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Hockey needs more than Google for his economic research
Australia: Wayne Swan Confounds His Domestic Critics
Australia: How Euromoney's Finance Minister Award Became a Political Football
Egypt: Banking on a
revolution
Thailand: Korn puts
Shinawatra government on watch
Untainted
talent leading from front
Former Libyan exile Ali Tarhouni may finally
get a chance to make a difference
With Tamil Tigers slain,
booming Sri Lanka makes up for lost time
The West practises selective
dudgeon
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain grease our wheels,
so they're all right
Egypt still waiting for
someone to lead
Indonesia is no role
model for Egypt
Let’s hope life after Mubarak does not
resemble the post-Suharto era
Orascom: A very modern tale of corporate finance
How do you solve a problem like Korea?
Making turmoil pay-
Egypt's richest man is not for fleeing
Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris knows a
thing or two about operating among strongmen in their dictatorships
Hot money threatens to
scorch Asia again
Just 13 years after the Asian Contagion, Eric
Ellis questions whether the region's reforms would prevent another crisis
Asian sirens cast a
spell but leave some things to be desired
They're robust and the road to the future,
but our nearest and dearest could resolve to do better
Singapore slung
The city-state's success as a financial haven
for Asia's wealthy is turning sour as GFC fallout enters the courts
Media mogul makes his mark in a
troubled land
Melbourne-raised Saad Mohseni is forging an
empire in his homeland of Afghanistan
Turks might not wait
Turkey, with its strong economy and links to
Asia, may not need to be part of the European Union
Why Farnood was flushed out
of Kabulbank
In the battle to rebuild war-torn
Afghanistan, Kabulbank inserted itself as a key player, building the country's
largest deposit base and becoming the payment agent for many government
enterprises. But a run on the bank in August led to the ousting of colourful
poker-playing bank owner Sherkhan Farnood. What does this mean for the country's
banking sector?
The money-making machine of Singapore Inc
IN THE fomenting debate over Singapore Inc's
bid to buy a most vital pillar of Australia's economic architecture, there is
something deliciously apt that the decisive call on the Australian Stock
Exchange will probably be made by Canberra's independent members of Parliament
A most uncivil
service
ASIA'S monumental sporting events change
nations; indeed, that seems to be the point of the billions lavished on
them.....and so it was supposed to be for India and its Commonwealth Games that
have just come to a close in Delhi, the biggest single global event yet staged
by India
Indonesia: New dawn
slowed by speed limits
In December 1967, the prominent US magazine
The Atlantic made a foray into the Pacific, to look at Indonesia. Fast forward
43 years - 30 of them under Suharto - one is struck by just how much of the 1967
article could be written about today's Indonesia under the President, Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, with just the names - but not all of them - changed
Malaysia stumbling
ONE of Australia's key partners in Asia is
struggling. Given the way its leaders have taunted Australia over the years,
schadenfreude at its plight would be understandable. But this should be
resisted, for if Malaysia stumbles, the effects may ripple across the region
Double A team inspires new hope in Indonesia
Don't bet on Kabul Bank
On the verge of collapse, Kabul Bank operates in a financial system we would
barely recognise
Evangelical business network takes Asia
Say a little prayer
New evangelical, deal-making networks are
tiptoeing to the edges of power in south-east Asia
Thailand's perfect
solution
BIG problems require big ideas to fix them
and, in Asia, few problems are bigger than the red-yellow divide that bedevils
Thailand
Thailand's finance minister Korn faces the
ultimate stress test
Finance minister Korn Chatikavanij has
steered the Thai economy successfully through huge political and social
upheaval. But his long-term aim is to connect with Thailand's people, and not
just its financial and business elite, to bring prosperity to the majority.
Eric Ellis shadowed Korn as he travelled beyond Bangkok, examining the
extent of the grassroots challenges Korn faces to effect meaningful change in a
country ill-served by previous incumbents
Thailand: Korn Steps Out in Samut Sakorn
Gibraltar - Cracks in the Rock?
Tiny Gibraltar is an ocean away from
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but it doesn’t take much traversing of the Rock’s
lanes to get a distinctly Groundhog Day feeling that Bill Murray might recognize
Comparisons between how US and Indonesia have dealt with their
respective environmental crises are striking
What is ''The String of Pearls?''
The
model in war-weary Sri Lanka is Singapore but the feel is more
Suharto's Indonesia
Karachi under siege
IT IS a measure of the limited appeal of
Karachi, Pakistan's bumptious commercial capital, that eager taxi drivers
try to lure their few tourist passengers to a laundry
Finally free, Proctor warns of Qatar's
complexities
The nightmare of being held against his
will is finally over for David Proctor, the former chief executive of Al-Khaliji
Bank. Reunited with his family, he can finally reveal the extent of his
ordeal, and issues a stark warning to other finance professionals looking to
do business in Qatar
Pakistan's central bank governor Syed
Salim Raza resigns before our very eyes
Euromoney’s correspondent has spent more
than two decades navigating Asia’s often fathomless vagaries. But this was
an exceptional experience
Qataris score own goal in banking stoush
WHAT is more important, money or liberty?
