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Russia's powerful prime minister, ex-President Vladimir Putin, may have just tossed a wrench into the sensitive last-minute negotiations aimed at finalizing a new US-Russian strategic arms reduction deal early in the New Year. "The problem is that our American partners are developing missile defenses, and we are not," Mr. Putin complained Tuesday. "In order to maintain balance, without developing the antimissile system just like the US is doing, we have to develop an offensive combat power system."

Putin's demand is that the US should provide full data on any antimissile tests it conducts, or else Russia will withhold information about its tests of new offensive weapon systems. "There is almost no chance the Americans will agree to this," says Mr. Golts.

With an estimated presence of more than 1,000 Al Qaeda operatives, Yemen is steadily becoming more important in the war against terrorism. It is a large country on the Arabian Peninsula with some 22 million people with an unemployment rate of about 40 percent that is expected to double in the next few decades. The availability of water is dwindling, and the oil revenues upon which the country depends are quickly evaporating. By 2017, those revenues are expected to bottom out, according to a report published by BP and cited in a report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank in Washington.

The US has spent about $70 million this year to support training and buy equipment for Yemen, compared with no funding last year, according to the Associated Press. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on his military jet as he returned from Iraq and Afghanistan Sunday said he is comfortable with the level of support the US is currently providing.

Another Reuters report adds that Yemen has become an attractive home base to Al Qaeda since the group has come under pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan and because the Yemeni government is incapable of controlling all its territory. The New York Times reported Sunday that because of this concern, the US is quietly aiding and equipping Yemeni security forces and providing them with intelligence. The Pentagon will spend $70 million over the next 18 months on counterterrorism in Yemen, and uses teams of special forces to train Yemen’s military. The Times reports that this more than doubles previous military aid levels.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US involvement in Yemen may have provoked increased threats toward the West from Al Qaeda in Yemen. Those threats, particularly against Western aviation, increased in the months before Friday’s attempted bombing by Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. A growing number of militants fighting in Pakistan and Afghanistan are also retreating to Yemen, reports the Journal.

For North Korea, he says, the potential dividends of returning to talks are much higher, including "diplomatic recognition and economic aid," as promised in the Geneva agreement of 1994 between the US and North Korea and then in agreements reached at six-party talks in 2005 and 2007.

Analysts believe North Korea, facing the severe hunger and disease that has stricken the country periodically since the 1990s, is also suffering from UN economic sanctions imposed after its second underground nuclear test on May 25. The US is pushing strenuously for enforcement of the sanctions, designed primarily to keep North Korea from importing and exporting military materiel, notably missiles, and anything to do with weapons of mass destruction.

Obama recently pledged that the United States would reduce emissions about 17 percent by 2020 as compared with 2005 levels (though the Wall Street Journal is reporting that he might soon announce steeper cuts for 2050); his current pledge reflects numbers in bills now under review by Congress. The president probably can't offer much more without risking that any final treaty would later be rejected by Congress, similar to what happened when the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997.

Rather than absolute carbon cuts, some developing countries, including China and India, have declared goals of reducing the "carbon intensity" of their economies. In other words, they will use less carbon per unit of GDP growth, but as their overall economies grow, so too will carbon emissions, at least for the short term. China has pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45 percent. India has a target of 20 to 25 percent. The targets have been applauded by some as a step forward and pilloried by others as far too low.

The upshot: Nothing will happen unless there's money behind it, and for some countries, the financial pledge may be as politically difficult as the carbon-reduction pledge. (Sen. John Kerry has proposed that the United States pony up $2.5 billion to $3 billion, roughly equivalent to the annual budget of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.) With many industrialized countries stuck in recessions and struggling with high unemployment, short-term generosity will be difficult.

Hailing from the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Morales won more than 62 percent of the vote in elections Sunday, with nearly all of the ballots counted. Bolivians also voted in a new Congress.

Morales has also tightened state control over natural gas and mining industries. Under his administration, relations with the US have at times soured. In 2008 he expelled both the US ambassador and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. His detractors say they fear he is taking Bolivia down the same path as Venezuela, where Chávez has also sought and won re-election and battled the country's elite. Most recently Chávez shut down several banks in a growing banking probe, including another one this past weekend. On Sunday a government minister stepped down amid the scandal and Chávez called bankers "dirty thieves."

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

The trouble in reaching an accord on a START 1 follow-on may also portend a steep climb ahead for President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons – a goal whose next way station is expected to be a summit on international nuclear security that Mr. Obama has called for April in Washington.

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

ChicagoThe federal stimulus money for education is prompting states, much more than before, to embrace reforms promoted by the US Department of Education. In particular, states are moving to better track students' progress and to use rigorous assessment tests.These conclusions are drawn from a new study by the Center on Education Policy (CEP) in Washington.

The Department of Education has outlined four priority areas for states receiving stimulus money, with particularly stringent requirements for those applying for a Race to the Top grant:•Establishing data systems that track students' progress from preschool through college. •Developing and using rigorous standards and assessments.•Improving teacher effectiveness and the distribution of high-quality teachers.•Turning around the lowest-performing schools.

