Low voter turnout at Egypt vote

Reza Sayah reports on troubles with Egypt's election results, including low turnout.



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Sudan: Only court can release woman

Sudan's foreign ministry denied published reports that a woman sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith is expected to be released.



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U.S. Vets scandal: Secretary resigns

[Adds breaking news update 11:24 a.m. ET]



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Who was swapped for Bergdahl?

Together with the announcement that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was released after nearly five years of captivity came the news that five detainees at Guantanamo Bay were being transferred to Qatar.



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$2B for the Clippers? You're kidding

Mike Downey says the ex-Microsoft boss' $2 billion offer for a middling basketball team is nuts.



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Mickelson: I've done nothing wrong

Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson denied involvement in an alleged insider trading fraud Saturday, saying he is fully co-operating with FBI agents.



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Easy for Rafa, Murray on brink

Rafael Nadal took another big step towards a ninth French Open title Saturday while one of his chief rivals in his half of the draw Andy Murray hovered on the brink of elimination before play was halted in fading light.



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Woman's stoning riles the world

Gayle Lemmon says in Pakistan, Nigeria, as well as the U.S., there are too many crimes and hatred against women.



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U.S. Marine tells of abuse in Mexico jail

Punched. Slapped. Cursed at. Deprived of water and food. Shackled to a bed with a "four-point restraint for almost a month."



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U.S. soldier held captive in Afghanistan freed, 5 years on

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, U.S. soldier held captive for nearly five years by militants during the Afghanistan war, is released, the White House says.



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Profile: Who is Bowe Bergdahl?

Just three days after his 28th birthday, the White House announced news of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's release by the Taliban.



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Military gets P.O.W.'s 'proof of life'

US obtained 'proof of life' video of Beau Bergdahl, the only U.S. POW from the Afghanistan war.



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Principles collide in soldier's case

"No negotiating with terrorists" versus "Leave no soldier behind."



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June 2013: New hope for soldier

The wait for a soldier held captive for four years continues with a glimmer of hope. CNN's Jake Tapper reports.



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Stoning suspects face terrorism court

Five relatives arrested in the public stoning death of a pregnant Pakistani woman will be taken to an anti-terrorism court, authorities said.



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Rossi woe at 300th MotoGP

Valentino Rossi will have to do it the hard way if he is to mark his 300th MotoGP with victory in front of his adoring home fans at Mugello.



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Tiananmen Square attack: 8 charged

Eight people in China have been indicted for their roles in an attack in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Saturday, citing local authorities.



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Turkish cops harass CNN reporter

A CNN correspondent was harassed by Turkish plainclothes police as he was live on air, reporting on tensions between the officers and demonstrators on the first anniversary of mass protests in Istanbul.



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CNN reporter held by police on air

Turkish authorities demand CNN's Ivan Watson produce his passport during live reporting.



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Terror arrest at Heathrow Airport

London's Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers from the police's Counter Terrorism Command, SO15, have arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of preparing for acts of terrorism.



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Egypt: El-Sisi rival concedes defeat

The only opponent of the former military chief concedes defeat in Egypt's presidential elections while challenging the credibility of the vote.



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Arrests in girls' rape, hanging

Two teenage girls' bodies were discovered hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh. CNN's Sumnima Udas reports.



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Man charged over Brad Pitt attack

A journalist accused of striking Brad Pitt at the "Maleficent" premiere is out of a job and possibly faces months in jail.



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Donetsk reels after week of violence

Pro-Russian separatists built roadblocks on the main routes into the flashpoint eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk on Saturday in an effort to prevent Ukrainian troops from entering.



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Toddler hurt by grenade in drug raid

Members of a northeast Georgia SWAT team are "devastated" after a drug raid in which a flash-bang grenade landed in a 1-year-old's playpen, seriously injuring the child, the Habersham County sheriff said Friday.



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6 Americans detained in Honduras

Six Americans who were salvaging goods from the bottom of the sea off the coast of Honduras have sat in a jail there for over three weeks as officials have charged them with illegal weapons possession.



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George Michael 'resting and well'

George Michael spent two days in a London hospital last week, but his representative is not revealing why.



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U.S.: Syria bomber was American

A radical Islamist fighter who carried out a recent suicide bombing in Syria was a man who grew up in Florida, U.S. authorities say.



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McIlroy falls away at Memorial

A second consecutive round of 66 fired Paul Casey to the top of the Memorial Tournament leaderboard in Dublin, Ohio, Friday after overnight leader Rory McIlroy fell away.



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Snowden: 10 things we learned

Traitor or patriot? Low-level systems analyst or highly trained spy?



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Model fights Google over porn photos

Attorneys for Google and Yahoo appeared in a Buenos Aires court to respond to accusations that searches on their websites link the name and photos of a popular Argentina model to sexually-oriented websites.



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Torres earns World Cup spot

Fernando Torres may have booked his place in Spain's 23-man squad for its defense of the World Cup by scoring the opening goal in a 2-0 warmup win over Bolivia in Sevilla.



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How terrible is it to be born a girl?

Isobel Coleman says violence against women is being discussed, and that's a step forward from centuries of silence.



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Secret eyes watching you shop

FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez warns consumers about the perils of invisible data brokers where common transactions quietly surrender a gold mine of data, from where you live to what you like.



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We need birds, and birds need us

Peter Doherty says more than ever before, birds are threatened by human pollutions and climate change.



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Sex trafficking hero quits after expose

She was the world's crusader against the trafficking of girls for sex in Cambodia, and she told an extraordinary personal tale: she was a village girl sold by a grandfatherly man into sex slavery.



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Did Somaly Mam fabricate story?

CNN's Randi Kaye investigates recent accusations that activist Somaly Mam may have fabricated her sex slavery story.



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Catholic teachers battle morality clause

If you want to teach at a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, regardless of your religion, you must be willing to sign a detailed morality clause that critics say focuses on "pelvic issues."



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2 more arrested over gang-rape of hanged Indian teens

Indian authorities hold five men in custody -- including two police officers -- over the gang-rape of two teenage girls found hanging from a tree in a northern village.



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Husband of stoned woman speaks

The husband of the Pakistani woman who was stoned speaks out as outrage spreads around the country. Jim Clancy reports.



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Bloody clashes in C.A.R.

Clashes in Central African Republic between protesters and peacekeepers end in bloodshed. CNN's Nic Robertson reports.



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Redskins fumble on Twitter

The Washington Redskins, stinging from a letter by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and dozens of fellow Democrats calling on the league to force the team to change its racist name, apparently fumbled a desperate Twitter appeal to fans.



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Store defends flag likened to KKK hood

A British supermarket chain has defended the sale of a wearable England flag in its stores that has been compared to a Ku Klux Klan uniform.



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Tennis: Gulbis comments cause stir

Ernest Gulbis is no stranger to a controversial comment.



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Bodies hanging from branches

The brutal gang rape and murder of two girls in rural India has infuriated the rest of the country. Sumnima Udas reports.



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Nigeria: Militants kill Islamic leader

Gunmen on Friday shot dead a Nigerian Islamic traditional leader in the northeastern state of Borno as he and other Muslim royals were heading to a funeral, the state government said.



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Protesters lash out at peacekeepers

Thousands of angry protesters poured into the streets of the Central African Republic's capital Friday. The target of their rage? Peacekeepers sent to protect them.



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NBA: Record $2B deal to sell Clippers

A deal has been reached for the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers.



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Tennis: Rafa avoids upsets in Paris

Serena Williams, Li Na and Stan Wawrinka all exited the French Open in the first four days. But eight-time winner Rafael Nadal avoids a potential upset against young Austrian hopeful Dominic Thiem.



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IDF suspends soldier after shooting

The Israeli military has suspended a soldier who was filmed by CNN firing a rifle at Palestinian demonstrators during a deadly shooting incident on May 15 that resulted in the deaths of two Palestinian teenagers, an Israeli military source told CNN.



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Boko Haram raids 'kill 35'

Boko Haram insurgents killed 35 people in coordinated early morning raids on three villages in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, a military source and residents said, the latest deadly attacks by the militant group.



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World unready for 'forgotten' decision

The Internet has radically altered many things, not least the speed at which we all share and receive information, and the depth of the information available.



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Stoning death: Pakistan police probed

Police officers will be investigated because they didn't intervene when a group beat a woman to death in a Pakistani "honor killing," a court official said Friday.