David Proctor is in no doubt - it is liberty every day of the week
Slow road to reform
LIFE'S daily drama that is modern
Indonesia can be glibly boiled down to an arm-wrestle between goodies and
baddies. The reformist goodies are gathered under the moral and electoral
authority of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, now a year into a second
five-year term and as popular as ever. Reform is sclerotic, but it is
happening and Indonesians are starting to believe that democracy delivers
not just a vote, but credible institutions
Nightmare over for UK banker held in Qatar (see
also
The Banker Who Cant Get Out of Qatar)
David Proctor, the former CEO of Al-Khaliji
Bank who had been kept in the Gulf state against his will for 14 months, has
finally been allowed to leave Qatar and will be reunited with his family
this weekend. Eric Ellis, the reporter who broke news of his plight, reveals
that no charges were ever brought against Proctor, who says his experience
makes him caution others about doing business in Qatar
Such is China’s opacity that we may never
really know what went on concerning Stern Hu
Indonesia's central question
Touted as the next Bric country, Indonesia
has avoided the worst of the financial crisis and its economy is powering ahead
- but is that despite or because of a vacancy at the head of the country's
central bank?
Islamic finance: Hub or hubris?
Shariah banking is becoming big business in
Southeast Asia, with Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta battling for the title of regional
Islamic finance centre. But even the most optimistic bankers fear further
expansion could be stymied by arcane regulation and lack of cross-border
consensus
Thailand's royal ill-health
threatens to infect ASEAN
BARELY affected by the Atlantic financial
crisis, ASEAN's regional economies are vaulting ahead and presenting sexy
business opportunities for corporate Australia....but for all the
neighbourhood's prospects and rising consumer classes, there remains a ticking
time bomb lurking at its heart: Thailand.
Kuala Lumpur a world financial centre
through growth in Islamic banking
Banks run on Koranic principles are very
popular, writes Eric Ellis in Kuala Lumpur
Qatar? Be warned?
WHAT do you know about Qatar?
Sri Lanka: A one family state?
The Banker Who Cant Get Out of Qatar
David
Proctor thought he had found a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a Gulf
financial powerhouse at Al-Khaliji Bank. It didn't work out. But almost a year
after he was removed as chief executive Proctor's life is in limbo, as Qatar's
authorities decline to grant him an exit visa that would reunite him with his
family. Eric Ellis investigates
Thais in a bind
Thailand has found much-needed stability
under the Abhisit Government but maintaining it is a problem
City Life-Dili
Sleepy
Dili, capital of East Timor, doesn't have much going for it. Its tallest
building is just three storeys
Crony v reformer; fight becomes feisty in
Jakarta
IT IS Asia's feud of the year, and one that
could define whether Indonesia makes it to international investment grade, or
will spend some more time in the economic basket-case category
Fire rages over Red Dragon "prawn ultimatum"
A spat between a company controlled by one of
Asia's richest families and a group of well-known western investors is turning
ugly. Owners of Red Dragon's exchangeable bonds have moved to put the company in
default. Parent company CP Prima is fighting back hard. As Eric Ellis reports,
it's all part of the bitter cocktail that is Indonesia's capital markets
Dubai's debt crisis - A 'new paradigm' built
on sand
At Dubai's soaring, spurious peak, one
factoid the emirate's bling-burdened battalion of 'corporate communications
consultants' liked to slip to junketing media was that Dubai had the world's
densest concentration of cranes. Impossible to verify but too good to ignore,
the glib observation almost always made it into media reports. It compelled
people to want to go where the action was: subliminally, it suggested an economy
where the fast buck came easy
The Dubai 'miracle' was always a mirage of
spin
NOW that the external impact of Dubai's
sovereign debt crisis seems to have passed, for now at least, what's the big
lesson from this drama-in-the-dunes? I think it boils down quite simply...
THERE must be something about Asian
potentates, benevolent or otherwise, that gets those expatriate
corporate hormones racing to lavish love in spades on them
Singapore’s leaders aren’t keen on
criticism, frequently winning world-record libel damages in their own courts
from the few who dare
Indonesian reform the path to investment
PESKY corporate regulators sniffing around the business? Stock exchange on your
case? Not in Jakarta, where it's plain sailing for all manner of corporate
governance fiddles
From financial powerhouses to the houses of
power
Former bankers are emerging as political
leaders across a region that could desperately use the economic smarts of expert
high-financiers, perhaps fixing the impact of mistakes made by colleagues
elsewhere
Formula for excess
Singapore’s free-wheeling private bankers enjoyed the ride of their lives in the
pre-crisis years, but with government intervention and a clutch of lawsuits
looming, it looks as though many are finally running out of road
WITH Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) re-elected
for a second term as Indonesia’s president, the big question Jakarta bankers are
asking is whom he will appoint to his cabinet
World turns disapproving eyes on Singapore
banquet
WERE every high school as wonderful as
Singapore's United World College....
