Smart Reads

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
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Smart reads April 19, 2013

April 19, 2013 1:36 pm by Esther Bintliff

Boston

♦ Overnight, one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings was killed during a car chase. Officers have mounted a manhunt to find a man believed to be the other suspects, reports Robert Wright. The FBI has issued photographs of the suspects and details are beginning to emerge about their background. Updates throughout the day on FT.com

Gun control and a captured Senate?

♦ The US Senate on Wednesday voted down two measures that would have imposed tough new rules on who can buy guns. The Guardian reports this morning that all but three of the 45 senators who voted ‘No’ received money from firearms lobbyists.

♦ Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was shot in the head in 2011, lambasted the senators in an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets… These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.”

Elsewhere

♦ The FT’s Guy Dinmore visited L’Aquila, four years after it was devastated by an earthquake. Reconstruction there has all but ground to a halt, through lack of money and paralysing politics – making the city “the ultimate symbol of Italy’s great stagnation.”

♦ Tom Feiling writes for the new digital magazine, Aeon, about why Colombia’s FARC guerrillas are still resisting the coming peace. “Is it drug money or the romance of revolution that’s to blame?“ Read more

Tags: Boston, Colombia, Farc, gun control, Guy Dinmore, Italy, L'Aquila, Senate, Smart Reads
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Smart reads April 18, 2013

April 18, 2013 12:51 pm by Esther Bintliff

Reinhart-Rogoff Redux

♦ The FT’s Robin Harding and Chris Giles look at the perils of austerity theory, and argue that “the essential problem is limited data.”

♦ To catch up on the debate thus far, check out our reading list.

♦ Over on Counterparties, Felix Salmon has helpfully summarised a long blog by an econometrician, Arindrajit Dube. As Salmon puts it: “the causation here seems about as clear as causal analysis can ever be: low growth causes high debt, rather than high debt causing low growth.“

Elsewhere

♦ The FT’s Tom Mitchell, a Bostonian, writes about his response to the bombs at Monday’s marathon – “An attack on much more than a race.”

♦ A new Israeli guidebook “offers maps, tips, and tours through 18 areas of Israel where Palestinian villages once stood”. The Economist reviews it.

♦ Obama’s administration appears to hold varying views on the Syrian opposition, something that became obvious on Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made separate appearances before Congress, reports the New York Times.

♦ The European Central Bank’s newest game [wait, they do games?] was released on Wednesday. Alphaville’s Lisa Pollack has played it.

♦ Silicon Valley is welcoming a new kind of business pilgrim – “itinerant company executives who come from the benighted analogue world”, writes Richard Waters. Read more

Tags: Boston marathon, Carmen M Reinhart, ECB, Israel, Kenneth S Rogoff, Palestine, Smart Reads, Syria
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Smart reads April 17, 2013

April 17, 2013 2:06 pm by Esther Bintliff

The Boston aftermath

♦ Police in Boston said they had found fragments of nylon bags, shrapnel and the remnants of a pressure cooker at the site of Monday’s bombing, report Geoff Dyer and Robert Wright. Time’s Swampland blog put together a short history of pressure cooker bombs.

♦ Within hours of the attack, some US media outlets were discussing the possible involvement of a 20-year-old man seen running – along with almost everyone else who could – from the scene. He was later declared to be only a witness, but not before his apartment had been searched. So why was he singled out? Probably because he’s Saudi, says Amy Davidson.

♦ “There’s not much to say about Monday’s Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why,” writes Glenn Greenwald. “There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident.”

♦ David Kenner muses on the difference between the Muslim Brotherhood’s official response to the bombs, and the message posted by a senior Brotherhood leader, Essam el-Erian, on his facebook page. El-Erian condemned the attack — but also linked it to the French war in Mali, the destruction in Syria and Iraq.

Elsewhere

♦ A senior Chinese auditor told Simon Rabinovitch that local government debt is “out of control” and could spark a bigger financial crisis than the US housing market crash. But don’t worry – there won’t be any sudden collapse in China’s financial system, says Jamil Anderlini in today’s Global Insight column – it’ll be slow.

On the theme of accountancy in China, Simon Rabinovitch and Adam Jones looked at how homegrown auditors are eroding the influence of established western firms in China.

♦ India’s first major theme park opens on Thursdsay. Among its rides is “a gigantic six-armed animatronic Hindu god, standing astride a trio of curly-horned fire-breathing rams”. Yes you should go – but in the meantime, read James Crabtree’s report.

♦ The 2013 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography has been awarded to five photographers from the Associated Press – Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen – for their “compelling coverage of the civil war in Syria, producing memorable images under extreme hazard.” You can see the images on the Pulitzer website (warning: some are graphic).

♦ InsideClimate News may be the leanest news start-up ever to be presented with a Pulitzer, says Brian Stelter – and they don’t even have a newsroom. Read more

Tags: Boston marathon, Muslim Brotherhood, Pulitzer prize, Smart Reads
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Smart Reads April 16, 2013

April 16, 2013 5:16 pm by Esther Bintliff

♦ JP Rathbone looks at the fading of Chávez’s political dream in Venezuela, arguing that the results of Sunday’s election represent “no kind of mandate for [Nicolás] Maduro or the radical socialism he espouses.”