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U.S. Vets scandal: Secretary resigns

[Adds breaking news update 11:24 a.m. ET]



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The rape case that changed India

When I tell people outside India that I live in New Delhi, I'm almost always asked the now inevitable question: "Do you feel safe there?" or worse, "what's with the rape culture in India?"



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Rape survivor gives others strength

As a rape survivor, I have always wanted to give voice to victims of violence. But it was only this week, after the publication of a very personal piece on rape, that I understood how important it is to do so.



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Maya Angelou: 'Phenomenal woman'

Donna Brazile shares the joy and pain of losing her friend, her mentor, her hero. "Maya Angelou was the voice of three generations, a phenomenal woman. She had a talent for weaving words into songs and songs into melodies. She wasn't afraid to sway her hips. And she taught us to do the same."



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Multiple monitor groups missing

Another group of international monitors has gone missing in Ukraine. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.



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How complex are health regulations?: The 140,000-code question

DOCTORS complain that honest errors in how they code treatments are often mistaken for skulduggery, and that the automation of claims-monitoring could make this worse. It is, they say, becoming harder to stay on the right side of the rules as billing requirements grow more convoluted. Medicare will next year have 140,000 different codes, including nine for injuries caused by turkeys. (Was the victim struck or pecked? Once or more often? Did she suffer negative after-effects? And so on.)Many clinics have fallen under suspicion and had payments suspended, only to win a reprieve when the facts are examined closely. Medicare alone has a backlog of nearly half a million appeals.Carousel Pediatrics, a children’s clinic, was at first accused of fraud and told to repay $18m, plus $4m in penalties. But when investigators took a closer look, it was asked to pay just $3.75m for unintended errors. John Holcomb of the Texas Medical Association suspects the case is likely to make doctors in the Austin area reluctant to take Medicaid patients. Already, 80% don’t.

from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/1k7Ki0L

Health-care fraud: The $272 billion swindle

INVESTIGATORS in New York were looking for health-care fraud hot-spots. Agents suggested Oceana, a cluster of luxury condos in Brighton Beach. The 865-unit complex had a garage full of Porsches and Aston Martins—and 500 residents claiming Medicaid, which is meant for the poor and disabled. Though many claims had been filed legitimately, some looked iffy. Last August six residents were charged. Within weeks another 150 had stopped claiming assistance, says Robert Byrnes, one of the investigators.Health care is a tempting target for thieves. Medicaid doles out $415 billion a year; Medicare (a federal scheme for the elderly), nearly $600 billion. Total health spending in America is a massive $2.7 trillion, or 17% of GDP. No one knows for sure how much of that is embezzled, but in 2012 Donald Berwick, a former head of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Andrew Hackbarth of the RAND Corporation, estimated that fraud (and the extra rules and inspections required to fight it) added as much as $98 billion, or roughly 10%, to annual Medicare and Medicaid spending—and up to $272 billion across the entire health system.Federal prosecutors had over 2,000...



from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/1jwGqlh

Rupert Loewenstein: Sympathy for the Devil

THE music of the Rolling Stones did nothing for Prince Rupert zu Loewenstein. Perhaps “Paint it Black” was not too bad. Otherwise, he doubted that their cacophanies counted as music at all. If you made your way backstage at a Stones concert, passing through dozens of grades of status and access, past aides in black T-shirts and girls in not much, you would find him at the very nerve-centre, a portly, kindly figure in immaculate suit and tie, with his hands clapped over his ears.He was there, on every tour for 39 years, because his financial nous had turned the Stones into the most lucrative rock band in the world. Mick had his hip-swivelling energy, and Keith his wild guitar; Prince Rupert, behind the scenes, contributed wisdom and suavity to the cafetière, along with high-class fun. Before he arrived, in 1969, they were stuck in a recording contract with Decca and tied to a financial adviser, Allen Klein, who creamed off half of what they earned. Over years of litigation Prince Rupert liberated them, restoring their rights to regular revenue from their songs. He also built up a global touring machine that pulled in millions from...



from The Economist: Obituary http://ift.tt/1rktkkY

Demography: Quality time

FATHER, mother and two children: surely the perfect family size. For those concerned, it is neither too big nor too small. For the national economy, it ensures that two new workers will replace the parents in the labour force. And eventually the children will have children of their own and keep the population stable.For that happy state to be achieved, the “total fertility rate” (a measure used by demographers for the number of children a woman is likely to have during her childbearing years) needs to be above two: around 2.1 in the rich world and more in poorer countries, because some children, particularly in the developing world, die before adulthood. For many years the United Nations’ population forecasts—the gold standard in the demography business—have assumed that, in the long run, fertility the world over would converge on the replacement level and populations would stabilise. But fertility rates everywhere have been declining for decades. Even in Africa, where large families are still the norm, the number of children per woman in 2010-15 is forecast to fall to 4.7, compared with 5.7 in 1990-95. Global average...

from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1pB3cOc

Fridge ownership: Cool developments

Fresher food around the corner

BEFORE pooling savings from her extended family to buy a refrigerator, Sheela Naik, who earns $80 a month as a housemaid on the outskirts of Goa, had to shop daily at market stalls and try to cook just the right amount for her household of ten each night. After serving meat or fish at family get-togethers, she would ask neighbours with fridges to store the leftovers. “They would help but still make a face,” she says. Now she shops weekly at a bigger market and cooks several meals at a time. Her fridge holds leftover carrots, beans and tomatoes, as well as her invalid mother-in-law’s medicine. The freezer has half a kilo of mackerel bought at a discount.Fridges are transforming women’s lives in India and other emerging markets, just as they did in developed countries decades ago. They are next on families’ wishlists after mobile phones and televisions, usually becoming affordable when household incomes pass around $3,000 a year. Take-up is swifter in places that are urbanising fast. According to Euromonitor, a research firm, ownership in China has leapt from 24% in 1994 to 88% today, whereas in Peru,...



from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1nxrV9b

Pay activism: The new minimalism

EARLIER this month the Swiss voted on whether to introduce the world’s highest minimum wage, a hefty 22 Swiss francs ($25) an hour. Though they dismissed the plans by three to one, leaving their country without a national pay floor, it was part of a trend. Several rich countries are seeing pushes to introduce minimum wages, or to boost those already on the books. Only the more cautious are likely to succeed.Germany’s Social Democrats recently insisted on a national minimum of €8.50 ($15) as part of their coalition deal with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, rather than leaving unions and employers to settle minimum rates by sector. Die Welt, a conservative German newspaper, lambasted the policy as a “populist undertaking”. But more than three-quarters of Germans support it, despite heated argument about the impact on jobs.Britain’s minimum wage, introduced in 1999, now stands at £6.31 ($10.50) an hour for over-21s. The ruling Conservatives, who had initially opposed it, now restrict themselves to haggling over its level. The opposition Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has said that boosting it by more than the rise in average wages will be in his party’s election manifesto next year. That could mean ignoring the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission, an independent body that advises the government and has guarded against excessive increases.America...

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Europe’s elections: The Eurosceptic Union

FOR once, Europe’s leaders seemed to agree: the European Union must change, and fast. After the European elections on May 22nd-25th, which saw the strong rise of radical parties of both the left and the right, the union had to do more to promote growth and jobs, and to become more relevant to citizens.Such was the message issued by François Hollande, the French president, and David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, both humiliated after their parties were trounced into third place by anti-EU parties of the right. The call was also echoed by Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, who was boosted by the success of his Democratic Party in seeing off the challenge of the Five Star Movement. “We must change Europe to save it,” he declared.Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was quick to agree, even though she once more confirmed her talent for winning elections. The emergence of a tame Eurosceptic party, Alternative for Germany, which wants to abandon the euro but not the EU, was contained to 7% of the vote, a far cry from the roughly 25% secured by Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France and Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1oy4goF

