Amie Tsang | The World

Smart Reads May 3, 2013

May 3, 2013 2:43 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ The FT argues today that Apple’s decision to borrow money in order to fund a dividend, despite being one of America’s most liquid companies, indicates a need for reform to the US tax system.
♦ Despite impressive economic growth, improvements in living standards in Malaysia have lagged behind those of its neighbours, building pressure for change ahead of Sunday’s election.
♦ North African governments are trying to stem the flow of young Islamic militants, heading to Syria to fight the regime.
♦ President François Hollande is struggling to please everyone and, in fact, anyone – leading to concerns that France might become the next European problem child. After a draft paper by the president’s party described Angela Merkel as “selfish”, Mr Hollande has had to reassure her that he still believes in a Franco-German relationship.
♦ William Finnegan discusses his article on Mark Lyttle, a US citizen from North Carolina who was deported to Mexico despite ample evidence that he was an American, and the soaring number of deportations.
♦ Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told the FBI that he and his brother considered suicide attacks on July 4, but instead decided to strike on Patriots’ day.
♦ Politics and vetting processes mean that Barack Obama has yet to fill some long-empty posts in his cabinet.
♦ Evangelical Christians in California have struck up a debate over whether yoga is a religion or not – where is the line between the body and the soul?
♦ SAYA, a Jerusalem-based design studio, is trying to provide a architectural resolutions to territorial disputes: “you can’t stop terror with just a fence. We need to imagine structures that can build hope instead of fear and resentment.”
♦ When Alex Christodoulou tried to quit his job for life in the Greek public sector, he found the process harder (and more labyrinthine) than he ever thought it could be, especially when the government had committed to taking thousands of workers off the public payroll. “They wanted to rehire him so that they could fire him and include him in the number of public servants being laid off to appease Greece’s international creditors”.
♦ In a review of The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future, Richard Lloyd Parry argues against the idea that North Korea is a “zombie nation”, but wonders if the idea that the country is in a state of “political undeath” doesn’t perhaps suit some other states. Read more

Tags: Angela Merkel, Apple, Boston, Boston marathon, corporate tax, deportation, elections, Europe, François Hollande, Greece, immigration, Islamism, Israel, Malaysia, North Africa, North Korea, Syria, tax, territorial dispute, US politics, yoga
Posted in Foreign affairs, Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads May 2, 2013

May 2, 2013 1:51 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ Ireland’s head of state says the EU must drop its “hegemonic” economic model and reform the ECB, or risk social upheaval and a loss of popular legitimacy.
♦ The Great Tax Race series turns to Ireland, looking at how Ireland has remained attached to aggressive tax policies that favour businesses even as ordinary people have struggled to get by. (If you’re trying to get your head around how all of this even works, watch this handy explainer from Matt Steinglass)
♦ Richard McGregor thinks President Obama needs to circumvent Congress if he wants to get his agenda moving.
♦ Western clothing companies are scrambling to address public concerns over working conditions in Bangladesh – the Walt Disney Company ordered an end to the production of branded merchandise in the country before Rana Plaza collapsed. John Gapper today makes the argument against western companies withdrawing: “Despite everything, the industry provides better-paid jobs than the alternative – working on rural farms – and has helped to emancipate women.”
♦ Despite violence and corruption, Afghan entrepreneurs are still making opportunities for themselves.
♦ The Kremlin is putting pressure on VKontakte, a Russian Facebook clone, pushing CEO Pavel Durov to leave the country.
♦ Slate is publishing a series of excerpts from the memoirs of Mohamedou Oul Slahi who was a prisoner at Guantánamo for nearly 11 years.
♦ Mafia historian goes underground into the bunkers of the Ndrangheta, Europe’s biggest cocaine traffickers and Italy’s most powerful organised crime group. Read more

Tags: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barack Obama, corporate tax, Disney, ECB, EU, Facebook, factories, Guantanamo, Ireland, Italy, Kremlin, Mafia, Ndrangheta, Pavel Durov, Russia, tax, VKontakte
Posted in Foreign affairs, Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads May 1, 2013

May 1, 2013 2:00 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ Another runner in the Great Tax Race: Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, hopes that recently approved cuts to corporate tax rates will help diversify its economy – following on from a tax incentive measure for the film industry designed to attract more television productions like Breaking Bad.
♦ As the Syrian state pulls back, necessity has forced rebel fighting brigades to take on the role of governing the towns and villages across rural northern Syria.
♦ Chile is embroiled in an embarrassing statistical scandal, casting a cloud over Sebastián Piñera’s final months in office. It seems analysts were right to question how he kept inflation at just 1.5 per cent despite growth of 5.6 per cent.
♦ The US seems to be headed for a manufacturing renaissance.
♦ Since the revolution, Cairo residents have turned to do-it-yourself infrastructure as they grapple with getting about from day to day. The New York Times has photographed the boom in illegal construction.
♦ The New York Times has also profiled Sohel Rana, the most hated man in Bangladesh: “He traveled by motorcycle, as untouchable as a mafia don, trailed by his own biker gang.”
♦ IBM has created the world’s smallest film by manipulating single atoms on a copper surface.
♦ Cash is still king in China, where home buyers make payments in trunks filled with cash and monthly salaries are delivered in armoured cars. Read more

