"This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in" the Economic Observer. This new form of public entertainment has also landed in China: the digital political sex scandal. The starring role, as always, goes to a respectably married middle-aged man in an important position. The script includes the usual wealth of spicy details to prolong the pleasure. Take the hapless Xie Zhiqiang, Director of Jiangsu ...

Here is the world in 2050, as imagined by the U.S. Census Bureau: India will be the most populous nation, surpassing China sometime around 2025. The U.S. will remain exactly where it is now: in third place, with a population of 423 million . And declining birth rates in two of the world's most economically and politically influential countries, Japan and Russia, will cause them to fall from their current positions as the 9th and 10th ...

On 1,170 acres of rolling Ohio farmland, bulldozers last week completed the grading job for a village of 10,000 inhabitants. Contracts were signed for some nine miles of streets, curbs and sewers, and construction crews.were building a pumping station and a million-gallon water tank. Lincoln Village, a $30 million town planned from sidewalks to railroad sidings, was being born. Lincoln Village is the realization of a ten-year-old dream for Murray Lincoln, 61, dedicated mentor of the U.S. cooperative movement and ...

On Tuesday, when President Obama traveled to El Paso, Texas, to again make the case for immigration reform, he talked about the tragedy of a policy that denies children the chance to earn a college education because of the way that their parents entered the country. But in many ways, we've already failed our fastest growing ethnic group, Hispanics Americans, long before they reach college and regardless of whether they were born here or not. Hispanics now ...

Teacher effectiveness matters more to student learning than anything else schools do, and there are substantial differences between teachers. Those two points often get lost in the din about teachers unions or tenure. Underneath all that noise, however, researchers are quietly looking at teacher quality. Two new studies that didn't get a lot of attention challenge beliefs of reformers, teachers unions, and reform critics. In a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists ...

David Koresh -- high school dropout, rock musician, polygamist preacher -- built his church on a simple message: "If the Bible is true, then I'm Christ." It was enough to draw more than a hundred people to join him at an armed fortress near Waco, Texas, to await the end of the world. The same message tempted Koresh to entertain a vision of martyrdom for himself. He would die in a battle against unbelievers, then be joined in heaven by ...

A Dutch court Friday ruled against letting a 14-year-old girl sail solo around the world, saying she is not experienced enough to make the trip on her own. The Chandlers set off from the Seychelles on October 21 bound for Tanzania, according to their blog. A distress beacon was activated on October 23, according to naval officials. Britain's Foreign Office said it has been in close contact with the couple's family. Pirates have been very active off the east coast ...

Anyone scanning recent business headlines in China would not recognise the country where people supposedly save and never spend. In September, China Mobile's customer base crossed the half billion mark -- a powerful symbol of the awesome size of the Chinese consumer market. China has also become the biggest vehicle market in the world this year and car sales expanded an extraordinary 78 per cent last month from a year ago. Over the National Day holiday in early October, retailers ...

Pirates seized control of a cargo vessel near the Seychelles Thursday, one of two attacks that took place within minutes of each other off the coast of east Africa, according to the European Union Naval Force. The EU maritime patrol responded to the early morning attacks, along with the Seychelles Coast Guard. The crew of the Panama-flagged MV Al Khaliq said two pirates had boarded the vessel before communication was cut off with the crew. The EU ...

Police looking for a missing 7-year-old Florida girl said Wednesday they have found the body of a child in a landfill in south Georgia, about an hour from the girl's home. Investigators haven't identified the body. The landfill is about 55 miles north of where Somer Thompson became separated from her schoolmates Monday on her way home from school in Orange Park, Florida, authorities said. "We hope and pray that it's not the body of Somer, but the garbage that ...