Michael Novakhov (Mike Nova): 8:51 AM 2/16/2012: FT Review

Thursday, February 16, 2012

8:51 AM 2/16/2012: FT Review - Mike Nova's starred items

Time for Putin 2.0

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/14/12

The task facing Russia can be summed up in one word – heard often from the current president but rarely the prime minister himself: modernisation

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February 14, 2012 7:01 pm

Time for Putin 2.0

Vladimir Putin has spent thousands of words in Russian newspapers setting out a manifesto ahead of the presidential poll next month that, despite the protests against him, he is still all but certain to win. Yet the task facing Russia can be summed up in one word – heard often, though with little real effect, from the country’s current president but more rarely from Mr Putin himself: modernisation.

Modernisation requires far more than overhauling Russia’s creaking, resource-dominated economy. It means, above all else, replacing the arbitrary and often corrupt rule of the Kremlin and local bureaucracies with the rule of law, reinforced by the checks and balances of a modern democracy. Russia faces numerous handicaps in making that transition – in its history, its culture, its mind-boggling vastness. But with nominal output per capita topping $13,000 last year, it is at the level where many other countries have achieved it.

On this story

Move to curb Moscow radio station
Putin woos middle class with wage promise
Gideon Rachman Ice is cracking under Putin
Protests chip away at Putin’s authority
The World On the march in Moscow

On this topic

Editorial

Steering the country to this point is, for all the repellent aspects of his system, Mr Putin’s undoubted achievement. “Putin 2.0” must move to the next stage. Russia needs an independent, well-trained judiciary; a functioning, competitive parliament; and free media. These, in turn, could boost protection of property rights and begin to combat corruption. That could encourage foreign investment and help small businesses, outside the extractive industries, to start to flourish. In economic policy, Mr Putin would be well advised to adopt the detailed “Strategy 2020” plan drawn up at his request by experts last year.

The prime minister’s articles contain elements of such a programme. But similar promises have been made before. The pressure revealed on Tuesday on Ekho Moskvy, the admirably independent radio station, is more reason to doubt his sincerity. The risk is Mr Putin again ducks the big reform challenges and goes for the ostensibly easier option. This would include some political liberalisation to appease the restive middle class, plus high-spending populism to retain the loyalty of his more working-class and rural “base”. With an already bloated budget, Russia cannot afford such largesse.

Real reforms will be tough, and potentially unpopular. But Mr Putin should expend his remaining political capital on setting them in train. He should, too, allow new leaders to emerge, both within and outside the Kremlin system, able to take up the challenge. He conducted an essentially sham handover of power in 2008; now he must begin preparing to do so for real.

Kosovo shows how the west can intervene in Syria

via Financial Times - Comment on 2/14/12

Fears of fuelling sectarian tensions are misplaced. Inaction, not intervention, will inflame the region’s divisions, writes Radwan Ziadeh

Responsibility and press freedom

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/13/12

Any journalist attempting subterfuge to obtain a story has a hurdle to jump. In the case of paying police, it should be very high indeed

Xi Jinping’s US coming out party

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/15/12

US-China relations are in an awkward holding pattern. There is little evidence that Mr Obama is shifting the position of the China supertanker

Obama attacks Chinese business practices

via Financial Times - US homepage on 2/15/12

US president and China’s leader in waiting travel to Midwest with contrasting messages. Xi tries to mend fences with American business

Facebook plays ball with Madison Ave

via Financial Times - US homepage on 2/15/12

Its relationships with advertising agencies are critical if the company is to justify its market valuation given that it relies on advertising for 85 per cent of its revenue

Assad announces reforms as crackdown continues

via Financial Times - Europe homepage on 2/15/12

State TV talks of referendum on constitutional changes while troops storm a Damascus suburb and extend bombardment to Hama

Fed rules out further easing to boost recovery

via Financial Times - Europe homepage on 2/15/12

Some FOMC members say the US central bank may soon have to consider buying more bonds ‘before long’ to avoid risks to the economy

Turkey-US harmony has its limits

via Financial Times - World on 2/15/12

As the Syria crisis deepens, Ankara and Washington are working together again, but the nature of their relationship has changed

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Obama attacks Chinese business practices

via Financial Times - World on 2/15/12

US president and China’s leader in waiting travel to Midwest with contrasting messages. Xi tries to mend fences with American business

Iran signals readiness for nuclear ‘dialogue’

via Financial Times - World on 2/15/12

Country’s supreme national security council, which is in charge of nuclear negotiations, expresses a readiness to resume talks