Tags: Bangladesh, Breaking Bad, Cairo, Chile, China, corporate tax, Egypt, IBM, Manufacturing, New Mexico, Sebastian Pinera, Sohel Rana, Susana Martinez, Syria, tax, US
Posted in Foreign affairs, Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 30, 2013

April 30, 2013 1:48 pm by Amie Tsang

More on the Great Tax Race
♦ Luxembourg is set to share currently confidential information about multinationals’ bank accounts, showing how much it wants to shed its image as a tax haven at a time of a political and popular backlash against tax avoidance.
♦ One of the biggest hedge fund service businesses on the Cayman Islands has tried to block sweeping reforms to make the tax haven more transparent.
♦ Jeffrey Sachs writes about how austerity has exposed the threat of global tax havens: “In the new world of austerity following the 2008 crash… they are increasingly seen as a cancer on the global financial system that must be excised.”
The rest of the world
♦ Despite Dutch politics being roiled by waves of populist anger and anti-elitism, Willem-Alexander ascends to the throne amid an outpouring of popular enthusiasm – polls show support for preserving the Dutch monarchy running as high as 85 per cent.
♦ President Hamid Karzai acknowledges that the Central Intelligence Agency has been dropping off bags of cash at his office for a decade: “Not a big amount. A small amount, which has been used for various purposes.”
♦ Reuters takes a look through the confidential report prepared for the Cypriot central bank, which found that the Bank of Cyprus had been willing to invest in risky, high-yield Greek debt in its efforts to offset an erosion of its balance sheet from non-performing loans. The report also alleges that 28,000 files, containing emails from a crucial period during which the Bank of Cyprus spent billions of euros buying Greek bonds, were erased before investigators could copy them.
♦ A singer’s lament for Syria, broadcast on “Arab Idol”, has become a hit in the Arab world.
♦ Bangalore, once an advertisement for a new, confident India, is losing some of its sheen. Read more

Tags: Arab Idol, austerity, Bangalore, Bank of Cyprus, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Hamit Karzai, India, King Willem-Alexander, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Queen Beatrix, Syria, tax
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 29, 2013

April 29, 2013 2:37 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ In the first installment of our Great Tax Race series, Vanessa Houlder examines how the Netherlands and Luxembourg managed to book more foreign direct investment than the US, UK and Germany together. Exploitation of cracks in the international tax system has ignited intense anger from an austerity-weary public. Matt Steinglass looks at how the Netherlands wants to change its tax haven image, but is wary of scaring businesses away.
♦ Italy has a new government and it has already been met with mayhem.
♦ Just after winning the most votes in Iceland’s parliamentary elections, the head of the centre-right Independence party has said the government needs to focus on restoring growth.
♦ Anne-Marie Slaughter thinks President Obama should keep the Rwandan genocide in mind when weighing up action in Syria.
♦ The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur who was kidnapped by the Tsarnaev brothers describes his harrowing experience. The Boston Globe has also pulled together a timeline of the hunt for the bombing suspects.
♦ William Zinsser, author of “On Writing Well”, is still counselling people on the subject at the age of 90. He holds one-to-one sessions with people who read their writing out to him, as he cannot see, and only accepts sandwiches as payment.
♦ Maryam Sharif takes to the street to canvass for her father who is likely to become Pakistan’s PM for a third time: “It’s a beautiful feeling to be loved”. Read more

Tags: Barack Obama, Boston, corporate tax, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Maryam Sharif, Netherlands, On Writing Well, Pakistan, Rwanda, Syria, tax, William Zinsser
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 26, 2013

April 26, 2013 3:47 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ The collapse of Rana Plaza this week and the fire at Tazreen Fashions last year have raised questions about the Bangladeshi government’s ability to regulate its garment industry, and the intimate ties between this industry and the country’s political elite.
♦ President Obama is pushing to overhaul the US immigration system, giving some of the 11m unauthorised residents legal rights and the economy a much needed boost.
♦ A growing sense among Guantánamo prisoners that they will never go home, has led to a revolt: a hunger strike is now in its third month with more than half the inmates participating. Read more

Tags: Bangladesh, factories, fire, Guantanamo, immigration, President Obama
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 25, 2013

April 25, 2013 12:00 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ The ever-growing ranks of unskilled and unemployed youth in Spain not only pose a challenge to the economy but are also threatening the fabric of Spanish society – a problem Madrid is only now beginning to address.
♦ Voter outrage sparks José Manuel Barroso’s concerns about eurozone belt-tightening.
♦ Paul Kevin Curtis, who has been cleared in the ricin letter investigation, might have been framed, according to his lawyer. James Everett Dutschke, another entertainer, is now the focus of the investigation and it seems that the two men’s lives have coincided before.
♦ Thirteen female corrections officers were charged with federal racketeering at a state prison in Maryland, US. “The indictment described a jailhouse seemingly out of control. Four corrections officers became pregnant by one inmate. Two of them got tattoos of the inmate’s first name, Tavon — one on her neck, the other on a wrist.”
♦The 200m emails to be kept in the George W. Bush Presidential Center are creating years worth of work for archivists, a growing problem for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the federal agency that keeps the nation’s trove of historic documents.
Read more