European elections in the Nordics: Schadenfreude

THE Eurosceptic Danish People’s Party (DPP) cannot be blamed for Schadenfreude over the European election. The DPP’s leading candidate, the youthful Morten Messerschmidt, topped the poll and doubled the party’s seats in the European Parliament to four; his 465,758 personal votes smashed a record set a decade ago by a former prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who once castigated the DPP as “dishonourable”.The election leaves Denmark’s mainstream political parties in a state of disarray. The ruling Social Democratic Party as well as the main opposition party lost one seat each. The coalition’s decline can be ascribed to austerity fatigue, but the opposition’s collapse is largely due to missteps by the leader of the Liberal Party, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.Less than a year ago, Mr Rasmussen, a former prime minister, seemed sure to win his job back at the next general election, but he has been dogged by scandals in recent months. His penchant for the finer things in life, including first-class flights at state expense and splashing $27,000 from party coffers on clothes, has put his leadership in doubt. A gathering of the party’s top brass next week will probably force his resignation. And Helle Thorning-Schmidt, leader of the Social Democrats and prime minister, may be tempted to exploit her opponent’s weakness by calling a snap...

from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1oy4ig1

Spain’s “indignant ones”: Exit Rubalcaba

THE indignados are back. The spontaneous movement of the “indignant ones” found a new mouthpiece in Podemos (“We Can”), an internet-savvy leftist party founded four months ago, which stormed past older opposition groups to become Spain’s fourth most-voted-for party. In cities like Madrid it came third behind the Socialist Party and the People’s Party (PP), beating the traditional, communist-led United Left (IU) and its coalition allies.After years of high unemployment and austerity Spanish voters are angry, though more with their own politicians than with Europe. As a result Spain has its own equivalent of Greece’s far-left party, Syriza, a future partner in the European Parliament. Podemos is both deeply serious with its anti-EU austerity and anti-globalisation creed and fiercely radical. One of its new MEPs hails from a group called Anticapitalist Left. The party’s pony-tailed, telegenic leader, Pablo Iglesias, a 35-year-old university lecturer, promises to return from Brussels to lead Podemos into a general election that is due within 20 months.Podemos took 8% of the vote, which set off two political shocks. The duopoly of the two big parties was broken, as the Socialists and PP jointly sank below the 50% mark for the first time in three decades. And Podemos helped to destroy the position of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Socialist leader, who...

from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1oy4hZD

Greece’s protest parties: Syriza and other radicals

Golden Dawn on the march to Strasbourg

IT COULD have been far worse. As pollsters had predicted, the ruling centre-right New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras, the prime minister, was pushed into second place in the European elections by Syriza, a far-left party led by Alexis Tsipras. His fiery anti-German rhetoric and threats to rip up Greece’s bail-out agreement find favour with austerity-battered Greeks. Another “protest” party, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, captured almost 10% of the vote and came third, even though its leaders are being held in jail on charges of running a criminal organisation.Yet Greece looks no more unstable than it did before the elections. Syriza’s margin of victory was just under four percentage points, not enough for Karolos Papoulias, the president, to heed Mr Tsipras’s demands for a snap general election. Mr Samaras’s coalition partner, the PanHellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), running under a new centre-left umbrella called Elia (Olive Tree), did better than the opinion polls had forecast. Together, New Democracy and Elia finished four points ahead of Syriza. New Democracy also won 11 of 13 regional...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1lU9AMB

Seismic shifts in French politics: Triple shock

Marilyn Le Pen

FRANCE is reeling from a triple political shock. Within the space of 48 hours, Marine Le Pen’s populist National Front (FN) triumphed at the European elections, the Socialist Party of the president, François Hollande, bombed with their worst-ever national electoral result and the UMP, the main centre-right opposition, lost its leader, Jean-François Copé, in a party-financing scandal. The upshot is not just consternation on the left and right but an unstable party balance, which could affect French politics for years to come.The FN’s victory was spectacular on several counts. With around 25% of the vote, it was the first time the party has come top in a national election, pushing the UMP into second place with 21%, and crushing the Socialists, who got a dismal 14%. Ms Le Pen’s party quadrupled its 2009 European score, and was far ahead of the 18% of her father, Jean-Marie, when he got into the 2002 presidential run-off. In the north-west constituency, where Ms Le Pen stood, the FN bagged 34% of the vote.Although polls had predicted victory for the FN, it was nonetheless a huge shock when it happened. Manuel Valls, the...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1oy4fB5

Berlin’s airports: Don’t touch Tempelhof

FOR many Berliners, election day was less about a hard-to-understand parliament in distant Strasbourg and more about a huge field in the middle of Berlin. Roughly the size of New York’s Central Park, but round, Tempelhof was once a busy airport. As the most central of the landing fields the American and British “raisin bombers” used during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, it always held a special place in Berliners’ hearts. After a failed referendum in 2008 to keep it open, it became a park. Its two runways are Berlin’s best place for windskating (surfing, but on skateboards).But Berlin also needs more housing. Though its rents are still below those of Munich or Hamburg, they have been rising as some 40,000 people a year arrive in search of the capital’s excitement and jobs. So Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, supported a plan to build about 4,700 flats and a library along the edges, while still preserving most of the field as a playground.He became the butt of jokes. After all, Berliners are already upset about “Wowi”, as they call him, for messing up the new Berlin Brandenburg airport, a huge project that is supposed to replace Berlin’s smaller airports that date...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1oy4fkC

Italy’s Renzi wins: Against the trend

ITALY was the odd one out. As voters throughout Europe backed protest groups, Eurosceptics and extremists, the Italian electorate gave a huge endorsement to the pro-European Democratic Party (PD) of Matteo Renzi, the prime minister.The centre-left PD took 41% of the vote, the best showing by a party in a national election since 1958. It had commentators wondering if Italy might be entering a new era of one-party hegemony similar to the post-war decades dominated by the Christian Democrats. The maverick Five Star Movement (M5S), led by an ex-comedian, Beppe Grillo, did unexpectedly badly, trailing the PD by almost 20 percentage points. And Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party won less than 17%.So was this a vote of confidence in the EU, the euro and good old conventional party politics? Not really. Mr Renzi had positioned himself as somebody who, given enough support, would take on Mrs Merkel and the austerity policies she represents. And while Mr Grillo may be the most blatantly populist of Italy’s leading politicians, the prime minister, like Mr Berlusconi, is another big-talking showman. One reason for his triumph was a tax cut that will put €80 ($110) a month into the wage packets of the lower paid.Even if Mr Grillo had not repeatedly forecast a victory for M5S, its result, four points lower than in last year’s general election, would have been a setback....

from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1lU9AfA

Healthy eating: The case for eating steak and cream

Shifting the argument

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. By Nina Teicholz. Simon & Schuster; 479 pages; $27.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk“EATING foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood,” according to the American Heart Association (AHA). “High levels of blood cholesterol increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.” So goes the warning from the AHA, the supposed authority on the subject. Governments and doctors wag their fingers to this tune the world over. Gobble too much bacon and butter and you may well die young. But what if that were wrong?Nina Teicholz, an American journalist, makes just that argument in her compelling new book, “The Big Fat Surprise”. The debate is not confined to nutritionists. Warnings about fat have changed how food companies do business, what people eat, and how and...



from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1lU8QqL

Germany’s European elections: An alternative becomes real

HELMUT KOHL, a former German chancellor, used to say that there must never be a political party in parliament to the right of his own Christian Democrats (CDU). Mr Kohl was worried about right-wing parties that could raise the spectre of Germany’s Nazi past. At the European elections his fear came true, in a less menacing yet still important way.It did so not because the NPD, composed of right-wing extremists, was one of 14 German parties to win representation in the European Parliament. That was due merely to a legal change that translates even less than 1% of votes into one seat. Rather, Mr Kohl’s worry was vindicated because the one-year-old Alternative for Germany surged to 7% of the vote. Bernd Lucke, the Alternative’s boss and one of the seven delegates it will send to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, is confident that the party will now also enter state parliaments in regional elections later this year. In 2017, it could even become part of the federal Bundestag.Mr Lucke insists that the Alternative is not a Eurosceptic party. That is still taboo in the German mainstream. Thus he will not enter a coalition with Eurosceptics in Strasbourg. Rather, he sees the party as an anti-euro and yet pro-EU party: one that believes in a peaceful union of sovereign states which, according to the principle of subsidiarity, should be left by Brussels to run their own affairs...

from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1lU9uEW

Charlemagne: Who will run Europe?