Each morning, a convoy of chauffeur-driven
Mercedes, BMWs and SUVs sweep up to the expansive campus, dropping well-shod
students dangling all manner of modish teenage bling; mobile phones, computers,
designer this and that. The sumptuous grounds are more suggestive of a five-star
resort than a secondary school
Sri Lanka's president talks to Forbes
about the war and the economy
The World’s Most Powerful Women - Emilia
Pires
Exiled to Australia at age 15, she spent 24
years away from East Timor. Good experience for her job as finance minister
East Timor's Finance Minister, Emilia Pires,
remembers well her first days at Moreland High School in the tough Coburg of
the 1970s
Afghanistan needs an economic leader
The Karzai regime has lost the will to rule
Postwar Sri Lanka Holds Promise, at Last
After a
long civil war, Sri Lanka looks ready to do business
SINGAPOREANS aren’t usually given to
open criticism of the Lee family that has ruled them for half a
century. Rightly or wrongly, some presume that in their tightly
controlled island state, walls have ears, and one never knows who is
listening. But this time it’s different.
The Chinese are happy to call Australia
their true friend until we dare to question their unarguable rightness, says
Eric Ellis
MIGHT it just be that after President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's sweeping re-election, the era of Indonesia's
grasping cronies is coming to an end?
East beats West in
the Land of Morning Calm
CROWDED, dynamic, bewildering Seoul — the
thrusting capital of Australia's third-largest trading partner; the world's most
technologically wired nation-city, boasting the world's fastest broadband; home
to the world's best airport; and, thanks to its kimchi-loving commuters, the
only mass transit system that permanently reeks of garlic
City Life: Morning calm in financial markets
despite mad Kim’s nuclear endgame
Kookmin has good news for Asian bond market
Under Siege
Kidnappings, extortion and mayhem make Nepal
a tough place to do business. But an American woman and her son have managed to
keep their distillery company going
Everest: a risky business
Climbing the world’s highest peak is the
ultimate adventure, says Eric Ellis, but with trips costing up to $100,000 each
and numerous fatalities each season, it can be an expensive one too
Thailand's lesson For the West
East Timor: Learning on the Job
East Timor's politicians can't agree on how
to handle its oil and gas wealth. So Venancio Alves Maria puts the cash into T
bills. Smart move.
Campaign fever and the corruption crackdown
make Indonesia sweat
President Yudhoyono may seem to be pandering
to Islamists, but the grafters will be running scared if he wins another term
Eric Ellis presents his seven-point plan to
halt the country’s eight-year decline
The return of the old-school Thais
Eric Ellis meets the Wykehamist and the Old
Etonian who head recession-hit Thailand’s new government, and asks whether
foreign investors can have confidence in them
The perils of insulting King Bhumibol
Eric Ellis ponders the Thai monarch’s
political role as an Australian writer is prosecuted for lèse majesté
A cornered tiger still has teeth
One of the world's most notorious terrorists
seems to be cornered....
Troubled Thailand
Abhisit Vejjajiva is the latest to lead
Thailand in a tumultuous 12 months. Does he herald economic reform or simply a
new round of governmental intrigue?
Putting
Indonesian Governance to the Test
Where on Earth can you find a 500% return
these days? Here's one that its sponsors claim is guaranteed. Hmmm.
Corruption is the hot election issue, but
the biggest fish are yet to be fried
It’s early days in Indonesia’s election
season, but already Jakarta is transformed into a riot of colour....
Bye-Bye Bakrie?
Most of his wealth has disappeared, and
he'll be gone from the cabinet next year, but in Indonesia,
never count out Aburizal Bakrie
Are the Turks ready to be part of Europe? Brussels says no but Kylie says yes
It was Kylie Minogue who made me think Turkey
and Europe might just about be ready for each other
What'll You Have Mate?
Foster's hasn't achieved the success in wine
than it's had in beer. But if the brewer can pare its products, investors should
have reason to raise a glass
Australia: Out of pocket in the Outback
Turkey: Its about the journey not the destination
Australia: Swan is happy but not all Australians are as impressed
The Philippines: Teves faces up to taxing issues
Our Sinocentric future
As China struts the world stage in the
lead-up to the Olympics, its behaviour has been more revealing about future
relations than anyone could have imagined
Overshooting the runway
THE best Asian budget airline story I’ve
heard was in 2006, while taking a short walk in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush to visit
the old princely state of Chitral, a Shangri-la where Osama bin Laden is said to
be enjoying the alpine air and hospitality
He'd rather be nude: how an expat found peace and business success
IN AN ERA of Enrons and HIHs, Opes Primes and
Chartwells, an unusual French-born businessman in India may well be the
corporate antidote for this age of greed
Honey, disconnect the phone, I'm back in Soviet Central Asia
SHE'S young and glamorous, and rich too.
