Worldwide web of sham directors; Young, jobless and Indian; China lands first jet on aircraft carrier; Surprise on the Nile; Hatching ideas by the dozens at MIT

1 Worldwide web of sham directors (The Guardian) The existence of an extraordinary global network of sham company directors, most of them British, can be revealed. The UK government claims such abuses were stamped out long ago, but a worldwide joint investigation by the Guardian, the BBC's Panorama and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has uncovered a booming offshore industry that leaves the way open for both tax avoidance and the concealment of assets.

More than 21,500 companies have been identified using this group of 28 "nominee directors". The nominees play a key role in keeping secret hundreds of thousands of commercial transactions. They do so by selling their names for use on official company documents, using addresses in obscure locations all over the world. This is not illegal under British law, and sometimes nominee directors have a legitimate role. But the evidence suggests this group of directors only pretend to control the companies they put their names to.

In 1999, the government claimed Britain's sham director industry had been "effectively outlawed" after a judge, Mr Justice Blackburne, said the court would not tolerate "the situation where someone takes on the directorship of so many companies and then totally abrogates responsibility". But our findings show this has failed to be policed. These nominee fronts conceal a wide variety of real owners, including those that are perfectly legal, from Russian oligarchs to discreet speculators in the British property market. Their only common factor is the wish for secrecy.

2 Young, jobless and Indian (Kunal Kumar Kundu in The Wall Street Journal) The global crisis, caused largely by the developed world’s financial excesses, and the ensuing balance sheet repairing have battered the world economy in a way not seen since the Great Depression. One of the hardest hit segments of the world population is its youth, who are finding it increasingly difficult to get jobs. The developed world has been most affected. According to recent data from Maudlin Economics, youth unemployment in the US is more than 17%. Youth is defined as those aged 15 to 24. The situation is worse in Europe, where youth unemployment in Greece is approaching 60%. Spain follows a close second with 55%, while Portugal and Italy are at around 35% and France is a little over 25%.

This is not only a developed market problem. The pain reverberates even in the generally faster growing emerging markets. Take India, one of the youngest countries in the world, where youth accounted for 20% of the total population in 2011, according to the Registrar General of India. More importantly, the dependency ratio – the number of children and elderly people per working-age person — declined 21% over the last three decades. In China, the ratio declined 31%, but in the US and Europe it dropped 1% and 7%, respectively, and in Japan it increased 8%, according to United Nations figures. At this rate, India will have the lowest dependency ratio out of these countries and regions by 2030. By that year, India’s working age population is expected to expand to 131% of the 2010 workforce.

However, youth unemployment remains high in India, and it hasn’t been helped by the global crisis. The latest World Development Report by the World Bank says India’s youth unemployment — as a percentage of the youth work force — was 9.9% for males and 11.3% for females in 2010. In 1985, the figures were 8.3% and 8%, respectively. Youth unemployment in India, like most countries, has consistently been above the national average. But of late, the data indicate rising youth unemployment, now virtually 50% more than the national average, or total unemployment rate.

Rising youth unemployment in a country that is expected to reap the demographic dividend is a concern. The latest NSSO survey shows there has been a drop in the labor force participation rates – as in, those who are willing to work – among the youth. Many young people are delaying their entry into the workforce, partly because they are extending their years of education. This at least is positive as it indicates a higher degree of skill formation in the young labor force.

3 China lands first jet on aircraft carrier (Dawn) China has successfully landed a fighter jet on its first aircraft carrier, which entered service two months ago, the country’s official news agency confirmed. The Liaoning aircraft carrier underscores China’s ambitions to be a leading Asian naval power, but it is not expected to carry a full complement of planes or be ready for combat for some time. Xinhua News Agency said the landing exercise marked the debut of the J-15 fighter jet, a carrier-based fighter-bomber developed by China from Russia’s Sukhoi Su-33.

Xinhua says the J-15 is able to carry anti-ship, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and precision-guided bombs. Since China’s Liaoning ship formally entered into service on Sept. 25, its crew members have completed more than 100 training and test programs. China bought the former Soviet navy’s unfinished carrier from Ukraine in 1998 and spent years refurbishing it.

4 Surprise on the Nile (Eric S Margolis in Khaleej Times) A year ago, I was mixing with demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square calling for an end to Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship and democracy for Egypt’s 84 million people. What a difference a year makes. Tahrir Square is now packed with Egyptians protesting against the new revolutionary government led by the elected president, Mohamed Mursi.  Egypt is in political turmoil.

Mursi issued a decree granting him extensive — critics charge dictatorial — powers that exempts all of Mursi’s decisions and those of the elected constituent assembly from challenge by Egypt’s courts and other high government institutions. The decree is valid until a new parliament is elected. All this is very curious.  So far, Mursi has moved with extreme prudence to implement free elections, reassure Christians and secular liberals, and deftly break the iron grip of Egypt’s bloated armed forces. But, until this week, Mursi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party were unable to oust an entrenched cadre of Mubarak-appointed officials and henchmen in the judiciary, security police, academia, media and the diplomatic corps. They constitute what is known as Egypt’s ‘deep government’, the real power in the nation that reported directly to Mubarak’s entourage.  

Mursi’s biggest problem: Egypt can’t feed itself nor generate funds to import food. So Cairo is forced to rely on the US and, now, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for a financial lifeline. Mursi’s coup has scared a lot of Egyptians and done nothing to burnish the reputation of political Islamists.Maybe Mohamed Mursi will indeed renounce his newly assumed powers once a democratic parliament opens and a new constitution enacted. If he does, he will be hailed as a second Pericles or George Washington. Alas, as Lord Acton so famously and wisely warned, “all power corrupts; ultimate power corrupts absolutely”.

5 Hatching ideas by the dozens at MIT (Hannah Seligson in The New York Times) How do you take particles in a test tube, or components in a tiny chip, and turn them into a $100 million company? Dr. Robert Langer, 64, knows how. Since the 1980s, his Langer Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has spun out companies whose products treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and schizophrenia, among other diseases, and even thicken hair. 

A chemical engineer by training, Dr. Langer has helped start 25 companies and has 811 patents, issued or pending, to his name. That’s not too far behind Thomas Edison, who had 1,093. More than 250 companies have licensed or sublicensed Langer Lab patents. Along the way, Dr. Langer and his lab, including about 60 postdoctoral and graduate students at a time, have found a way to navigate some slippery territory: the intersection of academic research and the commercial market. 

Over the last 30 years, many universities — including MIT — have set up licensing offices that oversee the transfer of scientific discoveries to companies. These offices have become a major pathway for universities seeking to put their research to practical use, not to mention add to their revenue streams. In the sciences in particular, technology transfer has become a key way to bring drugs and other treatments to market. “The model of biomedical innovation relies on research coming out of universities, often funded by public money,” says Josephine Johnston, director of research at the Hastings Center, a bioethics research organization based in Garrison, NY.