THE deceit of the European election was summed up by posters around the continent: “Use your power. Choose who is in charge of Europe”. The votes were cast. People used their power to kick governments by supporting parties of the far right and left. But they did not choose who would run Europe. The European Union is too complex to be run by any one body or person. Even the choice of a new president of the European Commission, the EU’s civil service, will take weeks if not months to be decided.The European Parliament had hoped to inject direct democracy into the system by turning the elections into a contest for a sort of prime minister. Spitzenkandidaten, German for “leading candidates”, were chosen to represent the main multinational party groups. The candidate of the biggest group, it was argued, should become president of the commission. At its heart, the innovation was a power-grab by the parliament, trying to take from elected leaders the right to pick the commission president.The experiment flopped. The Spitzenkandidaten made little impact on the campaign, which remained a collection of 28 national contests (...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1lU9uEE

Ukraine’s presidential poll: A two-tone election

“AS I set off on a spring journey into the world, my mother embroidered my shirt with two colours: red for love and black for sorrow,” goes a popular Ukrainian song. On May 25th, as Ukrainians went to the polls to elect Petro Poroshenko as their new president, many sported the traditional shirts embroidered with red and black threads. Held in the middle of a war stoked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and three months after a revolution in Kiev’s Maidan that led to more than 100 deaths—and cost the country Crimea, which Mr Putin annexed—Ukraine’s presidential election was an act of defiance as much as an expression of political preferences.The sense of nationhood that emerged from the Maidan revolution produced long queues at the polling booths. “We are not just choosing a new president. We are choosing a new country, where everything depends on us,” said Oksana Selezneva, a 24-year-old IT specialist. The energy of voters was directed externally as much as within. As one put it, “Every vote cast is a slap in the face for Mr Putin.” The goal was to show that Ukraine could function as a nation-state. The terror unleashed by separatists in the eastern industrial Donbas region aimed to...



from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1gDYeQv

China: Wild at heart

I’ll take it

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China. By Evan Osnos. Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 403 pages; $27. Bodley Head; £20. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.ukLAST month Chris Matthews, a well-known American television presenter, discussed on his daily programme his recent visit to China. He could hardly contain his astonishment at the size of its cities and the scale of its consumerism. What astonished those who know China was that such a prominent media personality could be surprised that Chinese people are no longer living as though it were 1976. Mr Matthews’s reaction neatly encapsulates part of China’s image problem: Western journalists and politicians express strong opinions about a country that few have visited and even fewer know well.As every visitor soon discovers, Chinese people are being transformed, both materially and psychologically. They are developing new...



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Saudi youth: Fast and furious

Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt in Saudi Arabia. By Pascal Menoret. Cambridge University Press; 250 pages; $85 and £55. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.ukGOOD anthropologists aim to enter into the minds of their subjects, sharing their lifestyle, acquiring their language, studying their moods and responses but always maintaining an objective self-awareness. Pascal Menoret is better than good. Halfway through two years of research in the sprawling, aesthetically bleak, politically and socially stifling capital of Saudi Arabia, the French academic, currently at NYU Abu Dhabi, found himself feeling profoundly tufshan.In Saudi dialect, explains Mr Menoret, the word describes the “subtle and incapacitating torpor” that results from a dawning sense of worthlessness and social inadequacy. Common among the young and working class in Riyadh, a city he calls “a selective El Dorado where only a handful became rich”, this state of dejection generates not merely ennui but a detached indifference which itself can be intoxicating and even revolutionary.Mr Menoret is made to feel ...

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Europe’s angry voters: Bucked off

“DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe…” proclaims the Treaty of Rome that began the European project in 1957. When the history of the European Union is written, 2014 will very probably come to be seen as an equally significant date, for this was the year that Europe’s voters told its leaders to abandon the noble aspiration that launched the venture more than half a century earlier and has shaped its policies ever since.Even though a big anti-European vote had been expected, the scale of it still came as a shock. In France Marine Le Pen’s National Front (FN) came top with 25% of the vote. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) did better still, with 27%. Almost 40% of the vote in Greece went to broadly Eurosceptic or avowedly racist parties. As many as 30% of the seats in the next European Parliament will be held by anti-establishment and/or anti-European parties. Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, was right to speak afterwards of a political “earthquake”.Prosperity v democracyThe direct political consequences may not in themselves be hugely significant. Within the European Parliament, the populists will probably...



from The Economist: Leaders http://ift.tt/1jwIRUR

Asian business: A world to conquer

BUSINESS power follows economic power. In the 1920s British firms owned 40% of the global stock of foreign direct investment. By 1967 America was top dog, with a 50% share. Behind those figures lie cultural revolutions. The British spread the telegraph and trains in Latin America. American firms sold a vision of the good life, honed by Hollywood and advertising. Kellogg’s changed what the rich world ate for breakfast, and Kodak how it remembered holidays. The next corporate revolution, as we describe in our special report this week, is happening in Asia. This too will change how the world lives.Arrested developmentAsian capitalism has brawn. The continent’s share of global GDP has risen from a fifth to 28% since 1984. It is the world’s factory, a diverse region of rivals bound together by supply chains. But it lacks brains and global savvy. Asia smelts 76% of the world’s iron and emits 44% of its pollution, but hosts only a tenth of its most valuable brands and venture-capital activity. Its...



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A chocolate baron wins in Ukraine: Sweet victory

WHEN a country has had to attack one of its own airports, seen a chunk of territory seized by a neighbour and watched armed insurgents overrun another portion, it might seem odd to argue that restoring peace is not its leader’s hardest challenge. But Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s new president, faces an even bigger task: to dismantle the corrupt, oligarchic system of government that helped create Ukraine’s turmoil—a system in which Mr Poroshenko himself participated.Given not just Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the instability fomented by the Kremlin in eastern Ukraine, but a wrecked economy and a free-falling currency, it is commendable that the presidential election of May 25th went ahead at all. Likewise it is a good thing that Mr Poroshenko won in the first round, sparing the country a run-off, and with strong support everywhere except in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where armed separatists largely prevented voting. For all the Russian hysteria about Ukrainian “fascists”, far-right candidates notched up only 2%—much less than many nationalists in the European elections on the same day. And Mr Poroshenko is a more palatable president than Yulia...



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Health-care fraud in America: That’s where the money is

MEDICAL science is hazy about many things, but doctors agree that if a patient is losing pints of blood all over the carpet, it is a good idea to stanch his wounds. The same is true of a health-care system. If crooks are bleeding it of vast quantities of cash, it is time to tighten the safeguards.In America the scale of medical embezzlement is extraordinary. According to Donald Berwick, the ex-boss of Medicare and Medicaid (the public health schemes for the old and poor), America lost between $82 billion and $272 billion in 2011 to medical fraud and abuse (see article). The higher figure is 10% of medical spending and a whopping 1.7% of GDP—as if robbers had made off with the entire output of Tennessee or nearly twice the budget of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).Crooks love American health care for two reasons. First, as Willie Sutton said of banks, it’s where the money is—no other country spends nearly as much on pills and procedures. Second, unlike a bank, it is barely guarded.Some scams are...



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Egypt’s new president: Marching to the wrong tune

THE freshly minted presidency of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has got off to an embarrassing start. The turnout for the poll on May 26th-27th that was supposed to provide civilian camouflage for a military dictatorship was lower even than expected—so low, indeed, that polling stations were kept open for a third day in the hope that more Egyptians could be enticed into them. The election has thus failed to provide the former general with the stamp of legitimacy that he was hoping for.Mr Sisi’s true popularity is hard to measure. Most Egyptians, exhausted by three-and-a-half years of turbulence since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown after 30 years of stultifyingly repressive rule, still probably wish him well. But a strongman’s allure can fade fast. And unless he changes direction, Egypt could slide back to where it was in 2011, with a populace just as angrily frustrated and as ready to oppose a dictator, should they come to see him as malevolent.Goose-stepping down the wrong roadMr Sisi must loosen up both politics and the economy. So far he has shown scant readiness to do either. He has been viciously intolerant of dissent expressed not just by those suspected of supporting...



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China’s property market: End of the golden era

AFTER years of talking up China’s gravity-defying property markets, local land kings are now singing a darker tune. On May 26th Yu Liang, the president of Vanke, China’s biggest developer, declared that the “golden era” in which “everybody makes money out of property is gone.” That came on the heels of comments by Pan Shiyi, the boss of Soho China, another property firm, likening the country’s real-estate sector to the Titanic: “It will soon hit an iceberg.”Official data show the country’s property market is indeed coming down to earth. During the first four months of this year, the value of residential sales fell by nearly 10% versus a year ago, and construction activity on new homes fell by a quarter. The decline on a month-to-month basis is even more striking (see chart).Why is the market losing steam? One explanation is that there is too much building going on. Until recently this argument was dismissed by property bulls, who pointed to wave upon wave of rural migrants moving to cities and soaking up supply. Gavekal Dragonomics, a consultancy, estimates that China has been at or near its sustainable level of “peak supply” of housing for many...



