Need for a Plan B for Britain; Brics take an unhappy turn; A ray of hope where girls didn't count; Ad world's big change; Social not-working

1 Need for a Plan B for Britain (Claire Jones in The Financial Times) The International Monetary Fund has moved a step closer to withdrawing its support for the UK’s economic strategy, advising the government to redraw its fiscal tightening plan if growth disappoints in the coming quarters. The IMF said Britain should relax its fiscal consolidation strategy, aimed at cancelling the UK’s structural deficit by 2017, if the economy remained weak.

The remarks will pile pressure on George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, to switch to a “Plan B” to boost the UK’s ailing economy, which has contracted over each of the past three quarters. David Cameron, prime minister, said he would not abandon his austerity programme after the warning, saying he would stick with a “Plan A+” of spending cuts and measures to help business. “What we need in Britain is not ‘Plan B’, which is more borrowing. How can you borrow your way out of a debt crisis?” he asked. 

In its World Economic Outlook, also published earlier on Tuesday, the IMF revised down its global growth forecast for 2013 from 3.9% to 3.6%, but warned that a “slow and bumpy” recovery could be derailed by the failure of US and eurozone policy makers to tackle their fiscal woes. The fund sharply revised its forecast for the UK economy this year from growth of 0.2% to a contraction of 0.4%. The fund now expects growth of 1.1% next year, rather than 1.4%. 

2 Brics take an unhappy turn (Gideon Rachman in The Financial Times) Over the past three years, conventional wisdom divided the world’s major economies into two basic groups – the Brics and the sicks. The US and the EU were sick – struggling with high unemployment, low growth and frightening debts. By contrast the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and, by some reckonings, South Africa) were much more dynamic. 

But now something odd is happening. The Brics are in trouble. The nature of the problem in each nation is different. But there are also some broad difficulties that link them. First, for all the hopeful talk of “decoupling”, the Brics are all affected by weak western economies. Second, all five nations are finding that endemic corruption is eroding faith in their political systems, and imposing a tax on their economies.

China remains the daddy of the rising powers. And yet the country feels more uncertain about its economic and political future than in many years. As a Chinese friend put it recently: “Our economy is slowing sharply, our next leader has disappeared, and we are sending ships towards Japan.” A slowing China has knock-on effects for the other Brics – since it is now the largest trading partner for Brazil, India and South Africa. Brazilian growth has dropped off particularly fast. It hit 7.5% in 2010, the year after Rio de Janeiro was named host city of the 2016 Olympics. This year, the Brazilian economy will probably grow by less than 2%.

As for India, a senior industrialist told me that business there was suffering from “clinical depression”. Growth, which topped 9% before the financial crisis, is now just above 5%. Over the summer, the country was reminded of its frailties by the world’s largest power cut: a blackout that affected some 600m people. Russia, too, is in trouble. Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin provoked mass protests in Moscow. And the shale gas revolution in the US is potentially disastrous for Russia, since it is lowering the global price of gas. 

Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who invented the term Brics, has long argued that the South African economy is not large enough to sit naturally alongside the others. SA’s growth is likely to slip below 3% – and the leadership (or lack of it) of President Jacob Zuma is causing deep anxiety.

3 A ray of hope where girls didn’t count (CNN) Razia Jan is fighting to educate girls in rural Afghanistan, where terrorists will stop at nothing to keep them from learning. Despite the threat of violence, Jan continues to open the doors of her Zabuli Education Center. She and her team are providing a free education to about 350 girls, many of whom would not normally have access to school. CNN asked Jan for her thoughts on being chosen as one of the top 10 CNN heroes of 2012.

“It has given me a lifetime opportunity, a golden chance to continue my struggle to break the vicious cycle of violence against women and girls by providing education in a country where women have no rights to exist as an equal. I see a ray of hope that will shine all over the world and make them aware of a very small accomplishment that is changing the lives of these girls.

“We've never closed the school, even during the holidays, so the girls are there during the winter. I want to buy them boots and jackets; all of them walk to school. And I would like to buy a new van for the teachers to transport them. My (big) goal is to build more classrooms. Every year I have 55 or 60 new girls, and space is really limited; they're small rooms. Also, I want to do adult education for the young women who have never been to school. I would like to start and help 20 to 25 women. Let's make their life a little better.”

4 Advertising world’s big change (BBC) The advertising industry has been transformed by social media, says David Jones, boss of global agency Havas. He said the development of the likes of Facebook and Twitter meant the sector needed to be more "open and collaborative". He also said that social media meant companies had to re-evaluate how they approached sponsorship deals.

Thanks to social media, companies can now connect directly - and cheaply - with customers. Mr Jones denied that this meant that the advertising industry was becoming irrelevant. "What has happened with the digital and social media revolution around our industry is that it has actually made it more relevant and not less relevant," he said. He said this was shown by the fact that the advertising sector now outperforms the wider economy, whereas it used to track it.

Yet he admitted that social media was a risk for the very largest advertising companies who were not quick or nimble enough to react. "You need to be big in global [advertising] today, but you also need to be entrepreneurial, agile and integrated."

5 Social not-working (Mary Paulose in Khaleej Times) At any given time, most employees are checking their Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn or whatever is the latest new distraction that’s available in the brave new world of social networking, online. Face it — which one of us doesn’t log in, first thing in the mornings, to check out who has posted what snarky status, a friend’s latest vacation photos, or catch up on the latest tweets on lax stock market activity, pet Labradors, or lunch updates?

In a recent study done in the Middle East, more than 86% of active web users are reported to use social media, according to an Arab Media Outlook/Deloitte report. What’s more, 70% of users indicated they use social media to voice opinions online.

We tried to gauge if, in the UAE, employees’ social media habits are a cause for concern. What we discovered is a curious mix of increasing, if sometimes reluctant, acceptance of the fact that employees are not only likely to visit social media sites during the working day, often on their own personal smartphones and other devices, countered by the expectation, if not encouragement, by employers to actually use these networking sites and skills while at work! The other markedly interesting trend noted is the voluntary acceptance by companies of the subjective need to access and engage in social media and networking.