Greek rhetoric turns into battle of wills

via Financial Times - World on 2/16/12

Athens and German politicians exchange strong words over remaining in euro and holding of fresh elections

Syria chemical weapons alarm grows

via Financial Times - World on 2/15/12

Western fears increase that an alleged stockpile secured by the Assad regime could be attacked or seized by opposition groups or militants

Scepticism at talk of Greek default

via Financial Times - World on 2/15/12

Senior officials said they were becoming increasingly convinced that three eurozone triple A countries were not bluffing in talks

Greek bail-out worries knock sentiment

via Financial Times - World on 2/16/12

Euro drops below $1.30 and stock markets fall back, as investors fear that the impasse over Athens’ aid package may result in a messy default

Spain on brink of recession, data confirm

via Financial Times - World on 2/16/12

The eurozone’s fourth largest economy shrank for the first time in two years in the final quarter of last year

China warns on growing water shortages

via Financial Times - World on 2/16/12

The world’s second-largest economy struggles to deal with the immense environmental degradation that has accompanied economic growth

Obama and Xi should talk tech, not trade

via Financial Times - Opinion on 2/13/12

There is potential for productive discussion – provided US does not complain about exchange rates and unfair competition, writes Yukon Huang

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A budget for the rich and powerful

via Financial Times - Opinion on 2/13/12

The poor are the losers as US political parties converge not to the centre of public opinion, but well to the right, writes Jeffrey Sachs

Is America working?

via FT.com - In depth on 12/12/11

This FT series examines the US jobs crisis and looks at what can be done to make a once-mighty economy return to being the employment engine it once was

Stanford scandal

via FT.com - In depth on 6/19/09

Allen Stanford, the Texan businessman, is standing trial accused of orchestrating a $7bn Ponzi scheme over a ten-year period that has left more than 20,000 investors stranded

Greece debt crisis

via FT.com - In depth on 6/21/11

The eurozone’s weakest economy is struggling to bring sovereign debt under control in a crisis that George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, has admitted is of its own making. His government’s plans to tackle the budget deficit via ‘painful’ reforms have won the backing of Brussels but will remain under close scrutiny by the European Commission

UK phone-hacking scandal

via FT.com - In depth on 2/14/12

The intense political pressure brought to bear on Rupert Murdoch has resulted in News Corp abandoning its £7.8bn bid to take full control of BSkyB

Eurozone in crisis

via FT.com - In depth on 5/29/11

The €750bn European stabilisation mechanism agreed by the EU and the IMF is designed to restore confidence in the financial markets and to prevent contagion from the Greek sovereign debt crisis spreading within the eurozone

A denial of justice made in Strasbourg

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/10/12

No country should be put in a position where it is forced to choose between justice and the protection of its own citizens

Let Greece stand on its own feet

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/10/12

The metamorphosis that the country desperately needs will happen only if the Greek people want it

Stopping the Syrian carnage

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/12/12

The calls grow louder for external actors in Europe, Turkey and the Gulf to start arming the disparate defectors operating under the Free Syrian Army

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Spanish justice on trial in Garzón case

via Financial Times - Editorial on 2/12/12

No public official should be allowed to break the law. But the fact that the crusading human rights judge was singled out raises suspicions

How to crank up America’s economic dynamo

via Financial Times - Comment on 2/14/12

Obama’s approach has taken the US to a fork in the road: the choice is growth and recovery or protection and decline, writes Glenn Hubbard

My journey to the heart of Greek darkness

via Financial Times - Comment on 2/15/12

I found pettifoggers worthy of Gogol – but I also found dedicated Greeks who shared the anarchists’ frustrations, writes Richard Parker

Google must remember our right to be forgotten

via Financial Times - Comment on 2/15/12

Users should have the right to change their minds as they learn the implications of that little box they unthinkingly ticked, writes Richard Falkenrath

Turkey-US harmony has its limits

via Financial Times - Comment on 2/15/12

As the Syria crisis deepens, Ankara and Washington are working together again, but the nature of their relationship has changed

US Treasury: Manhattan transfer

via FT.com - Analysis on 2/5/12

Rapid staff turnover is raising fears that the department is precariously short of seasoned professionals

Eurozone crisis: A deft way to buy time

via FT.com - Analysis on 2/7/12

With his bold offer of unlimited three-year liquidity to squeezed lenders, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi has helped hold off a credit crunch – but deep economic and political problems remain

Germany and Europe: A very federal formula

via FT.com - Analysis on 2/9/12

Angela Merkel’s plans for a shift in power from EU members to Brussels would generate constitutional problems within Germany and worries among allies, writes Quentin Peel