Some Asian politicians will, quite conveniently, blame the West for any softening of growth. But their failure to pursue necessary structural reforms and economic opportunities is equally responsible, if not more so, for the region s growing travails.

China s vast influence over a few fellow dictatorships still holds out the best hope of softening their misrule. But can China be persuaded to wield its influence constructively, rather than maintaining its pretense of neutrality when its assistance is badly needed?

Prime Minister David Cameron s government announced last July that it intended to abolish the HFEA by 2014, along with the Human Tissue Authority, which deals with non reproductive tissues. Already, the HFEA appears to be attempting to preempt the government by softening its regulatory touch.

Such a softening of the church's position was probably the result of the public outcry in Russia's liberal press. Yet the pogrom at the Sakharov museum provoked a chain reaction of similar attacks on contemporary art by Orthodox fundamentalists whom the church has been unable to control.

As a result, Russia is perpetually unprepared for the future. Indeed, just as its leaders failed to prepare for the fall of communism, the softening of the Russian economy shows that they are poorly equipped for the coming decades, which will be characterized by depleted resources, a declining population, and shrinking territory.

Likewise, the softening of housing prices follows a short period in which prices more than doubled, which makes it difficult to tell whether China is facing a modest and healthy correction or outright collapse. And if continental Europe eventually recovers, as the US and the United Kingdom are, export growth could pick up again.

This outcome is all the more tragic, given that the economic analysis underlying Syriza s demand for an easing of austerity was broadly right. Instead of seeking a face saving compromise on softening the troika program, Tsipras wasted six months on symbolic battles over economically irrelevant issues such as labor laws, privatizations, even the name of the troika.