The priorities around teachers and school turnarounds seem to be getting less action, says Mr. Jennings, perhaps because they involve more players and are often undertaken at the district level. They're also more nebulous.

41% of the public says the United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today than it did 10 years ago -- the highest percentage ever in a Pew Research survey.

44% of the public now says China is the world's leading economic power, while just 27% name the United States.

the percentage saying that the United States should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own" has reached an all-time high of 49%.

And while most Americans understand this system to be badly broken already, the US Supreme Court this year ruled, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to permit unlimited spending by corporations and unions to influence elections. Indeed, early figures show that vastly more money is being spent to influence the outcome of our elections this fall – $4.2 billion in political ad spending alone compared with just $2.1 billion in 2008, according to Borrell Associates. Less than a third of organizations spending money on the fall elections thus far are disclosing their sources of funds, thereby denying citizens any knowledge of who is trying to influence the election.

As an important first step in reclaiming our elections and curbing the undue influence of special interests on our candidates, it is high time that Congress passed the Fair Elections Now Act, introduced in the House by my former colleagues Democrat John Larson of Connecticut and Republican Walter Jones of North Carolina. Modeled after successful Fair Elections programs in eight states, the proposed law would require that participating candidates turn down special interest money and accept only $100-or-less donations from their constituents. Candidates who reach a qualifying threshold of 1,500 in-state donations would then be eligible to receive sufficient matching funds to run a serious campaign. This would dramatically reduce the influence of special interests, including unions and corporations. And Fair Elections would open the election process to many more Americans who currently have no opportunity to seek public office for lack of funds.

The Obama administration has an opportunity to break the current logjam in the Middle East by focusing away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and pushing for renewed Syrian-Israeli negotiations. The Syrian-Israeli track can move faster than Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, where the two sides are still far apart on the central issues: Israeli settlements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the final status of Jerusalem. By contrast, the Syrians and Israelis mainly need to negotiate over the return of the Golan Heights, and related security guarantees and water access issues.

Unlike the weak Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Syrian President Bashar Assad can actually deliver on a peace deal. Such an agreement is possible during Obama's presidency, but it will not happen without the deep involvement of his administration. The United States has much to gain strategically from renewed Syrian-Israeli dialogue: Damascus could be pressed to play a more constructive role in the region, instead of being a spoiler. If there are serious negotiations, the United States can demand that Assad's regime stop interfering in Iraq, carry out domestic reforms, respect human rights and drop Syrian support for Hamas and other Palestinian groups that reject peace with Israel. To achieve peace, the United States must strongly push Israel back to negotiations and be willing to dispatch U.S. personnel as monitors of any final agreement.

if large economies keep interest rates loose for too long, faster global growth could instead add fuel to the fire. Tighter monetary policy in the United States and the Euro area is still a way off, but may be edging closer.  The European Central Bank will conclude emergency lending in December. The rate on the final loans will be indexed to the ECB’s benchmark rate, rather than fixed at 1 percent, giving the Bank room to raise interest rates if needed. Unemployment, a key signal for central bankers considering raising rates, fell to 10 percent in the United States last week, but it is not yet clear if this improvement will persist.

These price surges could cause or temporarily conceal bad debts in a number of smaller economies, hurting investors who have turned to these markets. However, unless these surges continue, the risk to the global recovery will be contained. Dubai World’s recent near default illustrates the potential shocks that debt from bursting asset bubbles can cause. Similar problems could and probably will emerge in other economies which have been badly hit by the crisis, and where government finances are stretched, including Ireland, Greece, and the Baltics.

The only answer to the question of whether IP serves the desired purpose must be empirical. Does it work in practice? A great deal of applied economic research has tried to answer this question. The short answer is that intellectual property does not increase innovation and creation. Extending IP rights may modestly boost the incentive for innovation, but this positive effect is wiped away by the negative effect of creating monopolies. There is simply no evidence that strengthening patent regimes increases innovation or economic productivity. In fact, some evidence shows that increased protection even decreases innovation.

Ideas kept under lock and key are much less useful than those that are freely available. So we find Africans dying of AIDS because they cannot afford to pay monopoly prices to patent holders of certain drugs. Or, at a more mundane level, we cannot legally watch movies on our new Android phones because "rights holders" do not wish us to. And we must suffer through such indignities as being sued by voting machine companies over copyright violation when their malfunctioning software is revealed to the public.

Rather than trying to continually fix the existing system with band-aids, it would be far better to eliminate it entirely. The resulting drastic restructuring of industry would lead to new, more competitive business models – and an environment far more favorable to the small entrepreneur.

State government finances are a wreck. The drop in tax receipts is the worst in a half century. Fewer than 10 states ended the last fiscal year with significant reserves, and three-fourths have deficits exceeding 10% of their budgets. Only an emergency infusion of printed federal funny money is keeping most state boats afloat right now.

It's much more likely that we're facing a near permanent reduction in state tax revenues that will require us to reduce the size and scope of our state governments. And the time to prepare for this new reality is already at hand.

After crunching the numbers, my team has estimated that it would take GDP growth of at least twice the historical average to return state tax revenues to their previous long-term trend line by 2012.