#Shenzou 10 blasts off from Inner #Mongolia for 15-day mission; 'masses of scientific experiments' will be carried out at Tiangong-1 station—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 12, 2013
Massive #Chinese space budget contrasts with fading #USA programme; #Moon 'next obvious landmark' #taikonauts #PRC tinyurl.com/q9vcmgc—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) June 12, 2013
Filed under Economic Development, Politics, Psychology
#SemiFeudal society 'backs' steel magnate Nawaz Sharif amidst thousands of voting irregularities in 'manipulated' electoral process #PMLN—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) May 13, 2013
6th most populous country on Earth 'squandering all potential' ∵ institutional corruption; chaos 'assured' tinyurl.com/cql8ewe #Pakistan—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) May 13, 2013
Filed under Political Science, Politics
One of the most impressive and downright profound articles anywhere to be found in The Economist in 2013 is that authored by telegenic Yingluck Shinawatra, the present prime minister of Thailand. In Connect more than the dots, Shinawatra, whose broadly populist Pheu Thai Party (‘Pro Thai Party’) ascended to power just three years after its 2008 inception, shows herself to be a thinker of some vision. Moving beyond the predictable themes of greater integration within the ASEAN bloc and economic triumphalism, the Kentucky State University alumnus underscores the importance of a sustainable form of capitalism where even the poorest have a genuine stake in society.
Politicians are not of course omnicompetent, and it would be harsh to judge Shinawatra by the practical implementation of her ideals barely eighteen months after she first assumed office. But within this context, we at Mediolana cannot help thinking about the Siam Center, a shopping colosseum profiled in the April 2013 edition of the redoubtable Monocle magazine. This mall of malls, located in the Pathum Wan neighbourhood of Bangkok, recently underwent a €45m facelift to coincide with its fortieth anniversary. And this makeover seems to have been successful, with more than 200,000 visitors coming through its doors every weekend day.
The revamped Siam Center is in many ways highly representative of the changes taking place within Thailand’s economy and society -and herein lies the problem. In a country where recent legislation to boost the minimum wage to ฿300 or €7.75 per day hauled pay up by as much as 40%, affluent consumers are spending several times this amount on ice-cream in a 400 outlet temple to consumerism. This rich-poor chasm would be problematic at the best of times, but in the context of sustainability and equity as being emblematic of the ‘ASEAN Way’, it is severely undermining what should otherwise be a compelling and necessary message.
There is an ever-broadening consensus that business (and more broadly, economics) as usual is no longer enough; seeing the example of post-development nations such as Japan, it is evident that we already know the ending of certain societal models. The Shinawatra/Siam Center dichotomy illustrates the challenge that many emerging markets with superb ideas and great prospects will face in the forthcoming years: realising their visions.
Filed under Business, Economic Development, Economics, Politics
#AlJazeera among ten television stations confronted with government #blackout as #authoritarianism intensifies in 'postwar' #Iraq #violence—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 29, 2013
Suspension covers not just reporting but freedom of movement; 'sectarianism' cited, demonstrations 'being crushed' tinyurl.com/buqphmc—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 29, 2013
On 1st July 2013, the European Union will gain a twenty-eighth member: Croatia. This broadly banana-shaped republic with one of the most stunning coastlines anywhere in the continent will become only the second constituent member of the former Yugoslavia to sign up to what is still in nominal terms the most affluent economic bloc in the world.
However, Croatia – a nation of just 4.28 million people – will be acceding to the EU under very different circumstances to those countries which rode the credit bubble wave of the 2000s and enjoyed massive but ultimately fatal injections of credit into their economies. With the European Union struggling to expand its institutional balance sheet fast enough to prop up the collapsing eurozone periphery, Croatia is unlikely to enjoy any obvious short- or even medium-term financial benefits of membership.
This matters because Croatia is currently undergoing a severe economic crisis despite not being part of the EU or eurozone: an estimated 30% of Croatians now live in poverty, with the Akcija Čista hrana or Clean Food Movement operating as an alternative food bank: specially-labelled grocery bags of food are left adjacent to municipal bins for usage by the country’s poorer citizens. Things are so bad that Croatia has spawned a not insignificant Occupy movement of the kind more usually associated with large cities in the neoliberal United States or United Kingdom.