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1nZThAt

Free exchange: Picking holes in Piketty

FEW economics books have been as popular or as controversial as “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. The blockbuster analysis of wealth and income distribution has been a publishing sensation, turning its French author, Thomas Piketty, into a household name. The book’s thesis, that wealth concentrates because the returns to capital are consistently higher than economic growth, has spawned furious debate. Mr Piketty’s preferred remedy (a progressive wealth tax) even more so. But amid the argument most commentators have agreed on one thing: “Capital” is an impressive piece of scholarship.In recent days that assessment has come into question. A scathing analysis by Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times, claims Mr Piketty’s statistics on wealth distribution are undermined by a series of problems. Some numbers, he says, “appear simply to be constructed out of thin air”. Once apparent errors are corrected, some of Mr Piketty’s central findings—for instance, that wealth inequality has begun to rise over the past 30 years—no longer seem to hold. Thus, Mr Giles claims: “The conclusions of ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ do not...



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1rknX5d

American finance: Risk on

A BUSINESS with less risk than ADP would be hard to imagine. It dominates the processing of payrolls and health-care contributions in America. Both of these markets demand massive economies of scale and a reputation sufficient to pacify nervous human-resources departments and ever-more-intrusive regulators, two attributes that favour an established player. Current returns are good; future returns look likely to be the same.A benign outlook, however, was not enough to prevent the loss in April of rare AAA credit ratings, the best possible, from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. The cause of ADP’s downgrade was entirely voluntary: the company wants to spend the $700m it expects from spinning off a small division on share repurchases, instead of keeping or otherwise investing the cash.ADP is hardly the only firm levering up its balance-sheet, by adding more debt relative to equity, thus adding a dollop (or more) of risk. On May 20th Morningstar, another ratings service, noted that Time Warner was issuing new debt specifically to increase its leverage. The proceeds will probably be used to pay for share buy-backs. Across the economy, debt issued by...



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1nZThk3

National accounts: Sex, drugs and GDP

THE announcement on May 22nd by Istat, Italy’s statistical body, that from October it would include drug trafficking, prostitution, and alcohol-and-tobacco smuggling in its economic-output numbers has generated a stream of sniggering headlines. To some, it smacks of 1987, when Italy started taking account of its shadow economy, the off-the-books business which makes up about a fifth of Italian GDP. As a result, the economy grew by 18% overnight, surging past Britain to be the West’s fourth-largest economy. The event was hailed as il sorpasso (the overtaking) and the source of much national joy, until two decades of economic mismanagement sent Italy tumbling back down the league tables.In fact, then as now, Italy was merely one of the first countries to announce its compliance with international accounting standards. Reporting illegal economically productive activity in which all parties take part voluntarily is required under EU rules known as the European System of Accounts (ESA). But as the guidelines have not so far outlined how to measure drug deals and fake cigarettes, and as such things are by their nature difficult to gauge, few countries comply. That will...



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1nZTi7z

Kick-starting southern Europe: Some like it hot

“MONEY is pouring in from everywhere,” said Emilio Botín, chairman of Santander, Spain’s largest bank, late in 2013. Others in southern Europe might say the same as they stumble over representatives of foreign-investment firms legging it round office blocks and down-at-heel plants looking for the deal of the century.Net foreign direct investment, broadly in retreat since 2007-08, is growing again, most strongly in Spain, followed by Italy, with Greece and Portugal still laggards (see chart 1). The totals are nowhere near their levels before the crisis but the ebbing tide seems to have turned.

Some of that is the old-fashioned sort of investment that foreign multinationals make in their subsidiaries. General Motors, Renault and Volkswagen are putting fresh money into their automotive plants in Spain; VW has done the same next door. Portugal has also attracted foreign investors, notably Chinese, through privatisations, and Greece is belatedly following suit. Private-equity auctions...



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1nZThjT

South Korea’s household debt: Hole in won

THE Asian financial crisis of 1997 hit Mr Lee hard. His interior-design firm folded and he was officially branded a bad debtor. But the ensuing boom in household credit hit him harder. As banks were newly deterred from lending to businesses, they turned to individuals instead. Credit cards were peddled everywhere, on televisions and from street corners, and to everyone—including Mrs Lee. She racked up a debt of 7m won ($6,900), much of it interest owed. When she divorced him, Mr Lee, jobless, was left to foot the bill.South Korea’s economic growth-spurt was built on the massive debt of its chaebol, huge industrial conglomerates. Now mounting household debt threatens to stunt it. It exceeded 1 quadrillion (1,000 trillion) won for the first time last year. And it is rising much faster than both the country’s GDP and its average household income: in 2012 household debt was 1.6 times that of Koreans’ annual disposable income, compared with an average of 1.3 for the OECD, a group of rich countries. Whereas affluent consumers globally have shed debt since the 2008 financial crisis, South Korea’s pile has steadily grown.Part of the reason is that the crisis merely ruffled South Korea, so subsequent belt-tightening was limited. Piecemeal restrictions put on banks, including lower debt-to-income limits for their clients, opened the door for energetic...

from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1rknWy9

Buttonwood: Inside job

HO made these remarks in a recent speech? “Inclusive capitalism is fundamentally about delivering a basic social contract comprised of relative equality of outcomes.” Or: “Capitalism loses its sense of moderation when the belief in the power of the market enters the realm of faith.” Or this: “Market fundamentalism…contributed directly to the financial crisis and the associated erosion of social capital.” Was it François Hollande? Ed Miliband? Thomas Piketty?No, all these leftish-sounding quotes came from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, at a conference* on inclusive capitalism on May 27th. Nor did Mr Carney’s apparent heresy stop there. He also remarked that banks operated “in a privileged heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bubble” and observed that “there was widespread rigging of benchmarks for personal gain.” And he implicitly backed Michael Lewis’s criticisms of high-frequency trading (in his book “Flash Boys”), stating that equity markets blatantly favoured “the technologically empowered over the retail investor”.In some respects Mr Carney is repeating the iconoclasm of his predecessor, Sir Mervyn King, who was also sceptical about some of the finance sector’s practices....



from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1nZThR0

SABMiller in Africa: The beer frontier

ON A Friday evening in Onitsha, as the beer market is closing, a man carefully straps six cases of Hero lager and two cases of Pepsi to the pannier of his moped. Another rolls away his purchases by wheelbarrow. Coaches parked nearby will soon be filled with day-trippers and their cases of booze. Each day a vast quantity of beer is sold from this closely packed warren of stores. It is part of a sprawl of specialist markets in the city, a commercial hub on the Niger river, which draws in traders from across southern Nigeria.It was the bustle of Onitsha that persuaded SABMiller, the world’s second-largest beer company, to set up a brewery here. The market takes a slice of SAB’s local production and sells it on to small traders who are otherwise hard to reach. The company had been late in coming to Nigeria. First it acquired a rundown brewery in Port Harcourt in 2009 and then another in Ilesha before it built a brand-new plant in Onitsha in 2012. Already, its capacity is being increased, to slake locals’ ever-growing thirst.Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and its largest beer market after the country where SAB (South African Breweries) was founded in 1895. The...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1pB0o3t

Schumpeter: The corporate closet

ON MAY 1st 2007 John Browne resigned as boss of BP, a British oil giant, his career apparently in ruins. A tabloid newspaper had exposed his affair with a male ex-prostitute. For the next few weeks Lord Browne was subjected to one of those trials by media at which the British excel. Three years later the Deepwater Horizon disaster, an explosion that led to the leakage of millions of gallons of oil off America’s Gulf coast, suggested that there might have been more serious reasons than his private sexual preferences to question Lord Browne’s tenure at BP. The disaster seemed to confirm both the worries of some analysts that he had sacrificed investment in a dash for growth, and environmentalists’ accusations that his rebranding of BP as Beyond Petroleum was just superficial “greenwashing”.Despite all the blows to his reputation, Lord Browne has done a remarkable job of reviving his career. He has built Riverstone Holdings, a private-equity company, into a powerful force in European fracking. He has also turned himself into a leading spokesman for gay rights in the corporate world. His new book, “The Glass Closet”, is his most comprehensive statement of his position...



