As he looks ahead to 2013, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is cautiously optimistic. Lee believes Europeans have made some progress in trying to defuse the euro debt crisis, and while tensions between China and its neighbors have risen because of territorial disputes, he is confident about the role the U.S. plays as part […]
Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied on Tuesday against President Mohamed Mursi in one of the biggest outpourings of protest since Hosni Mubarak‘s overthrow, accusing the Islamist leader of seeking to impose a new era of autocracy. Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in streets near the main protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, heart […]
For Shinzo Abe, it isn’t enough to see Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp., two icons of industrialJapan, reduced to junk-debt status. The man who probably will become prime minister next month might do the same for the yen. That is the upshot of his desire to browbeat the Bank of Japan into unlimited easing. Granted, his Liberal Democratic […]
Malaysia’s economic performance does not make headlines like it used to, but that does not mean that the economy is not still chugging along nicely. In fact, with the exception of difficult periods following major shocks such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Malaysian GDP growth has performed well over the last decade, averaging about […]
Lee Bok Sun is planning to close her 28-year-old fruit store in Seoul for good. Many of her customers have switched to a new hypermarket owned by one of South Korea’s chaebol, the family-controlled business groups that dominate the economy. “My baby brother gave me the money to start this shop to thank me for […]
Political turmoil in Egypt entered its fourth day Monday, after President Mohammed Morsi’s surprise power-grabbing decree galvanized the opposition and set off rounds of street violence, at a time when the nation needs unity to make difficult economic decisions. Egypt’s economy was already in trouble, with foreign reserves having fallen 40 percent since the uprising […]
When most people think of British-Russian relations, they imagine Bond films, iron curtains, Cambridge double agents, irradiated dissidents, and billionaire oligarchs who dress like Evelyn Waugh but behave like Tony Soprano and then sue each other in London courts. But there’s another element underwriting this not-so-special relationship. British elites, elected or otherwise, have grown highly susceptible […]
When he presented his proposals for taming banks in late September, Peer Steinbrück was once again spoiling for a fight. The Social Democratic candidate for the Chancellery in next year’s general election railed against the chase for short-term returns and excesses within the sector and harshly criticized the “market-conforming democracy” in which politics and people’s […]
In the otherwise ugly EU quarter in Brussels, something of a building boom is going on. There’s the €300m (£241m)-plus being spent to convert an art deco pile into a palace fit for a European president. In a nearby park another €100m makeover is creating the European parliament‘s version of the continent’s postwar history. That’s […]
One might be tempted to draw comparisons, but it can also become an obsession. Still, that’s exactly what Berliners tend to do, at least when it comes to their city. Whenever it happens, Berlin suddenly isn’t good enough for them, and they constantly feel compelled to draw comparisons — not with just any old cities, […]
looking beyond borders 