1 World Bank sees slower, smoother
growth (Annie Lowrey in The New York Times) The world economy will
face slower but less volatile growth in the coming months and years,
the World Bank forecast on Wednesday, as dire risks from the
financial crisis in Europe fade and emerging economies confront new
challenges adapting to softer commodity prices and the prospect of
rising interest rates. “There’s a growing recognition that this
is not the aftereffect of the crisis,” Andrew Burns, the lead
author of the report, said in an interview. “It is a new normal.”
The report’s authors said they expected sluggish growth from high-income countries, with the euro area remaining weak but finally emerging from recession and Japan gaining some momentum from the government’s aggressive fiscal and monetary measures after a decade of malaise and stagnation. The bank raised its estimate of 2013 growth for Japan to 1.4% from its earlier prediction of 0.8%.
The US is expected to be relatively strong among the world’s rich nations. Even so, the World Bank anticipates that the American economy will grow only about 2% this year, in line with its performance over the last three years.
2 Snooping and the shining democracies
(Jawed Naqvi in Dawn) Edward Snowden’s admission to being the
source that spilled the beans on US espionage at home and abroad came
as a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stifling atmosphere of
manufactured consent and submission.
In his shockingly compelling interview to The Guardian from an
obviously unsafe hideout in Hong Kong, Snowden showed that the boot
was now on the other foot. In other words, the elusive quest for a
free world promised during the Cold War had hit the doldrums.
Revolutions devour their own children, it had been claimed, not
without a grain of truth. How should we describe the free-market
democracies as they mutate into secret states once identified with
the communist era?Everyone is complicit and conniving in the project of mistrusting their own citizens. As Snowden asserts, a possible exception is Iceland. It is there, he believes, he might feel a bit more secure against the powerful reach of his former employers who now want him as a traitor. Russia has farcically offered to consider asylum for Snowden, which inadvertently speaks volumes for the status of probity in the rest of the free world that doesn’t want anything to do with him.
The corporate takeover of the ‘free media’ is all but complete even as senior journalists glide into political and corporate lobbies through an invisible revolving door, never mind the obvious conflict of interests. It is therefore a no mean blessing that tiny spaces still remain in the public sphere that resonate with bravehearts like Snowden and Julian Assange.
The abiding irony of Snowden’s revelations is that they happened soon after a meeting of the American and the Chinese presidents in Los Angeles. The Chinese government had been snooping and hacking into US defence and commercial establishments. It had to stop for their ties to remain intact, the leader from China was told. Now Snowden is urging his own government to do likewise — to stop hacking into people’s emails and phone records.
3 Pope and the Vatican 'gay lobby'
(Nicole Winfield in San Francisco Chronicle) In private remarks to
the leadership of a key Latin American church group, Pope Francis
lamented that a "gay lobby" was at work at the Vatican. It
was an apparent reference to allegations in the Italian media that
blackmail was taking place within the Vatican against high-ranking
prelates who are gay.
The Latin Amercan and Caribbean
Confederation of Religious — the regional organization for priests
and nuns of religious orders — confirmed that its leaders had
written a synthesis of Francis' remarks after their June 6 audience.
The group said it was greatly distressed that the document had been
published and apologized to the pope.
In the document, Francis is quoted as saying that while there were
many holy people in the Vatican, there was also a current of
corruption. "The 'gay lobby' is mentioned, and it is true, it is
there ... We need to see what we can do ..." the synthesis
reads. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the
audience was private and that as a result he had nothing to say.
4 Snowden and the whistle (Thomas L
Friedman in The New York Times) I’m glad I live in a country with
people who are vigilant in defending civil liberties. But as I listen
to the debate about the disclosure of two government programs
designed to track suspected phone and e-mail contacts of terrorists,
I do wonder if some of those who unequivocally defend this disclosure
are behaving as if 9/11 never happened — that the only
thing we have to fear is government intrusion in our lives, not the
intrusion of those who gather in secret cells in Yemen, Afghanistan
and Pakistan and plot how to topple our tallest buildings or bring
down US airliners with bombs planted inside underwear, tennis shoes
or computer printers.
That is why I’ll reluctantly, very reluctantly, trade off the government using data mining to look for suspicious patterns in phone numbers called and e-mail addresses to prevent a day where, out of fear, we give government a license to look at anyone, any e-mail, any phone call, anywhere, anytime. So I don’t believe that Edward Snowden, the leaker of all this secret material, is some heroic whistle-blower.
No, I believe Snowden is someone who needed a whistle-blower. He needed someone to challenge him with the argument that we don’t live in a world any longer where our government can protect its citizens from real, not imagined, threats without using big data under constant judicial review. It’s not ideal. But if one more 9/11-scale attack gets through, the cost to civil liberties will be so much greater. Imagine how many real restrictions to our beautiful open society we would tolerate if there were another attack on the scale of 9/11. Pardon me if I blow that whistle.
5 The rise and rise of world prosperity (Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Never in the history of mankind have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain, took 150 years to double its output. The US, which industrialised later, took 50 years. Both countries had a population of less than 10 million when they industrialised. Today China and India with populations over a billion each have doubled their output in less than 20 years- and many other developing countries have done as well.
According to the UN’s recent Human Development Report reports that by 2050 Brazil, China and India will account for 40% of the world’s output. The combined incomes of eight developing countries — Brazil, Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey — already equals that of the USA.
Their success is boosting the fortunes of many of the poorer countries, not least in Africa, because of higher levels of trade, investment and capital inflows and, perhaps most critically, India’s sale of affordable medicines and medical equipment.
International trade has rocketed. Not just China with its massive amount of cheap exports but also the likes of Thailand with its exports of parts and components in the auto and electronics industries, Kenya which has cornered much of the fresh flower market in Europe and Brazil with its aircraft industry. This is improving the lot of the world’s poor not just in incomes but in infant and maternal mortality, disease, education, the provision of fresh water and sewerage which are, in my opinion, more important than incomes.
One thing rarely noted is that many developing countries, despite their hectic growth, have crime rates a good deal lower that the US and not too far behind Europe’s. Indeed, the Muslim Arab countries have a better record than most of Europe. What’s my message? Go, baby, go!
6 Zapiro cartoon on Nelson Mandela in
Johannesburg Times
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2011/06/13/zapiro-cartoons
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