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American firms in China: Technationalism

WESTERN fashion models have long been in high demand for catwalk shows and photo shoots in Shanghai and Beijing. However, dozens of them were rounded up recently on alleged visa infractions and chucked out of the country. Leggy beauties are not the only foreign models now under threat in China. Unsourced rumours are swirling of a forthcoming ban on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) buying Cisco telecoms equipment and IBM computer servers. This week the Financial Times reported that American consulting firms like McKinsey and Bain would be blocked from working for SOEs.The American tech firms and consultants appear not to have been informed of any prohibition. The big SOEs say quietly that they have not received any written notice to cut off contracts. The state banks are unable to confirm the directive to chuck out IBM servers.What is clear is that these rumours are coming in response to the news that America wants to prosecute five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for alleged hacking of industrial secrets. This provoked outrage in China. Edward Snowden’s revelations of American hacking of Chinese targets have persuaded many locals that the Yanks are hypocrites.One way to understand this recent flurry of rumours is as a calibrated political manoeuvre. On this argument, Chinese officials want to threaten to expel important American firms so as...

from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1pB0cRR

Driverless cars: In the self-driving seat

Not quite as glamorous as “Knight Rider”

TO GOOGLE is now in broad usage as a verb for retrieving information from the internet. If the tech giant has its way, “I Googled” will become a standard reply to the question, “How did you get here?” On May 28th Google said it would build 100 prototype driverless cars devoid of pedals, steering wheel or controls save an on/off switch. It is the next stage in its apparent quest to be as ubiquitous on the road as on computer screens.People have dreamed about driverless motoring since at least the 1930s, but only in recent years have carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo given the matter more thought, kitting out test cars with the sensors and sophisticated software required to negotiate busy roads. Google has roared ahead by designing a driverless car from the ground up.But bringing autonomous motoring to the world is proving harder than Google had envisaged. It once promised it by 2017. Now it does not see production models coming out before 2020. The technology is far advanced, but needs shrinking in size and cost—Google’s current test cars, retrofitted Toyota and Lexus models, are said to...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nGBVKR

Liquefied natural gas: Bubbling up

The first LNG from PNG

SQUEEZING and cooling gas until it becomes a liquid, and then shipping it by tanker, is inherently costlier than sending it down a pipeline. But 50 years since the first shipment left Algeria, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is no longer exotic, complicated or marginal. For the past two years the global LNG trade has been in a flat spot, with little new supply. But on May 25th Exxon Mobil said it had shipped its first cargo from a $19 billion project in Papua New Guinea (pictured on the next page), the first in a wave of new LNG supplies that are about to come to market.Projects under way mean that by 2018 over a third more LNG capacity will come onstream—the equivalent of China’s current consumption of LNG and piped gas combined. By 2025 capacity could double, reckons EY, a consulting firm. Australia has seven projects under construction, which will together supply 80 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year, which is more than Germany’s entire current consumption of gas. Australia should become the largest LNG exporter after Qatar by 2016. Although piped gas is set to grow too, LNG’s share of the world’s gas supply is...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nZY05m

All-inclusive holiday firms: The return of the free lunch

FOR a firm that ushered in a new era of holidaymaking, Club Méditerranée’s roots are humble. In 1950 Gérard Blitz, a Belgian water-polo champion, pitched 200 tents on a Mallorcan beach. His dream was to offer bronzed Europeans the chance to eat and drink, commune with nature and enjoy vigorous outdoor pursuits. With it, the “all-inclusive” holiday, combining lodging, food and drink, was born.In time, Club Med upgraded its structures, from tents to beach huts to hotels. It also spread to exotic locations like Tahiti and the Gulf of Guinea. But during the 1990s it fell on hard times. Despite the firm’s moves upmarket, all-inclusive holidays had become a tired concept, associated in holidaymakers’ minds with tepid buffets, cheap plonk and austere rooms.Yet there has recently been a scramble for control of the company. Last year Fosun, a Chinese conglomerate, and Ardian, a French private-equity firm, launched a joint bid to take Club Med private. Some shareholders objected and went to court, unsuccessfully, to stop the deal. Now a potential rival bidder—the Bonomi family, an Italian dynasty—has emerged. The Bonomis have been buying shares and were told this week...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nGBVul

Company accounts: Truthful top lines

WHEN companies should recognise revenues on their books is one of the most contentious and consequential issues in the staid profession of accounting. For simple sales of goods the timing is usually straightforward, but in the areas of services and long-term contracts it gets murky fast. Companies may manipulate the “top line” of their accounts—their revenues—say, by booking sales they are not yet sure of (to boost their reported profits) or not booking sales that they are certain of (to postpone profits, and the taxes on them).In Britain the controversy surfaced again after HP’s takeover of Autonomy in 2011. The American firm later took a big write-down on its purchase, blaming it in part on the British software firm having pumped up its reported revenues by counting expected subscription fees as current sales (the firm’s founder denied this).Revenue recognition is perhaps the biggest headache for investors trying to compare companies in different countries. The GAAP standard used in the United States is Byzantine, with more than 100 different protocols for various permutations of transactions and industries, whereas the IFRS rules applied in most of the rest of the world offer only broad guidance.Following 12 years of consultation, on May 28th the boards that control the two accounting systems released a new joint standard they hope will put these issues to rest....

from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nGBVuc

Daum and KakaoTalk merge: Getting the message

IN THEORY Daum, an internet portal in South Korea, is acquiring Kakao, a startup whose messaging app, KakaoTalk, is on most of the country’s smartphones. In practice, it is the other way around: the merger unveiled on May 26th gives Kakao’s shareholders the lion’s share of the new company, although Daum has more revenue, profits and staff, plus a stockmarket listing. The deal, valuing Kakao at $3 billion-odd, shows that messaging apps are still hot property.Hottest of all is WhatsApp, a Silicon Valley startup with 500m users, which Facebook bought in February for a staggering $19 billion in cash and shares. (This week Facebook asked the European Commission to review the takeover, rather than risk antitrust inquiries in several countries.) The same month Rakuten, a Japanese internet firm, paid $900m for Viber, founded by Israelis but based in Cyprus. Alibaba, a Chinese online giant, paid $215m for a slice of Tango, another Silicon Valley firm, in March. Tencent, Alibaba’s rival, owns WeChat, which has almost 400m users. It also runs QQ, an older messaging service, and has a stake in Kakao.The South Korean deal means yet another pairing of a broader internet company and a messaging startup. The youngsters seek extra heft—for instance, like Kakao, in marketing. The oldies (if you can call internet firms that) get a trendy mobile product. Daum doubtless hopes that KakaoTalk,...

from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nGBXlP

The book trade: Burying the Hachette

All is not well, and Gladwell’s not so glad

SHOPKEEPERS have the right to stock and sell whatever they choose. So news that Amazon is playing tough with Hachette, a global publisher based in France, is nothing novel. But in recent weeks, as the firms negotiate terms for e-book pricing, the online retailer has deployed particularly strong-arm tactics in America. These include removing the “pre-order” buttons from forthcoming books, refusing to sell printed books by certain authors and delaying delivery times. Buyers of Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” must wait between two and three weeks for the paperback—not the next-day delivery for which the hyper-efficient firm is famous.On May 27th Amazon broke its customary silence to say it is “not optimistic” that the squabble will be resolved soon. It brazenly urged customers to buy Hachette books from other sellers on its site, “or from one of our competitors”. For Amazon, which bills itself as favouring the consumer, its actions seem to undermine its values.The heart of the dispute is e-book pricing and the fees that suppliers pay to retailers. In the world of printed books, sellers may charge whatever...



from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1nZY0SV

Remembering Tiananmen: The lessons of history

EVEN after the Chinese army moved into Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3rd 1989, and cleared it of the detritus left by the students who had occupied it for most of the previous seven weeks, it was several days before observers were certain who was in control of China. Your correspondent, looking down Beijing’s central boulevard, Chang’an Avenue, at a maze of still-burning barricades a day after the bloody operation, was not alone in wondering whether the Communist Party could ever heal. This newspaper, with which he was not then linked, summed up a common view: “This week China looked into the abyss of coup, counter-coup and civil war”. Foreign doomsayers were proved wrong. But even after 25 years of relative stability, it is still wise to be cautious about the cohesion of Chinese politics.It was not just foreign observers who were given to apocalyptic musings at the time. “If the rebels had had their way, there would have been a civil war,” Deng Xiaoping told a visiting Chinese-American physicist, Tsung-Dao Lee, three months after the army crackdown that left hundreds, if not thousands, dead. Thanks to strenuous efforts by the Communist Party to erase...



