South Africa’s Unfinished Business
South Africa is hardly an unqualified success story. The unemployment rate hovers just under 30 percent, and nearly a quarter of South Africans live at or near the poverty line. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Decline Of All That Was France
Those who would turn the French economy certainly have their job cut out for them. Apart from the occasional rays of sunshine, France, since before the global financial crisis of 2008-09, has suffered a steady decline in worker productivity and business profitability. Read Here – National Interest
China’s Deep Set Fears Drive Nationalism
Historical subjugation by foreign powers make Chinese fear the future even after it has emerged as a global power and become the world’s second-biggest economy. Read Here – TeaLeafNation
Common Cause In Africa
Although often seen as rivals in global politics, the US and France are working together to prevent parts of Africa from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked fighters. Read Here – BBC
How Much Longer Before The Fed Cracks?
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, the lowest since November 2008, raising questions about how much longer the Fed will keep fueling the economy with monetary stimulus. Read Here – Businessweek Let It Ride – The Economist
China Inc And Its Overseas Battles
Much as Japan Inc. caused a sensation with its buying spree in the eighties, acquiring prominent U.S. companies and landmarks, including Rockefeller Center, Chinese companies are making their presence felt. Acquisitions range from AMC cinemas to IBM’s personal computers unit. Read Here – The Diplomat
Heading Nowhere
Because Israel is the strongest and the PNA the weakest and defenceless, Tel Aviv now negotiates, even as it expands its colonies, to make the ‘two-state solution’ totally unfeasible Read Here – Gulf News
There’s A Hole In The Internet
In 2008, two security researchers at the DefCon hacker conference demonstrated a massive security vulnerability in the worldwide internet traffic-routing system — a vulnerability so severe that it could allow intelligence agencies, corporate spies or criminals to intercept massive amounts of data, or even tamper with it on the fly. Read Here – Wired
It’s The Economy, Stupid
As a fiscally constrained and war-weary Washington confronts its foreign policy challenges, events in Ukraine and Afghanistan show that economic incentives can play a major role in addressing them. Read Here – The Atlantic
China’s Big Pain In The Back: Rising Oil Dependency
hina’s oil import dependency has risen from 32% at the beginning of this century to 57% last year. In the past few years, Chinese car ownership has exploded while China’s oil production has grown only slightly. Read Here – WorldCrunch