Though still only in her mid-30s, there seems nothing Gulnara Karimov can't do
Thailand Looks for Return to Growth
IT WAS a simple act but, for Asia, an unusual
one. But if it catches on, it could mark a new era for how economic policy is
executed in coup-plagued Thailand
Hearts and Jobs in Sri Lanka
CHATTING with Ajith Cabraal, the amiable governor of the Central Bank of Sri
Lanka, in his lofty eyrie above Colombo, one could be forgiven that he’s
presiding over some approximation of a Switzerland-sur-tropique
Whatever happened to Sir Richard Evans?
Eric Ellis tracks down the former chairman of
BAE Systems amid the wintry steppes of Kazakhstan, where he is trying to
introduce Western notions of corporate governance
A Tell-All Book
About Rupert Murdoch
Few of Rupert
Murdoch’s former employees are eager to write about him. Likewise, few of his
publications are eager to review a book about him. This review was turned down
by the Far Eastern Economic Review,
which is part of Murdoch-owned Dow Jones, after it was initially accepted. Nor
was it reviewed by the Murdoch-owned Australian
or the Australian Literary Review
Dubai's rags-to-riches miracle built on the
toil of exploited foreign workers
Today, in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, the
great and good of the Australian Football League will slap the backs of local
expatriates and home-grown potentates in a dollar-drenched celebration of all
things Australian, Dubaian and corporate
Afghanistan's Central Bank numbers crunched
by Indian accountant
WE ALL know Iraq’s bad but to hear many
experts tell it, Afghanistan is the genuine headache of the age, military and
economic
Farewell to Asia’s greatest kleptocrat
The death of Indonesia’s former dictator may
spur attempts to recover the loot accumulated by his family
Keeping it in the family
After a decade of concealing their enormous wealth, the Soeharto offspring
suddenly have found themselves back in the limelight
The curtain finally falls on Suharto, with
the actors still performing their roles
Singapore: Libel case a
test for Murdoch
Dow Jones brought some unwanted baggage
with it
The Death of Bhutto
The most pressing priority for Pakistan after
today's brutal termination of the Bhutto dynasty is to stop this difficult
nation plunging into civil war
Inside Samruk, Kazakhstan's
new state holding company
Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
has decreed the creation of a state holding company, roughly on
Singaporean/Malaysian lines, to oversee
and rationalize the country’s lucrative but inchoate collection of state-owned
companies and foster corporate governance. Eric Ellis reports on a confrontation
of cultures
Interview with Sir Richard Evans, Samruk
chairman
A British corporate warhorse, Sir Richard
Evans, has been hired to pull the Samruk operation together
Banking Afghan-style
PERHAPS the best way to view Corporate
Afghanistan — there’s a term you don’t often hear — is to regard it as a
never-ending spigot draining sovereign wealth funds into the world’s biggest tax
haven
In a battle that could widen the rift
between the two neighboring countries, Indonesia says Singapore
violates its antimonopoly laws
Unease grows between Jakarta and Singapore
Resentment and envy still appear to underpin
a testy relationship, writes Eric Ellis
Pratt Fall
In a sorry end to a glittering career,
Australian cardboard-box king Richard Pratt was caught price-fixing
How business thrives in
Pakistan's Epaulette Empire
PAKISTAN'S military dictator Pervez Musharraf
has declared martial law, effectively mounting a coup on himself
Splintering Asia's glass
ceiling
Choosing the region's top businesswomen is
easy, writes Eric Ellis, but where are all the Australians?
Web of cash, power and
cronies
Singapore isn't just skilled at mandatory
executions of drug traffickers, running an excellent airport and selling cameras
on Orchard Road.
It also does a useful trade keeping Burma's
military rulers and their cronies afloat
More chaos than calm in eye
of the Tigers
City Life - Colombo
Peace would be a better business plan for
the island of a hundred ministers...
