1 China’s exports, imports decline (BBC) China has
reported an unexpected fall in its exports and imports, adding to concerns of a
slowdown in its economy. Exports fell 3.1% in June from a year earlier,
indicating weak global demand for Chinese goods. Most analysts had expected a
4% increase in shipments.
Imports declined 0.7% from a year ago, showing that
domestic demand remained subdued. China, the world's second-largest economy,
has seen its growth rate dip amid a slowdown in global growth.
Some 70% of Indian respondents said corruption had increased in the preceding two years; only 7% felt that it had decreased. In the previous edition of the report, which spanned 2010 and 2011, 74% of the Indian respondents said that corruption was increasing, while 10% felt it was decreasing.
Globally, roughly one out of four people reported paying a bribe in the preceding year, a similar share to two years ago. In India, the bribe-paying rate was twice that, with a little over one out of two people reporting paying a bribe. The same share reported paying a bribe when the organization asked the question on Indians in 2010 and 2011. The breakdown of whom Indians bribe has changed a lot in just two years, with one sector becoming more bribe-worthy: Education.
People also less frequently reported paying bribes for access to justice, with 36% of respondents who used public services, saying they paid a bribe to the judicial system. The share of people reporting bribes to the police, or for permits, remained roughly the same – just over 60%. But the share paying bribes for land-related services declined to 58% from 63%. This may be due to moves in some states to provide some services, like land ownership records, online.
3 In today’s corps, the buck never stops (Ha-Joon Chang in The Guardian) George Osborne confirmed this week that he would accept the recommendation of Britain's parliamentary commission on banking standards and add to his banking reform bill a new offence of “reckless misconduct in the management of a bank”. That is a bit of a setback for the managerial class, but it still does not sufficiently change the overall picture that it is a great time to be a top manager in the corporate world, especially in the US and Britain.
Not only do they give you a good salary and handsome bonus, but they are really understanding when you fail to live up to expectations. If they want to show you the door in the middle of your term, they will give you millions of dollars, even tens of millions, in "termination payment". Even better, the buck never stops at your desk. It usually stops at the lowest guy in the food chain – a rogue trader or some owner of a two-bit factory in Bangladesh. Occasionally you may have to blame your main supplier, but rarely your own company, and never yourself.
The largest companies today are so complex that top managers are not even expected to know fully what is really going on in them. These companies have also increasingly outsourced activities to multiple layers of subcontractors in supply chains crisscrossing the globe. The problem is even more serious in the financial sector, which has highly complicated "derivative" products. The result is an exponential increase in complexity.
The result is an economic system in which no one in "responsible" positions takes any serious responsibility. Unless radical action is taken, we will see many more financial crises and corporate scandals in the years to come. The first thing we need is to modernise our sense of crime and punishment. In the modern economy, with a complex division of labour, indirect non-physical acts can also seriously harm people. If misbehaving financiers and incompetent regulators cause an economic crisis, they can indirectly kill people by subjecting them to unemployment-related stress and by reducing public health expenditure.
More importantly, we need to simplify our economic system so that responsibilities are easier to determine. Increased complexity is inevitable if we are to increase productivity. However, much of the recent rise in complexity has been designed to make money for certain people, at the cost of social productivity. Without measures to simplify the system and recalibrate our sense of crime and punishment, the age of irresponsibility will destroy us all.
4 China opens world’s largest building (Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian) Beneath smoggy clouds in the Chinese mega-city of Chengdu, waves lap against sandy shores and a salty breeze blows across the beach. 6,000 holidaymakers look out on a glowing sunset, dining on platters of "the rarest oceanic fish species", while a stage rises from the water, ready for the evening's multimedia music spectacular. China’s fourth largest city may be 620 miles from the coast, but that hasn't stopped it having its own seaside – newly opened inside the biggest building in the world.
A 100m tall cliff-face of blue mirrored glass, stretching 500m along a triumphal plaza, the New Century Global Centre houses an entire seaside resort, along with a 14-screen Imax cinema, Olympic-sized ice rink, two five-star hotels and its own Mediterranean shopping village – all wrapped with a vast ribbon of offices. Sprawling for 1.7m square metres, it could fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses beneath its glass roof. It is declared by its creators to be "a landmark which commands the world and is looked upon by the world with respect," a pleasure dome that Kubla Khan could only dream of.
5 India court moots acid attack policy (BBC) The Indian
Supreme Court has strongly criticised the government for failing to formulate a
policy to reduce acid attacks on women. The judges said the authorities had failed
to regulate the sale of acid used in the assaults, the judges said.
They threatened to pass an order if the government did not prepare a scheme
to curb attacks and provide support to victims within the next week. It is
estimated that there are as many as 1,000 acid attacks a year in India.Acid attacks are a problem throughout South Asia, with cases also reported in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most of the victims are women and campaigners say women who reject boyfriends, husbands or employers are often targeted by men using easily available and cheap chemicals. Earlier this year, India introduced tough new legislation to counter violence against women. The legislation contains harsher penalties for rapists, including the death penalty, and up to 10 years in jail for acid attacks.
6 Ideological divide in Egypt (Irfan Husain in Dawn) In one sense, the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square against the increasingly unpopular Morsi mirrored the protests in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Both represent the fault line in many Muslim countries between conservative citizens and their secular brethren. The former believe their countries should be governed by a strict Islamic code, and vote for religious parties who promise just that.
But those with a secular worldview reject this vision, and want to transform their societies into modern states where religion is restricted to mosques and homes, and not allowed to intrude into the public sphere. This clash of opposing ideologies is at the heart of the struggle in Egypt, and may well play out in other Muslim countries with varying degrees of intensity.
This is not to suggest that only Islamists voted for Morsi: in the second round, many secular Egyptians cast their ballots for him to help defeat his rival, a Mubarak-era candidate. They also believed his promise that he would be a ‘president for all Egyptians’. In the event, he bulldozed through a divisive Islamic constitution that confirmed the worst fears among secular Egyptians.
7 Zapiro cartoon in Johannesburg Times on what
transpired between Fred Perry, 1936 and Andy Murray, 2013.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2011/06/13/zapiro-cartoons
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