European Department and Mission Chief for Greece

Interview……Thomsen: The Greek government has fully recalibrated its economic program, with policies modified to deal with current challenges, and with the support of additional financing and debt relief from Greece’s European partners….. article
An amazing mea culpa from the IMF’s chief economist on austerity..articleDesign Sofia Mamalinga/ WTW Cartoonist/Greece

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras hopes to improve relations with Qatar after problems over a development bid…article

Design Sofia Mamalinga
WTW Cartoonist/Greece

Bena’a Productive Families Center (Jana) in the Eastern Region and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company have signed a partnership deal to develop skills amongst women to own and run small-scale projects in different parts of the Kingdom….

Jana plans to create 9,500 jobs for women next year in eight cities including Khobar, Dammam, Ihsaa, Qasim, Hail, Jazan, Arar and Jouf where the program will enable women to master their own productive tools and possess the ability to develop them economically and socially through Jana branches kingdom-wide, he said…article 

How the personal finance industry patronizes women.
An entire industry encompassing everything from financial service behemoths to book publishers has arisen to tell women that the appropriate response to their lesser financial status is to hire someone to tell them how to manage their money ..article

Mary Jo White and the SEC: The right woman at the wrong time

President Obama’s pick for SEC chair has a lot of experience prosecuting Wall Street crime. We could have used that four years ago…article

After a day of discussions ranging from the future of Russia to what the West Wing tells us about intelligence, here are some of the day’s highlights…article

“Europe faces issues, but its destiny shines through the smoke and fog. I’m optimistic about Europe’s future”

“Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.”
Christine Lagarde

Annual Meeting 2013 Davos
Live Video
Leading against the OddsThe World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

The financial industry needs women investors as much as women investors need the financial industry.

But even as women have more career-track positions, own more real estate and control a greater percentage of family wealth, they continue to be under-represented as investors…article

Women and men disagree on discrimination in the finance sector
MOST women working in finance think that discrimination is rife in the industry, but their male colleagues don’t agree it’s as big of an issue…article

…The age distribution of forced labourers has also changed from the earlier estimate of the ILO, with children at 26 %, representing a smaller proportion of the total. The new data confirm our previous conclusion that women and girls are more affected, and particularly by forced sexual exploitation.  ILO 2012 Global estimate of forced labour