Tea with the Tigers becomes a turbulent brew
Humbled
but not off the Flight Path
A failed $9 billion takeover bid in May by
a private-equity group for Australian flag carrier Qantas— which would have been
the biggest deal in aviation history—seems to have humbled the airline’s
pugnacious CEO, Geoff Dixon
Wendi
Deng profile
Vintage Ceylon
Sri Lankan tea maker Dilmah is taking a leaf from the wine industry to label its beverage as high-end and chic
Singapore cashes in on a
raft of graft
The island state has laid out the welcome mat
for Jakarta's dubious tycoons
City Life: Singapore
The island state that wishes it could be
towed to less murky waters
City Life - War has already been declared in
Iran — between Coca-Cola and the theocrats
The Shah is Dead. Long live the Shah — and I don’t
mean Reza Pahlavi, the 45-year-old pretender to his late father’s Peacock
Throne, whom many in Washington would like to install atop this most vexatious
nation
Iran's cola war
Sanctions? Coke and Pepsi found a way
around them and are battling for market share in Tehran with local Zamzam Cola
India: just as messy as it has always been
Booming, business-mad India is not the full
story, as Eric Ellis discovers, to his cost
Access of Evil
It's difficult enough getting into the secretive
theocracy that is Iran, but once inside, you enter a world locked in the past
and riddled with corruption and cronyism
Lost in translation
Cold, lonely, annoyed, uninformed and without
toiletries in the heart of the Axis of Evil
Ferry expensive journey
Kangaroo Island is in the thrall of an overpriced monopoly ferry service to and
from the South Australian mainland
Hot spots, pot shots and gold pots for the brazen and the bold
Compile a fake CV, head for a war zone, and a fortune in taxpayers' dollars can be yours
The Iron Lady at the Heart of
Pakistan's New Economy
IT WAS France’s wartime resistance leader
and later President Charles de Gaulle who lamented how difficult effective
governance was in a nation where there are 246 varieties of cheese. Pakistan’s
new central banker Dr Shamshad Akhtar would sympathise
Frontier of Terror
The
Pakistan-Afghanistan border is awash with arms and drugs – and traces of Osama
bin Laden
High stakes for Packer in
Singapore
SO DO James Packer and friends have the
elusive "wow factor"?
Iran's car industry stuck in 1970s gear
Petrol's cheap and business is booming. But
US sanctions still hurt
Afghanomics
Five years after the war, Kabul is showing signs
of economic life. But making money there is still risky business
Defending Afghanistan
With books about George Washington arrayed
on a shelf behind him in his office in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai
talked to FORTUNE recently about the nation-building challenges that still
confront his country five years after the fall of the Taliban
Bouquets for a Coup d’État
If there's such a thing as the right way to
topple a democratically elected government, then Thailand’s generals might be
just the strongmen to teach that lesson
Thai
adventure backfires on Singapore Inc
The fallout from the Thai coup is yet to
hit Singapore's Madame Ho
Warlords & Peace
A weak president, untouchable warlords and
a resurgent Taliban are dooming Afghanistan to an endless cycle of violence and
corruption, funded by Australian aid and protected by our troops, as Eric Ellis
reports from Kabul
Afghan bank takes a gamble on success
Life's a bit of a lottery for some depositors in the strife-torn country
Tehran’s top banker
looks to the future
Ebrahim Sheibany is governor of Iran’s central bank,
a position he has held for three years. He tells Eric Ellis in Tehran that as
far as economic policy is concerned, little has changed, despite the election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president
Afghanistan Gets Back To
Business
The country’s newly revitalized banking
system throws up colourful characters and eccentric approaches to marketing. But
overseeing it all is a rigorous central banker with solid US commercial banking
experience
Made in Iran
Whether or not Iran is building nuclear
weapons, its auto industry, the largest in the Middle East, is learning how to
cope with privation—and planning for worse.
Karzai: One term is enough
The first democratically elected Afghan
president suggests he won't run again -- and gives a frank assessment of his
first five years on the job
India's bureaucracy is a
bummer for the boom
Economic growth is yet to improve the
ground-level conditions for business in India
Good Morning Kabul
In Kabul, a feature window and a bakery
illustrate Afghanistan’s decline
Revenge in Basra
An Iraqi-born, Australian economist’s family may have
been shot in revenge for his advisory work
Protonomics
The Proton, Malaysia's national car, is
losing market share. Can the company be weaned from its government subsidies?
Prime Time for Badawi
Biographies of Nelson Mandela, Richard
Nixon, and Che Guevara sit alongside tomes from ex-Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca and
celebrity chef Nigella Lawson on the bookshelves in Abdullah Badawi’s study in
Putrajaya.
