this pivotal election year, fellow citizens, I give you a chilling vision of two Americas.One America is the swing states, the dozen or so states that don’t fall into the Democratic or Republican camps and will ultimately decide the presidential election. Those unhappy states ― they know who they are ― are already being flooded with noisy political advertising, day and night.The other America, the happier America, is what political strategists call “safe states.” In these lucky places, televi

July 11, 2012

Google responded last week to European antitrust regulators investigating a long list of claims against the world’s largest search engine. Whether or not the complaints against Google are valid, they may be looking backward. Increasingly, Google is not a search engine. Yes, Google accounts for 80 percent of all Web searches in Europe. It is facing criticism (some of it prompted by Microsoft) for favoritism toward Google’s own specialty search products ― travel, finance, hotels, restaurants, maps

July 10, 2012

The economic misfortunes of Europe and America have inspired glee among some Asian leaders and commentators, especially those who champion “Asian values.” Exhorting Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi to learn from resurgent Asia rather than decrepit Europe, Kishore Mahbubani, the Singaporean diplomat-turned-pundit, pointed out recently how “quiet Asian pragmatism continues to deliver steady economic growth while Europe languishes.” Recalling how the International Monetary Fund prescribed austerity to Ea

July 10, 2012

The latest Iran sanctions came into full effect this week, adding to a byzantine array of unilateral and multilateral measures that prohibit Iranian oil imports, other trade and financial transactions, and freeze Iranian assets by countries concerned that Tehran’s nuclear program is intended for military purposes, not civilian ones.The international community is now on watch for cracks in Iran’s defiant stance: Will increased sanctions compel Tehran to make real concessions and allow for a diplo

July 10, 2012

The Church of the Nativity in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem could use a few repairs, but is it in peril? The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization says so, having declared the church an endangered World Heritage site two weeks ago. Palestinians made hay arguing that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank threatened the humble church, said to mark the birthplace of Christ. A U.N. expert committee disagreed, concluding it faced no danger. The United States objected to

July 9, 2012

Greece’s inability to devalue its currency is often cited as a reason for the extreme economic pain its citizens are enduring, and many commentators say the country should return to the drachma to restore competitiveness. In the U.K., which ― unlike Greece ― isn’t part of the euro area and can devalue if it wishes, there’s growing pressure to do so. A letter recently circulated to some 3,000 influential figures proposed deliberately weakening the British pound to boost exports and hence economic

July 9, 2012

Drones, kill lists, computer viruses and administration leaks are all the rage in the current political debate. They indeed merit serious scrutiny at a time when the rules of war, and technologies available for war, are changing fast. That said, these issues are not the foreign policy centerpiece of the 2012 presidential race.Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the preeminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of th

July 9, 2012