Features
It’s Time, Rupert
IN THE blue corner, there’s ‘Dave Snooty’ as Private Eye depicts the British Prime Minister; a privileged old Etonian, an embodiment of the elite. He’s a royalist, the glorified PR schmoozer with little actual qualification except a profound sense of entitlement. In the other, more Thatcherite, corner, there’s Rupert Murdoch; … read more >>
Murdoch: All The Truth That Fits
AFTER swearing on the Bible to begin a two-day interrogation in Court 73 of London’s Royal Courts of Justice last Wednesday, an octogenarian once feared as the world’s most powerful media mogul began taking questions, the first few being perhaps the only ones he answered with clear and indisputable truth. … read more >>
Does My Neo-Nazism Look Big In This?
IT’S NOT HARD to imagine this is how it went. Last July, in a boardroom in Germany, a group of executives are brainstorming ideas to lift sales of their youth-oriented clothing line, Thor Steinar. As they thrash concepts around, a TV airs its usual schlocky fare in the background, broadcasting … read more >>
The Stain on Spain
LAST July 1, in a sweltering greenhouse in southern Spain, a black man from Africa was shot by a white man from Europe. Allegedly. The black man was Dinantou Barbosa, a 29-year-old from the impoverished West African state of Guinea-Bissau, one of as many as 100,000 Africans living and labouring … read more >>
The Schlock of Gibraltar
THERE are eyesores, there’s urban blight, and then there is Gibraltar, Britain’s last colony in Europe, a carbuncle of ocean-going ghastliness that’s in a class all of its own. Next April, its 30,000 people will have been officially and determinedly British for 300 years. That’s the anniversary of the … read more >>
Braveheart’s Bomb
IT’S 7.30am in the tiny hamlet of Garelochhead, all 1,200 residents and no traffic lights of it. We’re well north of Glasgow, into the breathtaking foothills of Scotland’s remote loch-lined Highlands. The locals are friendly, the air is clean and sharp like the waters of Gare Loch; Scotland at its … read more >>
What’s Rupert’s Game in Scotland?
IT WAS a humble tweet, just 52 characters, one of around 300 million made on February 20 — initially little noticed in London but resonating across the bonny Caledonian highlands. “Let Scotland go and compete. Everyone would win,” tweeted one Rupert Murdoch last month. While that’s not how London … read more >>
Which Way Paradise?
TO MANY Glaswegians, particularly those of an independent, Catholic and Republican persuasion, Paradise is a football stadium in this tough city’s East End, where urban blight in Britain seems at its bleakest. Their idea of heaven is a drizzly winter’s Saturday, a gutful of lager and fish and chips, with … read more >>
Irish Eyes Are on Australia
IN Kilkee, a sleepy retreat from the stormy Atlantic on Ireland’s remote far west coast, they still talk about the day the West Clare Gaels Ladies Football Club won the 2010 All-Ireland Ladies Intermediate Final. It was, by all accounts, an incredible victory, a bright moment of glory that briefly … read more >>
Free The Billionaire! Would That Help President Putin?
IT’S unlikely that Forbes Magazine has too many subscribers in Segezha, a grim town of 35,000 in Russia’s wintry northwest at the edges of the Arctic Circle. But if by chance it did, the magazine would take some time to get there. Segezha is a train station that became a … read more >>
Viva O’Chevolución!
IN history’s pantheon of legendary revolutionaries, there’s Cromwell and Washington, there’s Lenin, Mao and Ho, there’s Gaddafi if you’re so inclined, and Mandela, too. And then there’s Ernie Lynch. Ernie Lynch? Now, there’s a name one doesn’t hear so much in such radical company. If the name doesn’t ring a … read more >>
The Anti Rupert Murdoch
ENGLAND can be confusing, and John Bird isn’t helping. Bird is the Anti-Rupert, a social entrepreneur who in 1991 founded – with Gordon Roddick, who also founded The Body Shop with his late wife, Anita – The Big Issue, that ubiquitous “street newspaper” distributed by homeless people from Brisbane to … read more >>
An Environmental Problem For Brisbane Roar
THEY DO things differently at the Football Federation of Australia, the peak administrator of soccer in Australia.