Mahathir's grand vision
for Malaysia turns a little sour
Malaysia's grandiose economic policies of
the past have created a headache for Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi
Singapore's budget airlines; Low Cost, High
Competition
Chong Phit Lian, the new CEO of Jetstar Asia, a
Singapore budget airline, used to run Singapore's mint. That's the last time she
was awash in cash
Qantas' Jetstar Asia headache dogs Dixon
MADAME Chong Phit Lian, Geoff Dixon's new right-hand
stewarding Qantas' Big Asian Adventure, Jetstar Asia, used to run Singapore's
government mint. Unfortunately for Dixon and Qantas shareholders that's probably
the last time Madame Chong was awash in cash. The struggling budget airline, 45
per cent owned by Qantas, is proving anything but a licence to print money
Singapore Inc on the nose
Singapore's Temasek is rich, powerful and
on the prowl. But it didn't count on the latest backlash from Thailand
A Hot Seat Down Under
Its a good thing Sol Trujillo secured one
of Australia's highest executive pay packages--about $8 million--when he signed
on last year as CEO of its biggest company, Telstra. At least he's being
handsomely compensated for the personal attacks he has weathered since joining
the government-controlled telephone company
Ship of fuels
The US fears a P&O terror takeover, but
Middle East petrodollars are welcome in Australia
A Fridge Full of Dollars
The Americans have put the mess back into
Mesopotamia, says an Iraqi-Australian economist after trying to help the
reconstruction of his birthplace
Singapore Stumbles
Is Ho Ching Losing Her Touch?
Singapore v Dubai
The
Battle of the (Very Hot) City-States
Let's Make a Deal
After 15 years on
the lam, with $1.5bn missing and facing 18 charges from one of the biggest
corporate scandals in Australian history, Abraham Goldberg finally wants to come
home
Macquarie's
latest quarry
Wizards of Oz, a bank in Australia makes a bid for
London’s stock exchange
"Asians Don't Hug"
Eric Ellis on the background to the hanging in
Singapore last week of an Australian drug-dealer
Cobbling a Media Empire in Kabul
Saad Mohseni works the departure at
Dubai’s Terminal 2 like a Davos pro
Hang Democracy, Let's Trade
Singaporeans don't like to be reminded they do business with Burmese narco-traffickers,
and admit they don't mind punishing the innocent to preserve law and order
On the run
Abe Goldberg has gone to ground since last week's
astonishing expose. Now Polish authorities are determined to see that justice is
done
Gotcha, Goldberg!
The one that got away:
When Melbourne rag trade magnate Abraham Goldberg disappeared, $1.5bn went
missing with him. How we tracked down Australia's biggest corporate fugitive
The Power of Two
Now that John Howard has a strong rapport
with the Indonesian president, it's time he got chummy with SBY's more
influential deputy
Privatizing Pakistan
Islamabad's long-delayed sale of state
telecom operator PTCL should be encouragement -- and a warning
Musharraf to investors: ‘Help me fight
terrorism’
President Pervez Musharraf wants to court
foreign investors.
Asia's 25 Most Powerful
Our second annual ranking of the smartest,
most successful, most influential business leaders from South Korea to Saudi
Arabia
Indonesia v Newmont
The gold-mining company is accused of poisoning villagers. Will this be a test
case for the country's judicial reform?
A Bank For Women Cleans House
The First Women Bank of Pakistan may well
be every banker’s dream
Finally, Some Good
News for Pakistan
Pervez Musharraf is a happy man. The
Pakistani President finds himself where no previous leader of his country has
been before: running a boom economy. In the past four quarters, according to
Pakistan’s Finance Ministry, GDP growth has averaged 8.4%—“the second-biggest
economic expansion in Asia after China,” Musharraf crows.
Foster's big bet on wine
Foster's may be Australian for beer, as the ads would have it, but CEO Trevor O’Hoy is intent on making the company Australian for wine
Island at Sea
Sri Lanka’s efforts to rebuild after the
tsunami have been slowed by
bureaucracy and renewed ethnic tensions. Can President Kumaratunga
use the disaster to transform the island’s political culture?
Project oru:
A reporter’s account of one personal mission
Interview with President Chandrika
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka
Asia Hits The Jackpot
Blackjack in Singapore? Poker in Pyongyang?
Casino operators are hoping to cash in on gambling’s new frontier
Red opportunity makes Singapore complacent again
The name Chen Jiulin doesn't roll off the
Western tongue in quite the same manner as Nick Leeson but many Singaporeans see
awkward parallels
Newmont Mining Gets the
Shaft
There are difficult places to invest in, and then
there is Indonesia
Star Trekkin'
While Qantas' Geoff Dixon once equated Singapore
Inc with the darker quadrants of airspace, he now covets an alliance with its
more lucrative enterprise.
