Culture War: Muslim Brotherhood v Cairo Opera House

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 5/31/2013 02:46:00 PM
 The scoreline reads: Muslim Brotherhood 1, Giuseppe Verdi 0.   It is no big secret that Egypt's currently ascendant Muslim Brotherhood has shown a knack for shooting itself in the foot with its fundamentalist proclivities. Without any real, organized opposition to it--least of all the ineffectual Twitter cyber-mobs--the Brothers have not exactly been reluctant about imposing control on the rest of society: The row [over the Cairo Opera House] has opened a new front in the politically divided country, with performing artists joining a chorus of others who say they are fighting attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood...
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Econo-Champions League: All Germany, No Spain

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 5/26/2013 11:23:00 AM
Yesterday evening the de facto Queen of Europe, Angela Merkel, sat in the VIP section of London's Wembley Stadium as two German teams--perennial European giants Bayern Munich and upstarts Borussia Dortmund--contested the Champions League final. That Bayern Munich finally succeeded in its third attempt at winning the biggest prize in club football in four years was no doubt a relief to their fans after losing the final to Inter Milan in 2010 and Chelsea last year. However, for the rest of Europe, a German champions League lockout is symbolically quite worrisome. As the European debt crisis has firmly revealed who wears the...
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Language Games: Should French Unis Teach in English?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/22/2013 03:25:00 PM
I have long been fascinated with the France's Academie Francaise, a body intended to guard the French language from the barbarisms of other, uncouth languages. The erstwhile linguistic barbarians have changed over the centuries: whereas the Academic Francaise was developed as a bulwark to Spanish, nowadays it's English, of course, that needs to be guarded. Recently, French higher education minister Genevieve Fioraso caused an uproar by suggesting that more courses need to be offered in English to attract international students. To this the traditionalists were of course up in arms. However, this reaction neglects the fact that several elite institutions alike the Sciences Po already provide instruction in English: Elite French business schools, and Grandes Ecoles such as the Institute of Political Studies also known as Sciences-Po, have been teaching in English for the last 15 years. Why, she asks, shouldn't other less prestigious universities follow suit? The crux of the...
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Geopolitics of Eurovision: Echoes of Yugoslavia

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/19/2013 10:37:00 AM
Formerly known as the Cold War Studies programme, LSE IDEAS has always been focused on post-1989 events in that part of Europe. As out founders keep saying, understanding the Cold War is key to understanding the current era of globalization. I need not remind anyone that the wars there were especially long and awful after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. Although Western commentators tend to uniformly portray Soviet-era strongmen in a negative light, I have always had a more sanguine view of Josep Broz Tito. Say what you will about his methods, but centuries-long ethnic hatreds that were again to erupt after the Iron...
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Liberation Theology, Leonardo Boff & 'Fixing' Catholicism

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/13/2013 09:58:00 AM
What is the difference between a socially active priest and one who dabbles in leftist politics? The dividing line was much clearer during the Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI eras when the latter was strictly verboten and priests were discouraged from engaging directly--especially in electoral politics. A few weeks ago I discussed the changes that may be in store at the Vatican given that someone from Latin America-- homeland of liberation theology spurred by the world's highest rates of inequality--has become pope. While Pope Francis has disavowed liberation theology in speech, in practice, many alienated (former) Latin Catholics believe that the hardline of the past will be replaced by a more tolerant and receptive outlook. The highest profile critic of the Catholic Church so far as liberation theology is concerned is of course Leonardo Boff. Yet even he believes that while rhetorical disdain for godless Marxist elements of liberation theology may remain, in practice we...
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Divorces of (Real-Estate) Convenience in China

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/06/2013 01:00:00 PM
To paraphrase Steely Dan, this is not your Haitian but your Hainan divorce. Recent regulations in China intended to tamp down real-estate speculation have had an unintended consequence of separating happily married couples to take advantage of better tax benefits accruing to single persons: Long queues of happy couples waiting to get married might be a common sight in Las Vegas. But lines of happily married couples waiting to get divorced? Only in China. In major cities across the country last month, thousands of couples rushed to their local divorce registry office to dissolve their marriages in order to benefit from fast-expiring tax breaks on property investments for unmarried individuals. Local media reported long waits at registries in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and elsewhere as savvy investors sought to buy or sell a second home before the government introduced strict new regulations that would force married homeowners to pay hefty taxes on the sale of second...
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Brokebank USA: Living Paycheck to Paycheck

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/05/2013 03:42:00 PM
Gillian Tett of the FT has an interesting article that seemingly contradicts all of the happy talk about how "America is back" with stock markets hitting all-time highs. There is no particular difficulty understanding stock market speculation and bubbles: with the Federal Reserve practically giving money away, those who still have access to credit have parked the proceeds in stocks. With the last two rounds of all-time highs coming right before the dot-com bubble burst and the subprime crisis, let's say its implications may not be welcome. Outside of the casino economy, however, there appears to be a new way to measure the desperation of Americans living in and with the real economy. When people are strapped for cash--and American personal savings rates are once more headed to zero--it is only to be expected that business activity peaks during paydays. That is, quite a lot of these Brokebank Yanks Americans are living, as the saying goes, from paycheck to paycheck: “Consumers...
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German (Randian?) Solution: No Minimum Wage

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/01/2013 05:38:00 PM
Sometime ago, I remember watching former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testifying before the US Congress when he was asked about his views about the minimum wage. "There should be none," I reflexively blurted out. Knowing that Greenspan was a libertarian former acolyte of Ayn Rand, the answer was obvious and, true to form, that's what he said to the surprise of this congressman. This same debate is being played out in Europe as those championing reform of ossified economies point out that one of the features that makes German unemployment comparatively low to other European nations is its lack of a minimum wage. To be exact, there is no general minimum wage but sector-specific minimum wages arrived at through collective bargaining in the German corporatist system. That is, would Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain which are all suffering from very high unemployment be better off if they moved to a German-ish system? Many conservative commentators certainly think so, but it's important...
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