UK: The Bomb-Chucking Blogger
A DISCUSSION with Paul Staines develops not so much as conventional-journalist-interviews-gadfly-blogger-of-British-politics, as form dictates it should. Rather it mutates into an hour of grilling each other, as perhaps was destined to occur upon meeting the bomb-thrower better known as Guido Fawkes, named after the anarchist who plotted to blow up … read more >>
The Last Grande Dame of Australian Art
DAZZLING in a sarong of a shade best classified as unspeakably orange, Mitty Lee Brown emerges regally from a nap through Sri Lanka’s tropical torpor to receive an unexpected well-wisher. She’s a little startled at the intrusion because these days, at 89, Mitty doesn’t get too many guests … read more >>
Room for Everyone at The Hague
MEET Kuniko Ozaki – 55, Japanese and, since 2009, international resident of The Hague. Ozaki-san is one of the current 19 judges of the International Criminal Court, which sits in The Hague with claims as the world’s most distinguished forum to transact criminal justice. With her untaxed, near €300,000-a-year … read more >>
Europe’s Leaders-In-Waiting Face The Mess Ahead
HINDSIGHT. It’s a wise and beautiful thing. And there’s a lot of it about Europe at the minute. In Britain, the Murdoch kids believe, with hindsight, that Rupert shouldn’t have handed Rebekah Brooks the reins at News International. Much of the rest of the country reckons, in hindsight, that Rupert … read more >>
Amsterdam: I’ve Been To Bali, Too
AMSTERDAM. Been here a year. Was concerned I’d find it boring after years absorbed by manic Asia, the last years in Indonesia, which used to be Dutch. But, neo-colonially, we’re now ensconced in the Netherlands, in an agreeably restored 18th century canal-house that once traded silks, pelts and spices shipped … read more >>
LONDON: Starbucks, Star Pupils and Protest
THE Starbucks on St Paul’s Church Yard is one of the chain’s biggest and busiest outlets in London. And no wonder, servicing disciples of two deities, The City and The Church, and myriad tourists too, at £3.50 per winter-warming, triple-shot venti latte. Worshippers of Mammon swing by here in their … read more >>
Egypt: Banking on a revolution
CAIRO – In January and February this year, as revolution coursed through Cairo and beyond, Egypt’s central bank governor, Farouk Abd El Baky El Okdah, called the heads of the country’s main banks to a series of urgent meetings at the Cairo Marriott on Zamalek Island in the middle of … read more >>
Thailand: Korn puts Shinawatra government on watch
BANGKOK: What a difference a year makes in Thailand. This time last year, Bangkok’s downtown Ratchaprasong crossroads at the Thai capital’s commercial core was a mess. The iconic Central Department Store was in ruins, trashed after the scorched-earth tactics of the crippling protests earlier in the year. Much of Bangkok’s … read more >>
Australia: Wayne Swan Confounds His Domestic Critics
BLESSED WITH, and industriously exploiting, a natural resources bounty pointed at China that would embarrass Croesus, some Australians will find it strange that Euromoney has chosen their treasurer, Wayne Swan, as finance minister of the year. The less charitable might even recall the words of Donald Horne, in his 1964 … read more >>
Wendi Deng Murdoch: La Bella Ambiciosa Que Llegò de China
LONDRES: Fue en marzo de 2007 en Pekín, adonde yo había ido a ver un hermoso siheyuan —el patio tradicional de las casas chinas— al lado de la Ciudad Prohibida, cuando por primera vez noté que algo extra- ño pasaba con mis comunicaciones. Podía enviar correos electrónicos, pero no llegaban … read more >>
Egypt’s reluctant finance minister gets to work
Samir Radwan was a surprise choice as Egypt’s new finance minister, even to himself. Appointed at the height of the chaos, the retired economist is working hard to sustain Egypt’s finances and economy through a period of extraordinary upheaval. Eric Ellis joins him in Cairo IN EGYPT’S chaotic last days … read more >>
Orascom: A very modern tale of corporate finance
North Korea. Zimbabwe. Tunisia. Algeria. Iraq. Pakistan. Egypt. It’s a list of the world’s flashpoints. And they’re all part of Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris’s unique telecoms empire. So when his Orascom group needed financing, and then sought a buyer, it presented Sawiris’s advisers with a unique set of challenges. Eric … read more >>
Orascom: How do you solve a problem like Korea?
Naguib Sawiris has built large parts of his empire by being prepared to do business where other companies would fear to tread. He explains how he became a telecoms operator, banker and even an hotelier in the biggest rogue state of all, North Korea. “We looked at a map of … read more >>
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 … read more >>
“Double-A Team” inspires new hope for Indonesia
Government officials hope that international investors will look afresh at Indonesia. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government made history with its re-election. It is using a strong popular mandate to tackle corruption and bureaucratic shortcomings head-on. Eric Ellis reports from Jakarta AFTER 30 YEARS of kleptocratic dictatorship and a decade or so … read more >>
Afghanistan: 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 … read more >>
Court of the Lion Kings; the moneymaking 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’s something deliciously apt that the decisive call on the Australian Stock Exchange will probably be made by Canberra’s independent members of parliament. Singapore doesn’t do independents, Mr Oakeshott. Indeed, it would … read more >>
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 read on…
Thailand’s finance minister Korn faces the ultimate stress test
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 … read more >>
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. Having been lured to the most dangerous city – Karachi – of one of the world’s most dangerous countries – Pakistan – to interview the governor of the central bank we … read more >>
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. Eric Ellis reports. HERE ARE SOME concepts … read more >>
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, is nothing if not ambitious for her struggling country, one of the world’s newest and poorest. It’s not enough for East Timor … read more >>