Creature from the
gold lagoon
Locals claim a monster lurks in the waters of
northern Sulawesi's Buyat Bay. Mining leviathan Newmont says that's nonsense
Wireless Wars
How a frozen-food salesman from New Jersey - a
former refugee from war-torn Afghanistan - built his country's largest wireless
network
Asia's Most
Powerful Women
Death and Taxes in Kabul
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is battling warlords,
cabinet colleagues, indifferent global donors and stomach cancer as he struggles
to salvage Afghanistan’s ravaged economy. If he fails, the world could pay an
enormous price. Eric Ellis reports from Kabul
Asia's
Most Powerful People
The rise and rise of China
is posing extreme economic challenges for Asian nations, and will continue to do
so
Australia and Malaysia
should be good friends. With Dr Mahathir gone, they may well soon be
Technology Takeaway
It has improved the bottom line for multinationals
and has fueled a boom in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Yet the
outsourcing of call centre jobs to India is set to become an Australian election
issue
Making Dubai an Aviation Hub
At Dubai's airport Emirates rules the runways
Reach for the Skies
Aviation gas is up. Ticket prices are up and United
is in trouble – again. But Emirates is thriving and with 90 new planes landing
soon, its boss is expecting competitors to squeal
Victoria's Secret's Secret? Hint: It's In the Indian Ocean
Sri Lanka's largest private company has overcome 20
years of civil war to become the lingerie chain's biggest supplier
Qantas's Singapore fling
Qantas' move into the busy South-East Asia budget
air lanes may be $50m well spent or a one-way ticket to shareholder strife
Mighty Mokhtar Strikes Out
He was one of Mahathir Mohamad’s closest business
allies. Now a new Prime Minister has cut the mogul down to size
Executive gets down to
bare essentials
A middle-class Frenchman turned Hindu monk
has the faithful in India kissing his feet, Eric Ellis reports
Punter of the Punjab
The baggy greens mix it with turbans
and Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting speak Hindi down the corporate end of
Australia's one-day tour. After all, Aussie cricketers are as gods in this
cricket-obsessed land
Holy CEO!
Christian Fabre dresses down at work, but
not just to polo shirt and chinos. This 62-year-old industrialist works in the
nude
Bali economy victim of nightclub bombings
Indonesia's famous tropical resort isle still struggles
with terrorism's effects
LOST HORIZONS
The hopes of a generation of Indonesians
were destroyed in the rubble of the Sari Club
PIRATES OF THE
EAST INDIES
Indonesia holds a world record that
Jakarta doesn’t like to make public: the most pirate-infested seas on the planet
Singapore's New Straits
Piracy
on the high seas is on the rise in South-East Asia
Peace talks in Sri Lanka have prompted a mini-boom,
with investors eager to profit from the potential of a country some hope will
become the Singapore or Dubai of the sub-continent
Diplomatic score: The UN's man in Myanmar has business
interests there too
Royal Returns
In a rare interview, Yos Euarchukiati tells how a benevolent monarchy is
being rescued from old-world deals
Royal Rehab: Thailand's Crown Property
Bureau gets a corporate makeover
Thailand's royals live off the income of the Crown Property Bureau,
created in 1936 as the absolute monarchy evolved into a constitutional one
Conoco Timor - A
battle in East Timor
East Timor, a nation that depends on foreign aid to
fill its coffers, is about to become a country that relies on one company to
fuel its economy
Tony Oates, my
part in his downfall
Bulletin correspondent Eric Ellis recalls
how he tracked down Alan Bond's alleged bagman in the shadows of the Gdansk
shipyards
Kiss and
Telco
Why is the chairman of Singapore's
leading telecommunications company buying shares in a rival telco?
Good Morning, Indonesia
Why is Singapore Inc. investing bigtime in its neighbor?
Battling the new
millennium bug
This Virus Won't
Stop
Dead Air
All hail SingTel Optus chief, a modest
profit
Son shines over
Optus profit
ST battles to prove its
worth
Downhill Racer
Ow enjoys excesses of
successes
Singapore
Fling
Trade Minister Mark Vaile hopes the new
free-trade deal with Singapore will spell paydirt for Australia. Eric Ellis
reports it may not be such a walk-up start.
SingTel
proves a quaint little learner
Trouble
in Paradise - Bali Bomb Blasts Indonesia
'Our defense to convince
people that doing business in Indonesia is safe is finished.'
Nightmare
on dream island
Tycoon stirs a typhoon
When you are a billionaire, you can do
things that ordinary people cannot
Blood and Gold in
Indonesia
Freeport McMoran CEO James Moffett has a
lot to worry about
Air Asia -
no-frills seeker
YTL
in Hot Water
Francis Yeoh reckons he does business with
a huge advantage
Flying to a New Beat
With no previous airline industry experience,
Tony Fernandes didn't mind breaking the rules at Air Asia
A Shot Across Singapore's Bow Dueling
Ports
'If we can't add value and offer a superior
product at a lower cost, we'll have to lose.'
Oil Under Troubled Waters
Letter from Dili: Independence brought fireworks and hope, but oil
will bring money
A
Shot Across Singapore's Bow Dueling Ports
Mohamed Sidik Shaik Osman points to the
mile-and-a-half stretch of new wharves, their cranes glinting in Malaysia's
tropical sun.
