Free economies vastly outperform those that are more repressed, research has long shown. But do free economic policies help women in particular? A careful look of the evidence reveals that not only do woman benefit from free economic policies, they benefit more, proportionally, than men.
It may well be that there's nothing new in this week's 17-page letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush. That's the view of the White House and of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who called it "broadly philosophical in character" and absent any useful details about Iran's controversial nuclear program. Chances are that Mr. Bush has better uses for his time than perusing page upon page of philosophical musings from the clearly unhinged Iranian leader, even if it is the first such missive in 27 years.
Do the democracies of Europe have a problem with U.S. goals of spreading democracy around the world? In the drive to raise funds for the brand new U.N. Democracy Fund, which was launched on March 6, the United States and India have emerged as the biggest financial supporters. Europeans countries, on the other hand, have been downright stingy in their response.
At some news organizations, timing is everything. That is certainly the impression one gets from the publication of USA Today's front-page story on the National Security Agency's "massive database of Americans' phone calls," which ran last Thursday