Smart Reads August 19, 2013
By Catherine Contiguglia ♦ The public mood in Egypt is hardening against Islamists since President Mohamed Morsi was deposed – a result of fatigue with the turmoil caused by Brotherhood marches, and...
View ArticleQ&A: Banning the Brotherhood
Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi on Saturday proposed banning the Muslim Brotherhood group in a move apparently aimed at barring it from participating in politics in Egypt. What would a ban...
View ArticleStability, not an election, is what Egypt needs now
By Gideon Rachman If you are going to intervene in a foreign country, it helps to know what you want to happen. But on Egypt – and Syria, too – western policy is buffeted by a mass of conflicting...
View ArticleThe Middle East made simple…or maybe not
By Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut People struggling to understand the diabolical complexities of the Middle East may have found solace in the FT last week, not in the news pages, but in a letter to...
View ArticleSmart Reads September 5, 2013
By Catherine Contiguglia ♦ Though support for a vote in favour of military intervention in Syria appears to be strengthening in the US, the sceptics still have strong arguments and Obama still has a...
View ArticleSmart Reads September 9, 2013
By David Gallerano ♦ The Kremlin-backed candidate Sergei Sobyanin beats anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and remains mayor of Moscow, although Navalny’s unexpected result looks like an alarm...
View ArticleSmart Reads September 10, 2013
By David Gallerano and Catherine Contiguglia ♦ The tragic ending of prisoner Menes, the Hungarian stork unfairly painted as a spy (as well as a duck) by the Egyptian police and clapped into a prison in...
View ArticleSmart Reads September 12, 2013
By David Gallerano ♦ “Why would Bashar al-Assad, a dictator who gasses his people to break a stalemate in a war he and his clan regard as existential and almost certainly cannot win, voluntarily...
View ArticleThe Middle East explained, in chart form
Not many letters to the FT go viral. But KN Al-Sabah’s pithy explanation of the intricacies of Middle East politics, deservedly garnered a wide audience. It read as follows: Sir, Iran is backing Assad....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Smart Reads September 18, 2013
By David Gallerano ♦ Somaliland works to be the gateway to a landlocked Ethiopia and to secure long –awaited international recognition. ♦ Communal violence rises in the highly Christian-populated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Smart Reads September 19, 2013
By David Gallerano ♦ Ben Bernanke sent “contradictory signals about how the Fed was going to assess the economy”. His is a “confused guidance”, which makes it hard to tell whether the actual policy on...
View ArticleSmart Reads September 25, 2013
By Sally Davies ♦ Qatar looks set to strike a more conciliatory tone in the Middle East, after ruffling feathers with its support of Islamists in Egypt and the rebels in Syria, writes Simeon Kerr in...
View ArticleSmart Reads October 3, 2013
♦ The FT’s Matthew Garrahan looks at the effects of the sequester on a Los Alamos research centre. ♦ Silvio Berlusconi finds himself significantly weakened after making a U-turn and declaring his...
View ArticleSmart Reads October 4, 2013
♦ Spain may be emerging from the recession with a more competitive economy, but critics claim that confidence in the rebound is premature and potentially dangerous. ♦ A leaked video shows Egyptian Army...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Smart Reads October 8, 2013
♦ Serbia plans to borrow billions from the United Arab Emirates – the country’s deputy prime minister warned that it could face bankruptcy without urgent steps to cut public sector wages. ♦ The...
View ArticleSmart Reads October 16, 2013
♦ Martin Wolf argues that the US debt ceiling should be abolished: “It is the legislative equivalent of a nuclear bomb aimed by the US at itself, with the rest of the world within its blast radius....
View ArticleSmart Reads October 17, 2013
♦ US Budget Deal: here are the details on the deal that was made. Ed Luce considers how the Republican party’s brinkmanship has squandered so much in such a short time and achieved nothing . The New...
View ArticleSmart Reads October 23, 2013
♦ Martin Wolf argues that the fiscal crisis that the US faces is not about debt as the “fiscal position has improved dramatically and poses no medium-term risks.” The debate is about whether citizens...
View ArticleSmart Reads November 4, 2013
♦ For more than 30 years, female singers in Iran have not been able to sing solo or perform to a mixed audience. Hassan Rouhani’s softening rhetoric has many hoping that restrictions on cultural life...
View Article