from The Economist: China http://ift.tt/1nZXK6i

Brawn v brain: Muscled out

THAT swots are weedy and jocks are stupid is a high-school cliché. But a paper just published in PLOS Biology by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institutes in Germany suggests there may be an evolutionary grain of truth in it. When Katarzyna Bozek and her colleagues looked at how quickly human tissues have evolved, compared with those of other mammals, they found that as the human brain has got stronger, so the species’s muscles have got weaker. Intriguingly, in a demonstration of the importance of serendipity in science, this was not a hypothesis they had set out to prove.Human brains are greedy. Though they constitute only 2% of an adult’s body weight, they consume a fifth of his or her metabolic energy. Indeed, according to a school of thought led by Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, keeping the brain running is so demanding that only the invention of cooking, which makes more nutrients available from a given amount of food than can be extracted from it in its raw state, permitted the neurological expansion which created Homo sapiens. This need to supply the brain with...



from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1k48baM

Regenerating teeth: An enlightened approach

Goodbye to all that

REGENERATIVE medicine is a field with big ambitions. It hopes, one day, to repair or replace worn-out hearts, livers, kidneys and other vital organs. Many people, though, would settle for a humbler repair—of their teeth.Dentistry has too much “drill and fill”, cutting away infected tissue and replacing it with alien, artificial materials. But if work by people such as David Mooney of Harvard University comes to fruition, the days of drill and fill may be numbered. For, as they report in Science Translational Medicine, Dr Mooney and his team have found a surprising way to get dentine, the tissue that underlies a tooth’s enamel coat, to repair itself. They do so by shining a laser beam at it.Regenerative medicine boils down to the intelligent manipulation of stem cells. A stem cell is one that has the capacity to split asymmetrically so that one daughter remains a stem cell (and can thus go on to perform the same trick) while the other gives birth to a line which proliferates and differentiates into many other sorts of cell. The most famous, and controversial, stem cells are those in early...



from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1ivv8hr

Short-range telecommunications: Daisy, daisy, give me an answer do

ON THE surface the latest social-messaging app, FireChat, is unremarkable. Like other such apps it can be used to exchange messages and photos, anonymously if desired. FireChat, however, is different from its rivals in one crucial respect: there is no need for those using it to be connected to a mobile-phone or Wi-Fi network. Instead, it lets phones talk directly to one another. Its developer, Open Garden, a firm based in San Francisco, has taken advantage of a little-known feature of Apple’s iOS 7 mobile operating system (clumsily dubbed the “multipeer connectivity framework”) that allows phones to link up using either the Bluetooth or the Wi-Fi wireless protocols, to form ad hoc networks of their own.These “mesh networks”—in which devices within range of each other form “daisy chains” that relay messages over whatever distance a chain stretches—mean that two users need not be in direct range of one another to communicate. And if one chain fails to deliver, the system can route around the problem by trying a second, just like its big brother, the internet.All this requires, of course, enough smartphones and tablets around in a place for daisy chains to be established. Micha Benoliel, one of Open Garden’s founders, reckons that in practice this means a 7-8% take-up of the devices in an urban area. Clearly, mesh networking is not going to work everywhere, but its need for a...

from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1k488M8

Oral health: Wine gums

WITHOUT regular brushing and flossing, teeth accumulate bacterial films that secrete acid and cause cavities (see article). But sometimes even these good habits are insufficient to shift such films, and a chemical called chlorhexidine has to be deployed as well, in the form of a mouthwash. Chlorhexidine, however, stains teeth and affects people’s sense of taste, so an alternative would be welcome. And Victoria Moreno-Arribas of the Institute of Food Science Research in Madrid believes she may have one: a derivative of red wine.Dr Moreno-Arribas knew from previous work that red wine has antimicrobial properties, but she could find few studies which looked at whether it attacks dental biofilms specifically. To rectify that, she and her colleagues grew five troublesome oral bacteria, Actinomyces oris, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus oralis and ...



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Mitochondria and male lifespan: Power down

Mankiller?

WHY past generations regarded women as the weaker sex is a mystery to anyone who has examined the question objectively, for they are far stronger than men—outliving them in pretty well every society in the world. Partly that is because men are more violent, and their violence is largely directed at other men. But partly it is physiological. Men seem to wear out faster than women do. Yet no one knows why.Madeleine Beekman of the University of Sydney, Australia, and her colleagues, however, have a hypothesis. As they outline in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, they think at least some of the blame lies with subcellular structures called mitochondria (pictured), which provide the body with its power by burning glucose and using the energy thus released to make ATP, a molecule that is biology’s universal fuel.Mitochondria are intriguing. They are descendants of bacteria that teamed up with the ancestors of animal and plant cells about a billion years ago. As such, they retain their own genes. And this is where the problems start. To avoid fights between genetically different...



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Protest in Brazil: Cheering for Argentina

WITH a university degree and a flat in a smart neighbourhood of São Paulo, Ernesto Filho, a 33-year-old choreographer and dancer, is not your average Brazilian. He is, however, typical of the 1m people who took to the streets 12 months ago, in the greatest social unrest Brazil has seen in two decades.The protests began on June 6th last year, with a small rally against a rise in São Paulo bus fares of 20 centavos (at the time, nine American cents). Over two weeks they morphed into a nationwide outpouring of dismay at shoddy public services, corruption, the cost of living, ineffectual government and much else. Since then politicians and pundits have been analysing the events, which unfolded as Brazil hosted the Confederations Cup, a warm-up tournament for the football World Cup that begins on June 12th—and trying to work out whether they should brace for a replay.For now the betting is against another round of mass demonstrations. Among paulistanos support for them has dropped from 89% at the end of June 2013 to just 52% now, according to Datafolha, a pollster. That shift reflects the changing profile of the protesters, says Christopher...



from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1gDVBhu

Colombia’s election: Uribe’s wrath

A word in the boss’s ear

ÓSCAR IVÁN ZULUAGA’S name was on the ballot, but it was his political mentor and the former president, Álvaro Uribe (pictured right), who pulled in the votes. A finance minister under Mr Uribe, Mr Zuluaga (pictured left) scored 29% in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election on May 25th, beating Juan Manuel Santos, the current president, by four percentage points. The two men will now face each other in a run-off on June 15th.With his direct, folksy manner, Mr Uribe has dominated Colombian politics since he first won the presidency in 2002. After changing the constitution to allow his re-election, he won again in 2006. Barred from a third term, he backed Mr Santos, his former defence minister, in 2010, expecting his successor to continue his tough security policies, particularly against the FARC guerrillas.In office, though, Mr Santos veered from Mr Uribe’s programme. He mended frazzled relations with Venezuela and Ecuador, undid some of Mr Uribe’s measures (such as tax breaks for mining and oil companies), and began peace talks with a weakened FARC. A furious Mr Uribe is now Mr Santos’s fiercest...



from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1nxoejK

Migrants in the Dominican Republic: No place like home

A NIGHTMARE is about to end for some 24,000 people in the Dominican Republic (DR). For months a court ruling has in effect rendered them stateless, in the process straining the country’s tense relations with Haiti, its poorer neighbour on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. But for many others, the ordeal is continuing.Until a decade ago the children of Haitian migrants who were born in the DR were recognised as Dominican nationals, even if their parents had immigrated illegally. The rules began to change in 2004, and in 2010 a new constitution made a legally resident parent a requirement for citizenship at birth. Then, last September, a ruling of the Constitutional Court denied citizenship to the offspring of illegal immigrants who had arrived before that change.The government maintains that these revisions justly removed an anomaly and conform with practice elsewhere. Yet the children concerned—many well into middle age—were at a stroke reclassified as foreigners, and have since been refused new identity documents. Instead they were told to request new papers from their purported country of origin, even though the vast majority have never been to Haiti, speak only Spanish and cannot prove they are eligible for Haitian citizenship.Relations on Hispaniola have been tense ever since Haiti occupied the DR in 1821-44, but this time the world took notice. Pressure groups and...

