The removal of a top Communist party official doesn’t tell us much.

For East Asian politicos, there’s not that much to grab headline attention in the world’s most economically dynamic region. Or maybe there is.

It appears that China’s leaders are worried that Washington is getting smart, and trying to “westernize and divide China” through a culture war. And President Hu Jintao, who leaves office this year after his five-year term is up, has decided to make an Alamo-like last stand over culture.

Fulminating about America in decline is fashionable today across the political spectrum. Whatever the reason for the commentators' grandiose predictions of decline, they are describing what can and should be understood simply as a unique civilization's momentary indigestion.

May Day provides a good chance tocatch up on the history of the communist movement.

We should encourage states transitioning to democracy to protect themselves from Iranian efforts to subvert their progress.

Obama's Stakhanovite efforts to transform America's economy and society into something akin to European-style social democracy are undergoing considerable analysis and debate, especially as the 2012 campaign steams towards November. Most presidential re-election contests are referenda on the incumbent, and this year will be no exception.

Not only is Egypt itself a long way from becoming a real democracy, but the differences between the Land of the Pharaohs and the Middle Kingdom are so vast as to make any meaningful analysis useless.