Inside the House of Tata
The House of Tata, big and historic, is one of
India's most beloved companies. It is also a mess
The
Battle for San Miguel
The government says Cojuangco's 47% stake is
an ill-gotten prize from the Marcos era.
Meet
Kuala Lumpur's Mr. Big
Krishnan's Rolodex includes names like Jack Welch and Rupert
Murdoch.
Asia's
Dark Skies. Only the fittest will survive
Airlines in Crisis: From Bad to Worse
From Gas Station Czar to Megawati
Power Broker
Observers hope that Taufik Kiemas won't return the country to
Suharto-style
cronyism.
Inching Toward Transparency
Step aside, Sage of Omaha. You've got big-time competition in Singapore.
Not even the legendary Warren Buffett has made the calls claimed by
Singapore's Government Investment Corp.
SIA
Hits Turbulence
There are three certainties to life Down Under: The beers will be cold,
the beaches will be golden, and people will grumble about air travel.
SingTel's
Trouble Down Under
Singapore Telecommunications CEO Lee Hsien Yang isn't a natural gambler.
But in one of the biggest bets of his career-a $7 billion bid for Aussie
telephone company Optus-Lee has a lot staked on the outcome: his job,
Singapore's prestige, even an exacting father's approval.
Flextronics
- Singapore Slip
The new economy might have been designed in California garages, but a lot
of it was built on Singapore assembly lines.
Asian rivalry turns into
a ship fight
Dili
faces future, hopeful of oil
Up in Smoke
An archipelago-ing to
hell
Tailspin of his own
making
Big trouble brewing
We are now mechanics,
if not masters, of our destiny
Business of terror
main event of year
In the island state, many
hands make elite work.
SIA chief Cheong struts
his stuff - Life sometimes imitates art.
Sussing out Singapore
A
Goode serve of national interest
What's
Separating SingTel and Optus?
Canberra.
Australia's
government has to O.K. the $8 billion telecom takeover. Despite many objections,
chances are it will get the nod
A
Way to Stop the Aussie Dollar's Slide?
One prominent
businessman's bold proposition: Ditch the native currency and adopt America's
greenback
The
Perplexing Tale of India's Two Faces
The
contrast between a sports hero and a fallen politico shows how the country is
torn between great potential and reform-killing corruption
Why
Shell Could Get Shocked Down Under
Its $5 billion offer for Australia's Woodside Petroleum might fall victim to a
populist crusade against globalization.
It's
Getting Hard to Paper Over APP's Crisis
The debt-laden pulp-and-paper giant, owned by a flamboyant Chinese-Indonesian
tycoon, may be on the verge of collapse.
SingTel's
Connections May Be Costing It Plenty
Now deregulated, Singapore's former phone monopoly is struggling to reassure
investors that its government ties aren't binding
Who's
Gonna Gulp Down Foster's?
Since the Aussie brewer nabbed U.S. wine maker Beringer, it's in the takeover
crosshairs of any number of possible buyers.
Why
the firm's Optus bid could be good for Singapore
SingTel
Heads Down Under
Asia
Buzz: Hot Property
An
ex-banker turns a blowtorch on techpacific.com, and turns heads
Singapore:
Letting Go
As
its leaders come to grips with the new
rules of the digital age, the city-state once known for its stuffiness begins
to loosen the reins on pop culture and political discussion
Internet:
The New New Asia
The
continent watched glumly as a New Economy rose--faster than Yahoo!'s
share price--from Silicon Valley. Now, with a raft of homegrown start-ups ready
to
make waves, it's Asia's turn!
How
High Will It Go?
OPEC's
determination to push up the price of oil could derail Asia's fragile economic
recovery
Help
Wanted?
Foreigners hired to repair Asia's banks face a
tough and thankless task
Who
Guards the Guards?
The organization created to clean up corporate
Indonesia is itself tainted by a corruption scandal
Being
Free is Not the Same Thing as Being Prosperous
Although coffee is East Timor's No. 1 export
earner, the territory's economic viability may not amount to a hill of beans
Black American Dream Comes True In Blossomfields
The good burghers of Olympia Fields will today
celebrate Martin Luther King Jnr Day in the United States, along, notionally,
with 25 million African-Americans who comprise about a tenth of the US
population.
The Real Dream Factory
" Is that a Pentium you have there?" It's not a question one expects
of a hotel room service waiter delivering breakfast. But if hospitality staff in
Hollywood are stereotyped as "waiting" to be discovered, in Silicon
Valley they're biding time en route to becoming the next Bill Gates, Larry
Ellison or Mark Andriessen.
The Real Talk Is About The Latino Dollar
It's an idea that's been aired recently in Hong Kong, in Brussels, and with
the simultaneous advent of the euro in Europe and the ongoing economic
turbulence in Brazil, it's an idea that's gaining, er, common currency in smart
Latin American salons.
SHEIK YAMANI: STILL 'MR OIL'
