1 Greece warns it is set to default on loans
(Phillip Inman in The Guardian) Greece has threatened to default on €1.6bn
(£1.14bn) of debt repayment due on international bailout loans next month,
claiming it does not have the funds to satisfy creditors at the same time as
paying wages and pensions.
Greek interior minister, Nikos Voutsis, a
long-standing ally of the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, insisted the country
was near to financial collapse. He said Athens needed to strike a deal with its
European partners within the next couple of weeks or it would default on
repayments to the International Monetary Fund that form part of its €240bn
rescue package.
His comments came as the finance minister, Yanis
Varoufakis, repeated his warning that the entire euro project would be
undermined without a deal that proved acceptable to the Greek people.
Varoufakis said that the Syriza-led Greek government has now “made enormous
strides at reaching a deal”, and that it is now up to the European Central
Bank, IMF and European Union to do their bit and “meet us one-quarter of the
way”.
With crucial debt payments looming, combined with
the need for Athens to find around €1bn to pay public sector wages and welfare
payments in the first week of June, the eurozone appeared to be entering the
final chapter in its dispute with Greece. Tsipras wants the EU, ECB and IMF to
release a blocked final €7.2bn tranche of the bailout without imposing tough
reforms and spending cuts agreed with the previous right-of-centre
administration.
2 ‘Middle East pays $1trn for gender gap’ (Khaleej
Times) Bring more Arab women into the workforce, invest in “bite-sized”
infrastructure projects and get the private sector more involved in training
young job seekers — these are the prescriptions of a leading Gulf entrepreneur
for growing Middle Eastern economies and combating rampant youth unemployment.
Decision makers long seemed paralysed by the sheer
size of the troubled region’s economic problems, but attitudes have changed in
recent years, said Omar Kutayba Alghanim, co-chairman of last week’s regional
World Economic Forum (WEF) conference and a leader of private sector efforts to
tackle youth unemployment.
The Middle East and North Africa have the world’s
highest rate of youth unemployment, with 29.5 per cent, up two percentage
points from over a decade ago, according to the International Labour
Organisation (ILO). Unemployment is particularly high among young women, in
part because of the constraints placed on them by traditional societies in many
parts of the region. Alghanim said that bringing more women into the workforce
would spur economic growth.
He said the gender gap in the Middle East is three
times bigger than that in most developing economies. If the gap were narrowed
by just one-third, the regional GDP would grow by $1 trillion a year, or six
per cent, said Alghanim, a former investment banker who now heads Alghanim
Industries, one of the largest privately held companies in the Gulf.
One of the causes of youth unemployment is a
disconnect between the skills young people acquire in schools and universities,
where learning by rote tends to be the norm, and what modern private companies
look for in potential employees. Alghanim said governments need to invest more
in infrastructure projects. The region spends only five per cent of its gross
domestic product on infrastructure, compared to 15 per cent in China, he said.
3 A year of Narendra Modi in India (Soutik Biswas on
BBC) Is a year in power long enough to evaluate the performance of a new
government? Possibly difficult in a country with many unresolved social and
economic issues like India, but it is a good time for some stock-taking.
So it is with Narendra Modi and his BJP government,
which stormed into power last May. Mr Modi promised achhe din, or better times,
if elected. It is a promise which his supporters continue to cling to, and his
detractors sneer at, saying it was a deceit to capture political power. If
opinion polls are to be believed, Indians continue to be hopeful about Mr Modi.
In truth, Mr Modi faces little competition: the
Congress party, under Sonia and Rahul Gandhi has still not recovered from last
year's debacle. Mr Modi's first year in office has met with a mixed response. All
leaders need luck on their side, and Mr Modi has had his share. Inflation has
been tamed, and the fiscal deficit contained. For both, Mr Modi should thank
cheap commodity - mainly oil - prices. Electricity generation has surged to a
record high.
His government so far has been free of scams, and he
is making his ministers and bureaucrats work hard. Plans to auction mineral
rights - starting with this year's coal auction - should check corruption and
foster transparency. He has energised India's foreign policy. He is mining the
diaspora. Taking the lead in evacuating stranded people in conflict-zones like
Yemen and rushing relief to earthquake-ravaged Nepal has earned his government
rightful praise. "Two foreign policy priorities have emerged: South Asia
and the management of a larger periphery with a focus on China," says Harsh
V Pant of King's College, London.
Many say, it is not clear whether Mr Modi is a
serious reformer or somebody merely comfortable with tinkering with the status
quo. There is talk about reducing bloated government, but no radical reforms
seem to be on the table. Mr Modi wants to set up 100 smart cities, but most of
India's main cities have turned into urban dystopias. Nobody quite knows what
Digital India means in a country where the elementary mobile telephone network
is broken.
Mr Modi's problem is that he doesn't have the luxury
his predecessors enjoyed. He raised massive hopes of transforming India; the
tyranny of high expectations can bite badly. Some 13 million Indians are
seeking jobs every year, and if Mr Modi cannot get them work, he won't have
their votes. This is no longer an India which is endlessly willing to wait
patiently. Mr Modi must know that - and that he needs to do more.
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