from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1gDVAdx

Bello: The reform that got away

SINCE taking office as Mexico’s president 18 months ago, Enrique Peña Nieto has implemented an extraordinarily ambitious set of reforms. He has swept away a constitutional taboo on private investment in energy, gained new tools to bust private oligopolies, and wrested power from the teachers’ union, whose leader is in jail. This month a limited political reform was approved as well.Yet this impressive list has one striking omission. In the opening pages of a book in which he set out his campaign platform (translated into English as “Mexico: The Great Hope”), even before detailing any of the measures that he has since accomplished, Mr Peña promised first and foremost “a new Universal Social Security System”, to be financed largely from general tax revenues, rather than the current system which relies on payroll contributions. This new proposal would reduce incentives to enter or remain in the “informal” economy, he wrote. As a result, “job quality, productivity and economic growth all go up.”Quite so. Yet this reform has not just all but vanished from the government’s agenda, but Luis Videgaray, the finance minister and reform tsar, appears to have shut the door on...



from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1nGzRCq

Sewer tests show cities' drug use

Imagine you could let your city urinate in a cup and submit the sample to a laboratory for drug testing. Would it pass?



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Boko Haram kills 33 in Nigeria

Militants with Islamist terror group Boko Haram killed at least 33 security personnel in attacks this week on a military base and a police station in northeastern Nigeria's Yobe state, security sources said Wednesday.



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Poet Maya Angelou dies at 86

Maya Angelou, a literary voice revered globally for her poetic command and commitment to civil rights, has died at the age of 86.



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Brad Pitt attacked at premiere

Actor Brad Pitt was struck in the face by a man at a Hollywood premiere Wednesday, Los Angeles police said.



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Explosion on oil tanker off Japan

Japanese coast guard ships and aircraft are battling a fire set off by an explosion on an oil tanker off the country's southern coast.



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Tiger Woods out of U.S. Open

For the second golf major in a row, Tiger Woods will be missing.



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French migrants camp dismantled

Police in northern France reportedly moved in Wednesday on makeshift migrant camps near the port of Calais, prompting a standoff with the defiant residents -- many of whom have fled conflicts in Syria, Sudan and Eritrea.



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Turnout low as Egypt polls close

Egyptians headed to the polls to pick a President for a third day Wednesday as both candidates criticized the extended voting.



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5 foreign policy headaches for U.S.

President Obama faces a series of pressing foreign policy challenges in the years ahead.



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Syria militants: U.S. man in attack

Radical Islamists say that an American sacrificed himself as part of a recent suicide attack in Syria targeting government forces.



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Al Qaeda offshoot on rampage in Syria

As President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to help fight the influx of extremists vying for control in Syria's three-year civil war, anti-government fighters reported that jihadists in an eastern village methodically set fire to the homes and farms of those who openly opposed a hardline al Qaeda offshoot.



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Amnesty: Wide crackdown in China

Andrew Stevens talks to Amnesty International's Salil Shetty about human rights in China 25 years after Tiananmen Square.



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Pregnant woman stoned by family

Relatives of a pregnant Pakistani woman beat her to death with bricks outside court after she married a man against their will.



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Search for MH370 postponed

After two grueling months with no word from their loved ones, relatives of those on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will have to wait two more months before the search resumes underwater.



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Snowden: I'm a patriot

Edward Snowden says he considers himself a patriot, and he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to reveal secret U.S. government surveillance programs if he didn't have to.



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Can Egypt's new leader fix economy?

Since the 2011 revolution, Egyptians have seen near non-stop protests, the toppling of two presidents, six elections, and a seemingly endless political crisis.



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Why did Pope Francis pray at wall?

Jay Parini says in his symbolic and significant stop to pray at the Bethlehem wall, Pope Francis was implicitly crying: Tear Down This Wall!



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Food scandal at World Cup hotels

Brazilian authorities have confiscated food "not fit for consumption" from two hotels that will host the English and Italian national teams during the upcoming World Cup competition in Brazil.



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Let teens talk about mental illness

Susan Antilla says kids suffering from mental illness crave information that can help them



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U.S. Navy: MH370 pings theory likely wrong

The four acoustic pings that helped decide the search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official tells CNN.



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Search back to square one

What was believed to be the best hope of finding the missing plane is now being called a false hope. Rene Marsh explains.



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5 questions from satellite data

For the first time in several weeks, authorities have released information about missing Malaysia Flight 370 not previously available to the public.



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A giant's life on civil rights front line

Iconic writer Maya Angelou was known for her words. A literary voice who had the ear of presidents, she used language to stir her audiences and reach into their hearts.



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Obama: U.S. is 'might doing right'

U.S. President Barack Obama sets out a foreign policy vision combining a strong military, diplomacy and sanctions to exert influence.



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Condemned Christian gives birth

A Sudanese woman sentenced to die for refusing to renounce her Christianity has given birth to a girl in prison, her lawyers said Tuesday.



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Glazer's era of glory

Malcolm Glazer, the owner of Manchester United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has died at 85. CNN's Jim Boulden has more.



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Manchester United owner Malcolm Glazer dies

Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and English soccer club Manchester United, has died. The club enjoyed huge success with Glazer at the helm but some fans criticized him for loading debt onto the club.



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NFL player denies double murder

An accidental bump at a nightclub preceded the 2012 double homicide allegedly committed by then-New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, an assistant district attorney alleged Wednesday during Hernandez's arraignment in the case.



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Raw MH370 satellite data released

The 47-page document of satellite data on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is released. Inmarsat says it is confident in its analysis.



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Snowden: I was trained as a spy

The NSA document leaker says he lived and worked undercover, overseas and under a false name, in his first U.S. TV interview.



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Should you climb Everest?

At Camp 3 of Mount Everest at an altitude of 7,200 meters, an American woman, 50-year-old Cleonice Pacheco Weidlich, sits in a solitary tent.



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Images show husband's grief

A pregnant woman was beaten to death by her family after she married a man against their will. Jonathan Mann reports.



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Fears rise over 'incurable' TB

"Sometimes I ask myself, why me? Why did this have to happen again?" says 31-year-old Andile from the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, South Africa. "But the problem is I could have got it anywhere, on the bus, in a taxi, in my work. It's everywhere."



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Vietnamese, Chinese boats collide

A Vietnamese fishing boat has sunk after colliding with a Chinese vessel near an island chain in the South China Sea at the center of a territorial dispute between the two Communist neighbors.



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In shooter's world, victims get blame

A powerful reaction to women-hater Elliot Rodger's killing rampage Friday night has been the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen, where women point out how misogyny and sexism damage them and restrict their lives. It emerged in response to the common, misguided argument that "not all men" are like that.



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Separatists detain Ukraine monitors

Pro-Russian separatists are holding a team of monitors in Ukraine, and new fighting is taking place at a National Guard base, government sources say.



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Blood, bodies, destruction

As fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, many wonder how the region will ever heal. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.



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Kidnapped baby back with parents

The parents of a newborn baby are thanking Facebook users for helping to locate their daughter, kidnapped from hospital.



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Man who made a nation cry

Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium was packed to the rafters: 200,000 expectant spectators prepared to celebrate Brazil's first World Cup triumph and its arrival as a football superpower.



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Bikinis targeted in Gulf cover-up

Social media calls for modest attire in Qatar raises prospect of culture clash ahead of the 2022 soccer World Cup finals.



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The man who could have been Pele?

Women wanted him. Men wanted to be him.



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2011 tsunami debris comes ashore

Japanese boats are washing ashore along Washington beaches. The debris is suspected to be from the tsunami in 2011.



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21 killed in South Korea hospital fire

At least 21 people have died in a fire at hospital for the elderly in southwestern South Korea, the National Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday morning.



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Soviet who beat 'English Iron Curtain'

At first glance, Sergei Baltacha doesn't exactly look like a man of international sporting history.



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Obama: Force where necessary

President Obama lays out his vision for America's foreign policy in his West Point commencement address.



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Grief for victims of 'kissless virgin'

When Bob Weiss hadn't heard from his daughter, he located her phone online and found it was in the middle of a horrible crime scene.



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Williams crashes out of French Open

It was deja vu for the Williams sisters at the French Open -- but not in a good way.



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Life in pictures

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