Three tough choices for eurozone; Think tanks fear German recession; World Bank cuts India forecast; Loving schools was her 'crime'; English is dead, long live 'glocalisation'

1 Three tough choices for eurozone (Ashoka Mody in The Guardian) The eurozone faces three choices: even more austerity for the heavily indebted countries, socialisation of the debt across Europe, or a creative re-profiling of debt, with investors forced to accept losses sooner or later.

Austerity alone cannot do it. Some countries face the growing risk of near-perpetual belt-tightening, which would further dampen growth and thus keep debt ratios high. After all, if a country's debt-GDP ratio is to decline without austerity, the interest rate that it pays on its debt must be lower than its GDP growth rate. If the interest rate is higher than the growth rate, austerity is required; the wider the gap, the more austerity is needed.

Acknowledging the limits of austerity, several initiatives attempt a European resolution. Special European facilities, along with the IMF, lend money at below-market interest rates, which reduces the extent of austerity required. But the facilities' resources are dwindling, and they certainly would not be sufficient if Spain and Italy were to seek support. The ECB's announcement of a new programme to purchase sovereign bonds has lowered market interest rates. But, even with that decline, many countries' long-term interest rates will most likely remain higher than their growth rates for the next several years.

2 Greece unemployment at record 25% (BBC) Unemployment in Greece hit a record 25.1% in July, with the level among young people reaching 54.2%, according to the latest official figures. Greece's statistical authority said 1.26 million Greeks were jobless in July, with more than 1,000 jobs lost every day over the past year. With austerity cuts continuing and Greece likely to enter another year of recession, the level may rise further. The worst-affected 15-24 age group, however, includes those in education.

"This is a very dramatic result of the recession," said Angelos Tsakanikas, head of research at Greece's IOBE economic research foundation. He did not expect employment to pick up for at least a year. The Greek economy is surviving on international bailouts, but Athens has been forced to impose tough austerity measures in return for the money.

3 Think tanks fear German recession (BBC) A group of leading think tanks in Germany have cut growth forecasts for the country and warned of recession. The economic institutes said Europe’s biggest economy would only grow 1% next year instead of the 2% they had been expecting six months ago. But this assumes that the crisis in the eurozone does not worsen. They also criticised the European Central Bank's latest initiative to ward off the crisis, saying its debt purchases risked fuelling inflation.

Last month the ECB unveiled plans to buy up the government debts of struggling eurozone members, but only if those governments first signed up to a rescue package, including strict conditions on cutting their overspending and reforming their economies. "This process could be triggered by the ECB effectively providing monetary financing for states," according to the semi-annual report by the four think tanks, Ifo in Munich, IFW in Kiel, IWH in Halle and RWI in Essen.

"Europe's citizens and players in the markets may lose trust in the ECB's ability to ensure long-term price stability as a result. The four also cut their forecast for German growth this year to 0.8% from 0.9% previously. The eurozone's woes, coupled with a general slowdown in global growth, was hurting business confidence and investment in Germany, they said.

4 World Bank cuts India forecast (The Wall Street Journal) The World Bank has lowered its fiscal year economic growth forecast for India to 6.0% due to infrastructure problems and slow policy reform, and warned of a high risk that growth could slow further if economic conditions in Europe deteriorate. It had earlier forecast the economy would expand 6.9% this fiscal year through March.

"The downside risks to growth in the Indian economy are high because of the risks to global growth from the precarious situation in Europe," the World Bank said. It said factors affecting Indian growth include power shortages, corruption scandals in the mining and telecommunications sectors, and investor uncertainty due to pending legislative proposals.

5 Loving schools was her ‘crime’ (Nicholas D Kristof in The New York Times) Twice the Taliban threw warning letters into the home of Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old Pakistani girl who is one of the world’s most persuasive advocates for girls’ education. They told her to stop her advocacy — or else. She refused to back down, stepped up her campaign and even started a fund to help impoverished Pakistani girls get an education.

So, on Tuesday, masked gunmen approached her school bus and asked for her by name. Then they shot her in the head and neck. “Let this be a lesson,” a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said afterward. He added that if she survives, the Taliban would again try to kill her.

One of my greatest frustrations when I travel to Pakistan is that I routinely spot extremist madrassas, or schools, financed by medieval misogynists from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. They provide meals, free tuition and sometimes scholarships to lure boys — because their donors understand perfectly that education shapes countries. In contrast, American aid is mainly about supporting the Pakistani Army. We have tripled aid to Pakistani education to $170 million annually, and that’s terrific. But that’s less than one-tenth of our security aid to Pakistan.

In Malala’s most recent e-mail to a Times colleague, Adam Ellick, she wrote: “I want an access to the world of knowledge.” The Taliban clearly understands the transformative power of girls’ education. Do we? 

6 English is dead, long live ‘glocalisation’ (Nathalie Nahai on BBC) When the internet was first conceived, it was to English-speaking parents. Its nascent language, HTML, was programmed by an Englishman, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and the first computers to be shipped across the world used the Roman alphabet. t was a colonialism of sorts, albeit a predominantly benign one - an online reality to which we have since become unusually accustomed.

It's become the get-out clause for those of us too lazy or cash-strapped to consider the end users' needs, whether they're accessing our site from the co-working space round the corner or from a start-up business on the other side of the world. In recent years we've witnessed a loosening of this anglicised grip, with Mandarin and Spanish thrashing it out as linguistic heavyweights, fiercely contending for the top spot.

Although the picture is not entirely representative (many online users claim English as their second language), this shift from an English-speaking, Western monopoly hints at a future in which personalised online experiences will become increasingly tailored to cultural sensitivities.