Aaron Wee

In both Europe and the United States, it seems society is dividing itself into two camps. It’s not so much a divide between the right and the left, the conservatives and the liberals, the powerful and the weak (though, it is to an extent, all of…

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) goes by the street name ‘mad cow disease,’ appropriately, however morbid, because BSE-infected cows seem to go crazy. It’s an insidious disease – hidden during a long incubation period – that literally eats…

Now that China, according to some recent, imperfect guesstimates, is the world’s largest economy, it’s time to pop open the baijiu and usher in a new world order, right? But if the history of great power politics is any indication – and Chinese…

For the duration of the ongoing European financial crisis, the German-directed European Central Bank (ECB) has been preaching one panacea: austerity. And it has been disastrous – for the Eurozone, for Europe’s governments, and, most of all, for the…

There are two brutal, dangerous fantasies at play in the tragic – and completely avoidable – killing of Trayvon Martin, who was guilty of nothing more than walking “suspiciously” in a Florida neighborhood. The first was the delusional paranoia of…

The late Harvard law professor Derrick Bell joins the list of radical bogeyman influences on Barack Obama – alongside the activist and educator Bill Ayers and the Chicago community leader and pastor Jeremiah Wright. Bell, one of the originators of…

While the West is concerned with how to cut onerous debt and support its societies, China has been on a little-publicized spending spree. Whereas dollar, and to a lesser extent euro, diplomacy was once the name of the game in the developing world –…

In a genre of uncertainties, third act twists, and a penchant for unsettling our expectations, the one inviolable rule of comic books is: Superman cannot be defeated. The son of Krypton, and self-designated defender of Earth (or, more narrowly, the…

A nuclear-armed Iran would be a game-changer in Middle Eastern politics. Having two (potentially) belligerent nuclear states is disastrous; one causes enough headaches as it is. Thankfully, contrary to the opinions of rabble-rousing hawks in…

Europe is in financial turmoil. The euro wobbles on the instability of a few of its members as the continent slides further into recession. Officials in Brussels and Berlin may stress the need for unity and to support fellow Europeans, but take…

For the many immigrants who still continue to land on America's shores, citizenship is the ultimate privilege – never a right – that lies at the end of a tortuously circuitous road of requirements, bureaucratic nitpicking, and, finally, a…

Deciding to run for presidents ranks as one of the toughest choices a politician has to make, often stemming from decades of impressive service to the country, and grasping at fleeting once-in-a-lifetime chances. Many, especially from today’s…

As the Republican primaries drag on, we have been introduced to the very worst of each potential candidate. The entire world has been made aware of Newt Gingrich’s paranoid delusions, Rick Santorum’s inflexibility, and Mitt Romney’s lack of a common…

Now that the Republicans are finally making up their minds and ending their petulant tantrum – pretending that there is someone else vaguely electable other than Mitt Romney and needlessly dragging out the entire tired primaries saga – the real…

As much as the United States abhors a political aristocracy — the American dream, after all, lauds the rags-to-riches mythos, and the country takes a certain pride in Barack Obama’s own unlikely presidential story — this republic can’t shake the…

Nobody likes to lose. But it must sting after losing to somebody who stopped playing the game a month ago. In the recent Iowa caucus, former governor and congressman Buddy Roemer (who is, in fact, running for president) garnered a statistically…

It has been almost exactly a year since Dilma Rousseff succeeded the popular Lula as president of Brazil. She is currently cruising high at an approval rating of 72% — higher than virtually all of her predecessors. Despite a slump in economic…

The best laid plans of economists are often undone by Christmas. Every year across the developed world, the tail-end of the year sees a drastic rise in consumer spending. According to economic logic, this is not done for any practical or rational…

The race for the Republican nomination is the most watched, talked about, and discussed political event in the world. America has interests everywhere in the world; and everyone has an interest in America. Given the anger and disappointment Obama…