Current affairs

Mar 4th 2009

REYKJAVIK - No one yet has any real idea about when the global financial crisis will end, but one thing is certain: government budget deficits are headed into the stratosphere. Investors in the coming years will need to be persuaded to hold mountains of new debt.

Mar 2nd 2009

There was no gasp, merely a lingering sigh that came with the announcement that the vast bulk of US combat forces would be leaving Iraq by August 31, 2010, with the final departures taking place at the end of December 2011.

Mar 1st 2009

LONDON - Bipartisanship seems to have taken a drubbing in Washington since President Barack Obama got to the White House.

Feb 28th 2009

Presenting a new and earthy face of French cinema, the outsider candidate "Séraphine" won seven awards at the Césars, the annual French film competition, including best film and best actress of 2008.

Feb 26th 2009

MUNICH - To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many billions of dollars been pumped out by so many governments and central banks. The United States government is pumping $789 billion into its economy, Europe $255 billion, and China $587 billion.

Feb 23rd 2009

Feb 20th 2009

NEW YORK - The world has yet to achieve the macroeconomic policy coordination that will be needed to restore economic growth following the Great Crash of 2008.

Feb 20th 2009

LONDON - "Enrich yourselves," China's Deng Xiaoping told his fellow countrymen when he started dismantling Mao Zedong's failed socialist model.

Feb 20th 2009

NEW YORK – The euro suffers from structural deficiencies. It has a central bank, but it does not have a central treasury, and the supervision of the banking system is left to national authorities.

Feb 19th 2009
The recent slowdown, it is suggested here, was not caused so much by the collapse of a housing bubble or mortgage delinquency, as is frequently claimed, but rather by losses of capital due to high costs for energy and operation of the financial sector.
Feb 19th 2009

Kaing Guek Eav, known to many as Duch, was not exceptional for being knee-deep in the blood of Cambodia's victims. Most members of the Khmer Rouge were expert in taking lives rather than improving them.

Feb 19th 2009

By the time President Obama signed the historic stimulus package in Denver Tuesday, perhaps the toughest challenge posed to him and aides was again unintentionally underscored on our hyperkinetic financial news cable channels.

Feb 16th 2009

I delivered this speech in President Obama's hometown of Chicago on Friday, February 13th, the day after the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

Feb 14th 2009

Anyone who believes that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past needs to consider the case of Bishop Richard Williamson, the cleric who denies that the Holocaust occurred and insists that the murder of six million Jews is "lies, lies, lies."

Feb 14th 2009

NEW DELHI - Indians haven't often had much to root for at the Oscars, Hollywood's annual celebration of cinematic success. Only two Indian movies have been nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category in the last 50 years, and neither won.

Feb 13th 2009

NEW YORK - A year ago, I predicted that the losses of US financial institutions would reach at least $1 trillion and possibly go as high as $2 trillion.

Feb 12th 2009

You'd think that the results of November's election -- coupled with the collapse of the economy -- would begin to make Republican lawmakers question the consequences of their blind commitment to right wing economic orthodoxy.

Feb 12th 2009

In the end, it does not matter all that much that Bibi Netanyahu is going to be Israel's next prime minister. I don't see much (if any) real differences between him and Ehud Barak or Tzipi Livni.

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