Amie Tsang | The World

Smart Reads March 26, 2013

March 26, 2013 12:50 pm by Amie Tsang

Entrepreneurial Russians are looking for ways to get around the curbs on withdrawals and money transfers in Cyprus. According to one Russian lawyer, “If you have an account not just for yourself but for your wife, your mother, your father, your children, you can disperse the money between all the accounts of your relatives and little by little you can start moving it away”.
Nicolas Véron argues that the Cyprus bailout now cancels out some of the mistakes in last week’s package. However, the damage has already been done: Ben Hall, our Europe news editor, explains how the Cyprus has hurt the eurozone.
Pervez Musharraf was only greeted by a few hundred supporters on his arrival in Pakistan, a sign of the scepticism around self-proclaimed returning saviours.
Gideon Rachman looks the the imbalance between German strength and consistency, and the weakness of other European countries: “growing German power – and growing resentment of that power – are now the main themes in European politics. This is a historic irony, given that the main purpose of the whole European project… has been to end for ever the idea that Germany is simply too powerful to coexist comfortably with its neighbours.”
The BBC looks at why police in Zimbabwe are seizing people’s radios.
Zanu-PF’s opposition in Zimbabwe needs to accept that the electoral battleground in the coming elections will be uneven and forge ahead with its campaign if its to have any chance of beating President Mugabe’s party, according to Simukai Tinhu.

Tags: bailout, Cyprus, Europe, Eurozone, Germany, Pervez Musharraf, Robert Mugabe, Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe
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Smart Reads March 22, 2013

March 22, 2013 1:39 pm by Amie Tsang

Eliot Higgins, an unemployed finance and admin worker, has been using his expertise in spreadsheets to break stories about Syria from his front room in the suburbs of Leicester, UK.
Egyptian novelist Youssef Rakha wonders what kind of a country his daughter can look forward to growing up in: “In the time it takes you to form in your Mama’s tummy, ya habibti, we learn exactly how foolish we have been. After the protest, every sign points downward.”
Stephen Fidler looks at how the “future of the eurozone has been put on the line for a few billion euros” and what the Cypriots actually did wrong.
Nicolas Véron explains why some of the flaws in the proposed plan for Cyprus could have been avoided and why, whatever happens, this policy blunder will cost the EU dearly.

Tags: bailout, Brown Moses, Cyprus, Egypt, Syria
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Smart Reads March 21, 2013

March 21, 2013 12:55 pm by Amie Tsang

It only took the conclave of cardinals a couple of days to elect a pope, yet Italians are still waiting for a prime minister. Ferdinando Giugliano explains why Italy-watchers are not expecting white smoke from the presidential palace any time soon.
Cyprus has turned into a cash economy, struggling with the lack of coins.
A posthumously-published extract from Eric Hobsbawm’s book, Fractured Times, looks at how the lone cowboy became such a potent figure in American history.
Marseille may have been appointed the cultural capital of Europe, but it seems to be attracting more unsavoury activity too – “In the past two weeks, five killings have been recorded that police say are linked to gang wars for control of hashish sales in the city’s infamous high-rise slums.”
For all the FT’s coverage of the UK budget yesterday – including Martin Wolf’s verdict and an ace video/interactive on the best and worst budget decisions EVER – check out our in-depth page.

Tags: bailout, cowboy, Cyprus, Eric Hobsbawm, France, Italy, Marseille, Pope Francis, UK budget 2013
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Smart Reads March 20, 2013

March 20, 2013 2:12 pm by Amie Tsang

More on the island rescue

With the eurozone’s €10bn Cyprus bailout now laid waste by the country’s parliament, the blame game begins – Peter Spiegel has put together what happened on Friday night in forensic detail.
The Cyprus government is working with European officials on contingency plans to keep the island’s financial system afloat in case of a crippling outflow of deposits when the island’s banks reopen.
The Economist Buttonwood Notebook takes a timely look at deposit insurance.

Elsewhere in the world

A man imprisoned for two decades for killing a Hasidic rabbi in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will walk free this week. The New York Times tells the story of the man who was framed in the case of the “Slain Rabbi”.
With interest rates at rock-bottom, bond markets are hearing echoes of 1994. “What will happen, they ask, when the Fed decides it has done enough to stimulate the economy? Could there be another shock?”
Jeffrey Goldberg spends time with King Abdullah II and asks whether he can liberalise Jordan and save his kingdom from capture by Islamist radicals.
Brewers have been selling cheaper beer in Africa, aided by tax deals agreed with authorities.
Douglas Paal and Dmitri Trenin at the Carnegie Endowment explain why Xi Jinping’s first trip as president is to Moscow.
China mourns the passing of its most famous peasant by putting him on a (fake) Time cover.
Buzzfeed has a striking collection of newspaper front pages from the start of the Iraq war.

