Guillotine for Chinese Aristocrats Now Running the Country

As Mr Bo’s ambitions flamed out in a blaze of murder, corruption and scandal, it became difficult this year for the party to cover up the antics of the many other princelings who regard China and its people as their personal property.  Western news organisations have published detailed accounts of the outrageous fortunes amassed by family members of top-serving officials, including the outgoing premier Wen Jiabao and the incoming Mr Xi.  Chinese people who despair at the kleptocratic behaviour of the ruling class can only take heart from an old Chinese aphorism they hope will apply to today’s princelings: “fu bu guo san dai” – or “fortune never lasts more than three generations”.  Article

Are Slums the Reservoirs of Tomorrow’s Winners?

Kibera is an African version of a Chinese boomtown, an advertisement for solid human ambition. Like Guangzhou and Xiamen, it acts as a magnet for talent from rural areas, attracting the most determined among young farmers. To equate slums with idleness and misery is to misunderstand them. Two out of three Nairobians live in one, half of them in Kibera. Officials occasionally try to evict squatter-residents but many fight back, with the help of Muungano wa Wanavijiji, their own lobby group. In “Shadow Cities”, a book that describes a tour of slums across the globe, Robert Neuwirth recalls that New York’s Upper East Side was once a shantytown and suggests that all bright shining cities start as mud. Slums are far from hopeless places; many are not where economic losers end up, but rather reservoirs of tomorrow’s winners.  Article

Myanmar Fertile Ground for Entrepreneurs

Myanmar as good place for entrepreneurs, the Financial Times reports today.  Alisher Ali, founder of Silk Road Finance, which recently launched a $25m capital fund, is focusing on knowledge intensive industries which hardl yexist now.  But Ali likes the quality of the young entrepreneurs.  A terrific organization of Myanmar women entrepreneurs is not mentioned.  Have a look.  Here.

 

 

Siemens Womanless Again?

Barbara Kux came to Siemens from Philips in late 2008, a move that had German newspapers proclaiming “the womanless age at Siemens is over”.  Corporate management is still heavily dominated by men in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Today only 4 percent of top German managers are female compared with an OECD average of 10 percent. Meanwhile, no more than 15 percent of German supervisory board members are female.  Article

Is Russian ‘Black’ Money Headed for Cyprus?

The Republic of Cyprus needs to find new money – fast. The real bill for Cyprus’s debts could spiral as high as 15billion Euros. The Republic’s government wants to avoid the notorious EU/IMF austerity package. Moscow’s huge reserves of foreign capital can easily prop up the Cypriot economy and develop a substitute base in Cyprus at the same time. At some point the EU’s minnow state could find itself effectively swallowed up by two geo-strategic sharks.  Article