♦ “Either I bought [the lumber], or I stole it. But I can’t have done both. And actually, I did neither.” Russian blogger Alexei Navalny talks to the FT’s Charles Clover, ahead of the start of his trial on Wednesday.

♦ The Washington Post has the story of a mysterious Iranian-controlled factory in Germany which closed its doors last month. Could it have been involved in a scheme to aid Iran’s rogue nuclear program?

♦ The debate around whether women can have it all has been swirling for a while now, but today psychotherapist Naomi Shragai considers the other side: men who struggle to balance their work with family time.

♦ Guinea-Bissau is considered one of the world’s leading narco-states. Adam Nossiter writes about a long-running US sting operation that managed to snare a former chief of the country’s navy.

♦ Young Turkish people living in Germany are being asked to choose between German or Turkish nationality because they don’t have the right to hold onto both once they reach the age of 23, reports Judy Dempsey in the New York Times.

♦ “The finish line at a marathon is a small marvel of fellowship,” writes Ezra Klein. “Today, the final line of the Boston Marathon is a crime scene.” Also on the subject of yesterday’s tragedy in Boston, the New Scientist has a post on what clues the bomb fragments may yield. Read more

Tags: Alexei Navalny, Guinea-Bissau, Hugo Chavez, Smart Reads, Venezuela
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Smart Reads March 25, 2013

March 25, 2013 12:49 pm by Esther Bintliff

Cyprus: they have a deal!

The €10bn Cyprus bailout was agreed in the early hours of Monday after what Peter Spiegel and Josh Chaffin descibe as “a stormy meeting of 17 eurozone finance ministers that lasted almost 12 hours”.
You can read the official eurogroup statement (“The Eurogroup fully supports the Cypriot people in these difficult circumstances”). FT Alphaville has done a close read of the terms, and who benefits/loses out.
Our Moscow correspondent Courtney Weaver reports that wealthy Russians who have put their money in Cypriot accounts are now being courted by a wave of bankers hoping to lure them to other locales.

Elsewhere:

Boris Berezovsky, once known as the “Godfather of the Kremlin”, was found dead at his home in the UK at the weekend. In the last decade of his life, he had become “Russia’s public enemy number one“, write Charles Clover and Andrew Jack in their obituary.
In the New York Times, CJ Chivers reveals that Arab governments and Turkey have increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition in recent months – with help from the CIA.
Leslie Hook writes on the declining fortunes of Shi Zhengrong, the founder of Suntech who became one of China’s richest men but now stands to lose much of his fortune. Meanwhile The Economist’s Schumpeter looks at what went wrong at Suntech, and why its bankruptcy was not just the fault of the difficult climate for solar.
In The New Yorker, William Finnegan profiles Gina Rinehart – Australia’s richest, and most controversial billionaire.

Tags: Smart Reads
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Smart Reads March 14, 2013

March 14, 2013 3:28 pm by Esther Bintliff

It’s a Pope! His name is Jorge Bergoglio, but he’ll be known as Francis. The FT’s Jude Webber profiles the “Pope with sandals on” – he’s known for sitting in the back row at church events, travelling by bus, visiting slums and speaking out against poverty. Alongside his good qualities, Webber notes that there are also some rather troubling allegations about his behaviour during Argentina’s military dictatorship.
The cardinals who have made their choice will be hoping that, “in addition to being a talented communicator, such as John Paul, or a respected theologian, such as Benedict, the new Pope will also be an efficient, modernising administrator – which neither of them was”, writes Tony Barber.
The New York Times’ Jim Yardley witnessed the mixed reaction of two Roman priests on hearing the news. “Mamma mia!” a startled Father Furgoni shouted. “Bergoglio?” He struggled to hide his disappointment. “An Argentine!” Father Piscola shouted. “I didn’t expect it, I didn’t expect it,” Father Furgoni muttered, shaking his head. “And he is also old!”
On the subject of Mayor Bloomberg’s attempted soda ban and David Cameron’s u-turn on a minimum price for alcohol in the UK, John Gapper makes the case that drinking yourself to death is not a right.
A debate is taking place on the pages of the FT comment section. Martin Wolf says Britain’s austerity is indefensible, but Chris Giles disagrees, arguing the chancellor George Osborne is too timid. What do you think?
Two years after the start of Syria’s uprising, Abigail Fielding-Smith reports from the country’s capital on the chaotic proliferation of actors who have taken over the defence of some of the city. You can also listen to Fielding-Smith speaking from Damascus in this week’s World podcast.
Dan Dombey went to the working class Istanbul district of Kasimpasha, to ask residents what they remembered of Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who celebrates his 10th anniversary as prime minister this week.
Who lives in One Hyde Park? Vanity Fair investigated: “We can conclude at least two things with certainty about the tenants of One Hyde Park: they are extremely wealthy, and most of them don’t want you to know who they are and how they got their money.”

Tags: austerity, One Hyde Park, Pope, Pope Francis, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Smart Reads, Syria, Vanity Fair
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