Tags: "Slain Rabbi", Africa, bailout, beer, China, Cyprus, Jordan, King Abdullah II, Moscow, tax, war in Iraq, Xi Jinping
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Smart Reads March 19, 2013

March 19, 2013 4:05 pm by Amie Tsang

On the Cyprus crisis:

Gideon Rachman wonders why European leaders have taken a gamble in Cyprus: “The answer is that they, too, are out of credit – political credit.”
Quentin Peel explains that the German line is hardening, even among Angela Merkel’s opposition – “The underlying principle of burden-sharing is not in question”.
Joshua Tucker, a politics professor at New York University, argues that the Cyprus bailout, as it stands, is the most politically costly option.
The decision to strip €5.8bn from savings accounts in Cyprus has also undermined EU plans for a banking union – Patrick Jenkins and Alex Barker look at the fallout on this issue.

In other news…

This FT analysis looks into how US and foreign companies profited from the conflict in Iraq, reaping $138bn in contracts for supplying services from security to meals to cleaning.
The Economist’s Pomegranate blog ponders why Egypt’s general prosecutor has placed the country’s wealthiest man and his father on a no-fly list, a move which sent the main stock index tumbling.
Amy Davidson writes on the trial of two juveniles in Steubenville, Ohio, for rape and distribution of pornography: “All of these people cannot then carry on as though the one who caused the trouble was the sixteen-year-old girl who was raped – and who, according to testimony in the trial, has been dropped by her friends, ostracized, and put under every sort of pressure – and not the rapists.”
Ai Weiwei may be regarded as a thorn in the side of the Chinese government, but does his celebrity status actually serve their purposes?

Tags: Ai Weiwei, bailout, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Iraq War, rape, Steubenville
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Smart Reads March 18, 2013

March 18, 2013 2:26 pm by Amie Tsang

International lenders struck a deal in the early hours of Saturday morning for a bailout of Cyprus that includes a tax on bank deposits, causing outrage among Cypriots and Russian leaders – Peter Spiegel has the lowdown on how the deal was done.
Ten years after the Iraq invasion, Roula Khalaf returns find a country engulfed in a political storm, where normal life is still a dream.
The New York Times reports on a village on the West Bank that is testing the limits of unarmed resistance. Haaretz has already commented the criticism it is likely to attract.
The Economist examines how “Israel’s right, frustrated Palestinians and assorted idealistic outsiders are talking of futures that do not feature a separate Palestinian state”.
Advocates for domestic violence victims have called for stricter laws governing firearms – protective orders do not always force those under them to relinquish their guns.

Tags: bailout, Cyprus, domestic violence, gun control, gun violence, Iraq, Iraq War, Israel, Palestinians, West Bank
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Smart Reads March 15, 2013

March 15, 2013 4:11 pm by Amie Tsang

Iraq may be unsafe and treacherous, but adventurous Iraqis are reaping the benefits of a growing consumer economy. However, some businesspeople are frustrated that it is not safe enough to bring their families into the country and others lament that the profits are being made in nearby countries like Jordan.
David Gardner argues for arming Syrian rebels: “The past two years have taken an awful toll… Whole swaths of Syrian cities such as Aleppo, Homs, Hama and, now, the suburbs of Damascus have been razed.” Philip Stephens thinks the country is also paying the price for US timidity: “What is happening – or rather not happening – in Syria is in part a reflection of what happened in Iraq.Once bitten, the US is twice shy.”
C.J. Chivers reports from Heesh in Syria on the “bitterly personal war, in which Islamic and more secular fighters share an immediate goal: to protect their own families, an ambition they accuse the West of not adequately supporting.”
Google’s announcement that their RSS reading tool will be shut down was met with outrage from an unexpected source: Iranians using Google Reader to evade government censorship.
Swiss researchers have been studying satellite images of nighttime lights from 1992 and 2009 and China, India and Africa are growing brighter.
Spencer Ackerman at Wired looks at how the US military has missed out on significant insights into the Iraq war by not collating Iraqi accounts of what happened – particularly when it comes to the influence of Sunni tribes in preventing the US occupation “from descending into an even bigger fiasco”.
Take a look at the Economist’s special report on competitiveness in the US, in which Edward McBride argues that while political gridlock is bad for America’s economy, underlying growth prospects are brighter than they seem.

