The selection of French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to succeed disgraced compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hardly took anyone by surprise. Even before Tuesday’s IMF board meeting naming her managing director, Lagarde’s appointment had become a foregone conclusion for most …
Foreign Investment
Can French Bank Deal On Greek Debt Save The Euro?
Could the end of the Greek debt crisis be in view—and with it the pressure that has put the very future of the euro in jeopardy? That’s the hope behind a draft deal French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed Monday, under which France’s private banks holding some $21 billion in Greek sovereign debt would roll nearly 70% of that …
“Atomic Anne” Lauvergeon Replaced As Head Of Nuclear Giant Areva
Anne Lauvergeon–longed ranked by international publications as one of the most influential and powerful women in global business—will be replaced as chairman of Areva, the one-stop nuclear giant she created in 2001. Thursday’s announcement by France’s conservative government to part with Lauvergeon when her current contract …
The Google-China Spat Heats Up as Beijing Denies Hacking Attacks
Google and China aren’t exactly pals. The Internet company pulled part of its business out of mainland China last year, saying it was fed up with Beijing-imposed censorship regulations and what it believes were Chinese-originated attacks on its systems. (The fact that Google was lagging behind domestic search engines might have been a …
The Looming Food Crisis: Are the World’s Elites to Blame?
Julian Cribb’s The Coming Famine opens in Hokkaido, Japan, at a meeting of the G8. It’s 2008, the financial crisis is underway and food prices are soaring. Nonetheless, the attendees tuck into an eighteen course feast of caviar, sea urchin roe, Kyoto beef, conger eels, truffles and champagne, prepared by some sixty chefs. They also …
Why the G-8 Should Never Meet Again
The G-8 wraps up its 37th conclave May 27 at the French seaside resort of Deauville. By now, you may have seen some of the gathering’s glitzy snaps. Two seem to define the occasion: one of President Obama and Europe’s top potentates taking a chummy stroll along the Normandy coast, the other of pregnant French first lady Carla …
Woes Continue in China for an Apple Parts Manufacturer
Apple products are so popular in China that a riot broke out in early May when the new iPad 2 was first sold in a Beijing store. But Foxconn, one of its biggest parts manufacturers operating in China, has suffered a far more turbulent year. In the latest of the Taiwan-run company’s ongoing labor woes, three workers were killed and 15 …
Poor Panama. China’s Just Not That Into You.
The list of countries that have chosen diplomatic relations with Taiwan over mainland China reads like an exercise in national obscurity. The 23-nation compendium includes Burkina Faso, Tuvalu and Saint Kitts and Nevis, along with Palau, Swaziland and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Nevertheless, the People’s Republic has assiduously …
Tightening the Leash on China’s Internet—And a Bubbly Chinese Tech IPO
May 4 is known in Chinese history as the day in 1919 when university students in Beijing began nationalist protests that eventually led to an intellectual movement championing, among other things, democratic reform. So it was rather ironic that Chinese officials chose that day in 2011 to announce the creation of a new agency called the …
Ambassador Loses Fighter-Jet Bid, Takes Marbles, Goes Home
Some big news from New Delhi today on one of the world’s biggest outstanding defense orders: the $10 billion contract to supply 126 fighter jets to the Indian Air Force. After the news broke that both U.S. bids were out of the running, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, resigned.
This morning’s newspapers revealed that the …
A River’s Fate: Battles Loom over the Mekong
The Mekong River is one of the world’s most evocative waterways, a crucial channel that begins in China and runs through five other countries: Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Nations downstream, in particular, consider the river a lifeblood. But upriver in China, recently built dams have constrained the Mekong’s force, …
Why the BRICS Summit Won’t Accomplish Anything
Yep, just what the world needs—another international summit. On Thursday, leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa convened under the palm trees of China’s Hainan Island for the third BRICS summit. The acronym was coined back in 2001 by an economist at Goldman Sachs to describe the bright emerging economies of Brazil, …
Why Burma’s Sanctions Debate Doesn’t Really Matter
The Burma sanctions debate in the West is made largely immaterial by the investment currently flooding the country, mostly from Asian nations that have few moral reservations about enriching the Burmese ruling generals. Chief among the eager investors are China, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore and India. Their target? Burma’s rich …