Tags: austerity, dominique strauss-kahn, George W. Bush, James Everett Dutschke, José Manuel Barroso, Maryland, Paul Kevin Curtis, Ricin, Spain, unemployment
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 24, 2013

April 24, 2013 2:04 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ Martin Wolf argues that the UK industrial revolution shows the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis on debt is not always right.
♦ Frigide Barjot and her fellow protesters have taken the heat off Hollande as people take to the streets to protest over gay marriage rather than the state of the economy.
♦ The planting of sugar cane has exacerbated the effects of the worst drought in more than four decades in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
♦ Critics say that Nelson Mandela’s family members have been using his status for their own enrichment. Two of his grandchildren are involved in a US reality show called Being Mandela and his daughter has launched a wine business called House of Mandela.
♦ FT Alphaville take a typically irreverent look at the ‘tweet retreat’ in their Occupational Indifference series.
♦ The number of people in Britain receiving emergency food rations has more than doubled in the past year as inflation eroded incomes and government spending cuts have pushed hundreds of thousands into crisis.
♦ Jacob Heilbrunn at The National Interest examines Israel’s fraying image and the possibility that US interest in Israel’s fortune could wane: “if Israel remains stymied in dealing with the Palestinians… its predicament is likely to intensify. And the range of options for dealing with the country’s mounting problems is likely to expand toward more radical solutions.”
♦ Japanese drivers are getting televisions installed in the front of their cars. “Japanese law prohibits “staring” at a screen while driving, without saying anything about glancing at one.”
♦ The New York Times is debating the usefulness of Nato.

Tags: austerity, Carmen M Reinhart, drought, food banks, gay marriage, India, Israel, Japan, Kenneth S Rogoff, Nato, Nelson Mandela, Palestine, Smart Reads, tweet retreat, UK, US
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 23, 2013

April 23, 2013 3:25 pm by Amie Tsang

The Austerity Debate
♦ Europe may have hit the political limits of how far it can go with austerity-led economic policies because of the growing opposition in the eurozone periphery, according to the president of the European Commission.
♦ Tim Harford tells the story of Thomas Herndon, the student who uncovered a mistake in a famous economic paper that has been used to make the case for austerity cuts, and considers what it means for austerity economics.

Italy Deadlock
♦ Choking back tears in his inauguration address, Giorgio Napolitano, who at 87 reluctantly accepted an unprecedented second mandate as Italy’s president, slammed the country’s political parties for their failure to reach agreement and for the “unforgivable” lack of political reforms.
♦ Tony Barber argues that public outrage is not bred only by economic crisis, and that politicians in Italy (and elsewhere in Europe) should get their houses in order.
♦ Italy’s political and economic torpor is epitomised in the ruined and abandoned city of L’Aquila.

Elsewhere
♦ In northwest Pakistan, militants are using bombs as campaigning tactics ahead of the May parliamentary elections.
♦ It’s the UK’s turn to host the G8 and Richard Dowden, director of the Royal Africa Society, wants to know if it will do anything to stop companies avoiding tax in poor countries: “More important than giving aid would be to stop doing bad things to poor countries. The worst thing we – the British – do is to maintain the world’s most iniquitous secret tax havens.”
♦ In the past year, two trillion dollars has not been reported to the IRS because “ordinary Americans have gone underground, and, as the recovery continues to limp along, they seem to be doing it more and more.”
♦ Kidnappings of ordinary Syrians are on the rise as lawlessness spreads.
♦ The byline was borne of a need to make reporters more responsible for what they wrote about the Civil War in the US. Read more

Tags: austerity, Carmen M Reinhart, elections, G8, Giorgio Napolitano, Italy, Kenneth S Rogoff, L'Aquila, Pakistan, Syria, tax, Thomas Herndon
Posted in Smart Reads | Permalink

Smart Reads April 22, 2013

April 22, 2013 1:09 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ Boston With one of the suspects dead and the other in hospital, the Boston marathon investigation has turned to the men’s motives. The Wall Street Journal looks at how a turn to religion caused fissures within the family. David Remnick examines the disaffection of the Tsarnaev brothers. (It seems the links the brothers had to Chechnya were rather remote.) Edward Luce thinks Obama should tread warily after the Boston attack.
♦ The US economy is getting a Hollywood makeover, as the Bureau of Economic Analysis rewrites economic history by adding 21st century components such as film royalties, and research and development spending. This will make the US economy three per cent bigger.
♦ Civic involvement in the rescue effort following the Sichuan earthquake was so big, officials had to turn helpers away.
♦ Steve Schwarzman, founder of alternative investment company Blackstone, is donating $100m to establish an elite international education programme at Tsinghua University in Beijing.