Tags: Bashar al-Assad, censorship, Damascus, Google, Iran, Iraq, Syria, US, US foreign policy, US military, war in Iraq
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Smart Reads March 13, 2013

March 13, 2013 3:39 pm by Amie Tsang

Martin Wolf demolishes David Cameron’s argument that “there is no alternative” to austerity. “Mr Cameron argues that those who think the government can borrow more ‘think there’s some magic money tree. Well, let me tell you a plain truth: there isn’t.’ This is quite wrong. First, there is a money tree, called the Bank of England…”
Strengthened by an unusual cross-party consensus, Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto is challenging the tycoons and duopolies that dominate the corporate landscape.
The US won the war, Iran won the peace and Turkey won the contracts – the FT looks at the true victor of the Iraq war, ten years on.
Meanwhile filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi speaks to the FT about bringing Baghdad to life on screen.
In Tunisia, the revolution and its aftermath are playing out on an avenue named after Tunisia’s first post-independence president, Habib Bourguiba.
Larissa MacFarquhar examines the darker side of Aaron Swartz.
Guinea-Bissau, the world’s only “narco state”, is a major hub of cocaine trafficking between Latin America and Europe, but any wealth it derives from its middleman status has been offset by increased violence and instability, according to Der Spiegel.
Two of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent human rights activists were sentenced to long jail terms over the weekend. Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy looks at how, despite their being sentenced between John Kerry’s first visit to Riyadh and a visit from the Attorney General, neither has said anything about the case.

Tags: Aaron Swartz, arab spring, austerity, Baghdad, bank of england, David Cameron, Enrique Peña Nieto, Guinea-Bissau, Human rights, Iraq, Maysoon Pachachi, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, US, war in Iraq
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Smart Reads March 12, 2013

March 12, 2013 2:54 pm by Amie Tsang

Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s central bank governor, argues that Africa’s relationship with China carries with it a whiff of colonialism and that Africa must start treating China as a competitor. “Africa is now willingly opening itself up to a new form of imperialism,” writes Sanusi.
Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, and since it represents just 4 per cent of the emerging markets private equity asset class there is plenty of room to expand. But as the African growth story attracts more and more funds the going is getting tougher, reports Katrina Manson.
Barack Obama’s outreach efforts may do more to expose Republican resistance to his overtures than to build bipartisan bridges.
The CIA is boosting its support of elite Iraqi antiterrorism units amid alarm that the civil war in Syria may spill over the border.
Here are Amos Chapple’s photographs of his trip to Iran: “For ordinary Iranians … the government is a constant embarrassment. In the time I spent there I never received anything but goodwill and decency.”
Steven Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations ponders the need for reform within Egypt’s Ministry of the Interior and the likelihood of it: “As much as bulldozing the Ministry of Interior would likely reverse President Morsi’s declining fortunes, he – like Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi before him – will never do it because he both needs and fears the police.”
Peter Guest looks at whether oil and gas exploration in east Africa will be a boon or a curse in Turkana, northern Kenya. “This area is often a battlefield,” says one development worker.
While you’re on tenterhooks for white smoke to appear at the Vatican, see who would be your ideal Pope with the Pontifficator.

Tags: Barack Obama, China, CIA, east Africa, Egypt, GOP, Iran, Nigeria, Pope, Republicans, sub-Saharan Africa, Syria
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Smart Reads March 11, 2013

March 11, 2013 2:41 pm by Amie Tsang

Africa is attracting investors eager to take advantage of a flourishing market, but the big question is whether the gap keeps growing between those who have led the economic revival and those waiting to be part of it.
Saudi Arabia is considering using firing squads for executions due to a shortage of official swordsmen.
China is putting together its new foreign policy team and Willy Lam thinks the appointments confirmed so far “suggest that China wants to improve the optics of its relationship with the United States, if not the substance.”
The Guardian has investigated how the bodies of 110 men suddenly washed up in a river running through Aleppo.
The New York Times spoke to a mother and daughter as they watched Hugo Chávez’s funeral from their home in Caracas, showing a snapshot of both sides of the Venezuelan political divide.
The Chinese communist party’s efforts to resuscitate the spirit of Lei Feng on the 50th anniversary of his death have been met with some derision.
Vanity Fair has published Richard Engel’s account of being kidnapped and held captive by the shabiha militia in Syria.
David Remnick looks at the scandal at the Bolshoi, and considers how the ballet company has acted as a microcosm of imperial Russia, Soviet Russia and latterly Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Rising life expectancy has been used as an argument for raising the eligibility age for social security and Medicare in the US. But higher income workers tend to live longer – which means that “low-income populations would be subsidizing the lives of higher-income people”.
In November 2011, Paul Frampton, a theoretical particle physicist, met a Czech bikini model on an online dating site. This encounter was to take him on an adventure through South America, where he was asked to deliver a package for her. Read about the suitcase full of trouble.