Articles

Merge the IMF and the World Bank

05.10.07 Publication:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a fine choice as the new head of the International Monetary Fund, and the job he will take up formally on November 1st is a...

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Can Brazil emulate China?

01.10.07 Publication:

Economic growth in Brazil in recent years has been disappointing, especially to the country’s many well-wishers abroad. During a commodity-price boom, and...

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Japan´s lessons for the financial crisis

01.10.07 Publication:

August is usually a quiet month in the financial markets. Even traders in bonds and shares take holidays. And, since markets generally become volatile in...

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The Age of Turbulence: Book review

30.09.07 Publication:

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. By Alan Greenspan Allen Lane £25 pp531 The common image of Alan Greenspan is of a brilliant but rather...

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Burma´s importance for China and India

27.09.07 Publication:

What happens now to the brave protestors in Burma, whether monks or ordinary citizens, is chiefly important for the Burmese themselves and for the fate of...

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Get rid of the public v private ideology

08.09.07 Publication:

It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, said Deng Xiaoping, as long as it catches mice. The great Chinese leader was trying to persuade his fellow...

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Nightmares about globalisation

03.09.07 Publication:

There are two popular nightmares about globalisation, and sadly neither is quite foolish enough to be easily proven false. Over the next year, both are going...

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Globalisation and the credit crunch

01.09.07 Publication:

August was such a hot month in the financial markets that it brought out all the sweatiest old cliches in the market-commentators’ lexicon. Traders were said...

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Olympics, smog and China

01.09.07 Publication:

At eight o’clock in the evening of the eighth of August, the eighth month of the eighth year of this decade, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic...

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Embarrass Beijing, don´t boycott

21.08.07 Publication:

The one-year countdown has begun in Tiananmen Square, for the Olympic Games that will open in Beijing at 8.08pm on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008. That...

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A healthy financial shake-out

17.08.07 Publication:

When financial markets rise by three or four percent each day, no one pays much attention. But when they fall each day by that amount, it becomes front-page...

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Sad about the Wall Street Journal

02.08.07 Publication:

If I had been one of the family shareholders in Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, I would probably have agreed to sell my shares to Rupert Murdoch....

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China turns inflationary

01.08.07 Publication:

For the past five years, companies around the world have talked of “the China price”, by which they mean the lowest price in their industry. China has come...

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The love of old buildings

01.08.07 Publication:

There are many things that Britain and Japan have in common, including our island status, our long histories as independent countries and our somewhat...

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Tony Blair´s lessons for Japan

28.07.07 Publication:

Tony Blair is undoubtedly a model for political success. After all, he survived for 10 years as Britain’s prime minister and won three general elections in a...

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Welcome, Chinese investors

25.07.07 Publication:

Foreigners don’t vote, and so they are a convenient target for politicians in all countries. That is why Europe’s trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson,...

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Shinzo Abe´s lessons for Gordon Brown

23.07.07 Publication:

It is hard to follow a superstar. In that regard, Britain’s Gordon Brown and Japan’s Shinzo Abe share a common predicament. Like Mr Abe in October 2006,...

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Anxiety, marketing and the BBC

14.07.07 Publication:

For many years, the British Broadcasting Corporation has had the nickname in England of “Auntie”. It is partly affectionate, since everyone in a family...

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Illusions of change

02.07.07 Publication:

What do we want from our political leaders? Wisdom, experience, steadiness under pressure, clarity of thought: those were once what most European voters seemed...

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Pain and the solution to climate change

01.07.07 Publication:

The debate over climate change has moved on—thank goodness. The gathering in Heiligendamm, Germany in early June of the leaders of the G8 rich industrial...

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The gap between Korea, Japan and the US

01.07.07 Publication:

When I lived full-time in Tokyo as a foreign correspondent in the mid-1980s, I used to visit South Korea quite frequently for my job. I enjoyed learning about...

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Praise the scientists who deny climate change

28.06.07 Publication:

The essence of science is uncertainty, or so we non-scientists believe. I grew up being taught the principles of Karl Popper, the great Austrian philosopher,...

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Tough love needed for climate change to stop

24.06.07 Publication:

Nowadays, we all think that the planet needs to be saved and we all want to do our bit to save it. That, at least, is what a visitor from outer space might...

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The European Union and Kosovo´s independence

24.06.07 Publication:

Russia’s rejection of the latest American and European proposal at the UN Security Council on helping Kosovo to become independent of Serbia looks like the...

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