There is a parallel between the ongoing euro crisis and the international banking crisis of 1982. Back then, the International Monetary Fund saved the global banking system by lending just enough money to heavily indebted countries; default was avoided, but at the cost of a lasting depression. Latin America suffered a lost decade, writes George […]
Seth Rosenfeld reveals that Reagan’s relationship with the FBI, which began in 1947, when he became president of the Screen Actors Guild, was far deeper, and creepier, than anyone has ever known before. But documenting the depth of that covert alliance is only one of the amazing things this sweeping book accomplishes. Read Here – Bookforum
Eleven years after 9/11, al Qaeda is fighting back. Despite a focused and concerted American-led global effort—despite the blows inflicted on it by drones, SEALS, and spies—the terror group is thriving in the Arab world, thanks to the revolutions that swept across it in the last 18 months. And the group remains intent on striking […]
If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. Read Here – […]
“GOING OUT” is the name China calls its strategy to increase outward foreign direct investment (ODI—ie, not the FDI coming in), first proposed in 1999 and implemented in earnest five years later. From 2004 to 2011, China’s ODI grew from $5.5 billion to over $65 billion a year, and it is expected to reach $150 billion by […]
Not long after a tsunami washed over Japan‘s Fukushima nuclear power plants in March 2011, causing a partial meltdown, it appeared to many that humankind’s half-century experiment with nuclear power might be in permanent jeopardy. Although nuclear energy provides 15 percent of the world’s electricity, all without spewing greenhouse gas emissions, many countries seemed ready […]
TRADE and growth go hand in hand. When the economic crisis first hit in 2008, world trade and growth collapsed together. In 2009 both recovered, and did reasonably well until this year, when both slipped again. Cutting tariffs and red tape would boost trade, and support the faltering recovery. This should spur efforts to replace […]
To see the ice disappear this quickly is unprecedented. The 2012 melt has comprehensively broken all previous records. We are now heading into uncharted territory because the Arctic helps to cool the climate and regulate our weather patterns. Read Here – The Independent
The fiasco at London Metropolitan is making every university with non-EU students sit up and rub its eyes. While British people of all ethnicities may well be becoming more hawkish on immigration, the proposed clampdown on student visas seems designed to appeal to those whose idea of Britain is not imaginative or comprehensive. Read Here – The […]