Given that many of Croatia’s strategic assets are likely to be acquired by its European partners following accession, we at Mediolana are left wondering: has the country really embarked on the right course? Could Croatia have charted a different path by following the old Yugoslav model of being close to several power blocs whilst retaining that vital element of political (and ultimately, economic) independence? Would partnership agreements with the EU, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina is an observer member), ASEAN and Mercosur have constituted a new, more viable future?
Filed under Economic Development, Political Science, Politics
#Kosovo agrees to #Serb minority possessing own appeal court + police force in exchange for #Serbian 'acceptance' of 'separate' future in EU—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 21, 2013
#Kosovo independence means missing out on new federation with Serbia in which it could have been 'more than a junior partner' ∵ demographics—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 21, 2013
'Serbia to Tokyo' dream dead in just c. two decades; Republika #Srpska 'could go paradoxically quietly' 2014- tinyurl.com/bqkdqmp #BiH—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 21, 2013
Filed under Law, Political Science, Politics
Central #London #Celebration of #IronLady's demise brings out just 3,000 people to Trafalgar Square; epoch-defining protest 'not even close'—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 15, 2013
Confused response reflects economic miseducation; #wheresmysovereignwealthfund 'should be broader rallying cry' tinyurl.com/d84qx6m #OPEC—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 15, 2013
Contemporary audiences with no memory of the 1980s might associate the nickname ‘Iron Lady’ with a world volleyball icon rather than a Cold War politician, but for anyone with recollections of that decade – particularly those raised in the United Kingdom – one association for that epithet towers above all others: Margaret Thatcher, the nation’s prime minister for no less than an historic eleven years (1979-1990).
Thatcher is characterised by many – and not merely her ideological enemies – as having smashed the post-war consensus that defined the UK in the post-1945 period. Through her championing of monetarism and her emphasis on the individual and the family (as opposed to a purportedly ‘extinct’ society), the iconic Conservative leader bulldozed the existing social contract and created a harsher and more anomic Britain defined by relentless competition bordering on social Darwinism.
This thesis is a seductive one; when reading of free school milk programmes now enjoyed by children in emerging markets, or of privatisation programmes with results other than merely making the already-wealthy into neo-feudal lords in helicopters, it is tempting to conclude that Mrs. Thatcher really did change Britain beyond recognition – and not always for the better.
But taking the Really Long View, we at Mediolana wonder whether a decade plus of handbag-themed politics at 10 Downing Street was actually as radical as the political science textbooks (and not a few commentators) would have us believe:
1. Thatcherism = Reaganomics? When Thatcher’s reign came to an end on that memorable late November evening in 1990, Britain was a country where university education was not merely free, but where students’ cost of living was significantly subsidised by annual free gifts of money in the thousands of pounds. The idea that the United Kingdom would somehow wish to emulate the USA’s higher education model – now transmogrifying into a seriously ominous economic bubble – was not even a glint in a policymaker’s eye.
2. Relentless Monetarism? Mrs. Thatcher famously averred that she was not for changing course, but this is actually precisely what her administration did in the mid-1980s when faced with the stark reality that velocity theories of money, like Keynesianism before them, were not quite the panacea that was initially anticipated.
3. The State Will Wither Away? As Mark Mazower (presently Professor of History at Columbia University) drily notes in Dark Continent - his epic history of twentieth century Europe – the proportion of the UK’s economy under state auspices was almost identical at either end of the Thatcher era. It could have been even higher had Britain’s North Sea oil boom been invested in a Norway- or Qatar-style sovereign wealth fund instead of being frittered away on higher social security costs which were (with no little irony) due to the structural unemployment created by the monetarist fad.
Filed under Economics, Political Science, Politics
https://twitter.com/Mediolana/status/321961201368182784
Growing numbers of #Germans choosing to spend their retirement years in #Spain, #Asia or Eastern #Europe as unable to afford own care homes—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 07, 2013
Full care for an elderly person in a German home costs nearly €3k, only €1.5k of which is covered by state #insurance tinyurl.com/cfk6xke—
Asad Yawar (@Mediolana) April 07, 2013
