Globe Trot 07.06

How conditional is U.S. military aid to Egypt? Brookings' Shadi Hamid gives thoughtful answers to how the Obama administration can repair its missteps and hold both the military and the Muslim Brotherhood to account.

An influential China-based think tank is recommending that China relax its one-child policy as a way to head off a growing demographic crisis: a small youth population needed to support a much larger population of aged. Perhaps spurring the researchers' call is the controversy over Feng Jianmei, the woman whose forced abortion drew widespread condemnation in China when it was reported last month.

Even in the midst of ministering in retirement former President George W. Bush gets no reprieve from critical outbursts, including this week's from the current president of Zambia, where Bush and his wife, Laura, have been traveling. But there have been some Kodak moments along the way. The former president and first lady are in the central African nation to set up a cervical cancer screening center and to visit other charities they support.

In Syria, the defection of Gen. Minaf Tiass is a game changer.

I'm reading: Dambisa Moyo's new Winner Take All and Roger Thurow's The Last Hunger Season. And because it's summer, E.B. White.

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