Smart reads March 3, 2014
♦ As the Ukraine crisis escalates with Russian troops taking hold of Crimea, Barack Obama faces his sternest challenge – or as Edward Luce puts it, his chicken Kiev moment. ♦ Western military experts...
View ArticleSmart Reads March 24, 2014
♦ Many Iranians see basij– the ideologically-driven volunteer forces of the Revolutionary Guards – as stick-wielding thugs, but they show a softer side as they sip cappuccino and discuss art at Café...
View ArticleSmart Reads 25 March, 2014
♦ In the new cold war, Russia could hit the US where it hurts – in Iran. ♦ Vladimir Putin has confounded three US presidents as they tried to figure him out. ♦ The decision in Egypt to hand the death...
View ArticleSmart Reads April 23, 2014
• The peace deal struck in Geneva means little in Ukraine’s easternmost province where hard core activists are refusing to end their occupation of government buildings. • Russia seeks economic...
View ArticleSmart Reads April 25, 2014
Martin Wolf thinks private banks should be stripped of their power to create money. Voting in Mumbai has been a tale of two cities as the most downtrodden residents of India’s financial capital have...
View ArticleSmart Reads April 29, 2014
Gideon Rachman argues that India needs a jolt and Narendra Modi is the man to provide it. When the political class tries its hand at populism it radiates inauthenticity, says Janan Ganesh. The FT...
View ArticleSmart Reads May 9, 2014
In the US the Libyan city of Benghazi has gone from being shorthand for the furore over the 2012 attack on the US embassy to a political weapon for the Republican party, says the FT’s Geoff Dyer....
View ArticleSmart Reads May 14, 2014
The languishing economy in northern Nigeria has driven recruitment into the brutal insurgency campaign. Martin Wolf argues that to eliminate excess capacity and raise inflation to 2 per cent, the ECB...
View ArticleSmart Reads May 19, 2014
• Lebanon on the brink: political gridlock, economic torpor and the machinations of pro-Syrian Hizbollah have once more pushed the crossroads of the Middle East to the edge of collapse. • In Egypt...
View ArticleSmart Reads June 30, 2014
The FT’s Richard McGregor reports on how detainees at Guantánamo Bay are growing old in limbo. Algeria’s mostly French-bred football team highlights the failure of homegrown African football. The...
View ArticleSmart Reads January 28, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst New “blockbuster” drugs provide hope for a cure to Hepatitis C – an illness which now kills more in the UK than HIV. Neil Buckley explores the tent city that has sprung up in Kiev’s...
View ArticleSmart Reads January 29, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst John Kay’s open letter to Bill Gates restates his argument that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Scarlett Johansson is at the centre of a growing storm surrounding a Soda...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 3, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst Scottish Nationalists seek to emulate Nordic social democracies. The Sochi Winter Olympics is inspiring a resurgence of Circassian nationalism. The lionisation of the Egyptian...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 4, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst The middle class customer base is shrinking in the US, as the top 5 per cent of earners drives consumption. Women have discovered an entrepreneurial streak in Spain in the face of...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 5, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst The Sochi Olympics will only temporarily distract from Russia’s increasing economic problems, writes Kathrin Hille. Figure skater Johnny Weir talks about the Russian obsession with...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 6, 2014
By Toby Luckhurst The USA can no longer rely on Egypt as a bulwark of stability in the Middle East, as jihadists return to the country to fight the military authorities. Oligarchs in eastern Ukraine...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 10, 2014
Banks that cheat people pay fines, but people who cheat banks do time: Gary Silverman profiles Carl Cole, who helped turn Bakersfield into one of the home foreclosure capitals of the US. Egypt’s...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 17, 2014
Glenn Greenwald has lunch with the FT and discusses his abrasive manner and new online venture. Rahm Emanuel has reinvented Chicago’s political machine: the FT’s Edward Luce looks at whether he’s now...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 19, 2014
John Paul Rathbone looks at what went wrong with the “tres amigos”. Egypt’s architectural heritage is being lost due to legal loopholes. Tunisia, with the only successful Arab uprising, is an...
View ArticleSmart Reads February 21, 2014
Economix does its take on the Transpacific Partnership and free trade. The Archdiocese of Newark doesn’t have enough money to keep a school open, but it does have funds to build a palatial vacation...
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