Global Agenda articles from October 2003

Global Agenda archives from October 2003

The pope's succession planning; The Catholic church; Succession planning.
October 1, 2003... Pope John Paul has appointed 31 new cardinals, months earlier than expected. As most of them will have a vote on choosing his successor, some suspect that the ailing pontiff is trying to ensure that the next leader of the Catholic church will...

The world suddenly looks bleaker.
October 1, 2003... The Bush administration is playing with fire by adopting a weak-dollar policy for political ends FIRST, an apology. Buttonwood has received a slew of e-mails from readers either chastising him for defending Richard Grasso in last week's...

Those elusive WMD again.(weapons of mass destruction)
October 2, 2003... Rows over pre-war intelligence are heating up again in Washington as Congress prepares to hear that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Several lawmakers are demanding answers from the CIA WHERE are Saddam Hussein's...

Air France and KLM get close.
October 2, 2003... With Air France, KLM and perhaps Alitalia to merge, and American-European talks on "open skies" beginning, is a much-needed restructuring of the airline industry under way? Not quite, not yet AIR FRANCE has finally announced its...

Browned off with Blair?(analysis of the United Kingdom's Labour Party politics)
October 2, 2003... Despite speculation, the Labour Party is not yet ready to replace Tony Blair with Gordon Brown, his finance minister. Would there be much difference if they did? THOSE intrigued by the parallels between Tony Blair and his Conservative...

The forbidden word.(Taiwan debates formal declaration of independence)
October 2, 2003... The highly sensitive and potentially dangerous issue of independence has gripped Taiwan, and is unlikely to go away THE president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, has once again kindled a debate that he knows will infuriate China and worry the...

Elusive WMD and an embarrassing leak.(discussion of weapons of mass destruction, CIA operative leak)
October 2, 2003... As Congress hears that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq (yet), Washington also hums with speculation about allegations that White House officials leaked a CIA agent's name WHERE are Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass...

Air France and KLM get close.(Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane S.p.A., KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Air France merger)
October 6, 2003... With Air France, KLM and perhaps Alitalia to merge, and American-European talks on "open skies" beginning, is a much-needed restructuring of the airline industry under way? Not quite, not yet AIR FRANCE has finally announced its...

An unappetising choice.(elections in California)
October 6, 2003... Californians will go to the polls on Tuesday to decide who, if anyone, should replace Governor Gray Davis. The choices before the Golden State's voters are not appetising PITY California's voters. On Tuesday October 7th they will go to the...

Owning the airwaves.(... U.S. media ownership rules restrict competition by foreign broadcasters)
October 7, 2003... Sweeping deregulation of Britain's television industry will allow American and other foreign broadcasters to buy British television networks. But attempts at a more limited liberalisation of America's own media industry are encountering strong...

A yen for the Japanese banks.
October 7, 2003... Investors are increasingly betting that Japanese banks are over the worst. They might just be right FOR sale: shares in an industry weakened by huge overcapacity, lamentable profitability, opaque balance sheets, seemingly interminable bad...

Noodle soup.(Association of South East Asian Nations)
October 8, 2003... Jealous of China's surging exports and success in attracting foreign investment, South-East Asian countries plan to band together in a European-style economic community FREE trade is not new to the Indian Ocean. Merchants have plied the...

Hasta la vista, Davis.(Gray Davis out and Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governer of California)
October 8, 2003... After a turbulent campaign, Arnold Schwarzenegger has ousted Gray Davis to become California's new governor. Now it is time to settle down and fix the Golden State's problems SO IT is over, and the "Terminator" has triumphed. On Tuesday...

Another Yom Kippur, another conflict.
October 9, 2003... Israel's air raid on what it called a terrorist training camp in Syria, in retaliation for Palestinian militants' latest suicide bombing, raises fears of the Middle East conflict spreading--at the least, it shows how little prospect there is...

Peacemakers or troublemakers?(Turkey's offer of troops for Iraq)
October 9, 2003... Turkey's offer of troops to help pacify Iraq has been welcomed by America but has not gone down well among Iraqis AMERICA needs all the help it can get as it struggles to improve security in post-war Iraq. On Thursday October 9th, a suicide...

More troops, please.(Afghanistan)
October 9, 2003... Two years after America's attack on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Afghanistan's provinces are still a mess. NATO aims to send peacekeepers outside Kabul, but it will have to send large numbers to make any difference ARE events in Afghanistan...

Russia comes in from the cold; Russia's economy; Coming in from the cold.
October 9, 2003... Just five years after Russia defaulted on its foreign debt, it has been upgraded to "investment grade" by Moody's. But are Russian assets a fit home for the savings of widows and orphans? PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN hinted last week that...

Finally, a new UN resolution; America, Iraq and the UN; Will the new resolution help?
October 17, 2003... The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution creating a multinational force in Iraq. But America's Senate is reluctant to give Iraq the tens of billions it needs AMERICAN and British troops in Iraq could do with some help as...

From third way to Thatcherism; Germany's reforms; Schroder scrapes through.
October 17, 2003... Gerhard Schroder has succeeded in persuading the Bundestag to cut taxes and unemployment benefits. Twenty years late, has Thatcherism finally arrived in Germany? IT TOOK an Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, to introduce the first...

An angry people bring down their president; Unrest in the Andes; A president toppled.(political turmoil in Bolivia)
October 20, 2003... As riots and strikes topple Bolivia's president and Venezuela's leader buys off the armed forces to try to cling to power, the Andean countries' deep malaise shows little sign of lifting IT SEEMED a recipe for trouble when, last year,...

An awkward agenda.(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit)
October 20, 2003... George Bush is touring Asia en route to the APEC meeting in Thailand. Among the welter of topics to be discussed, the twin issues of trade and currencies will dominate GEORGE BUSH may be about to tour East Asia, but his mind, it seems, is...

Mutual recriminations; Mutual-fund scandals; Spitzer's latest crusade.(Eliot L.Spitzer's investigations of mutual fund scandals)
October 20, 2003... A former fund manager has admitted to obstructing an investigation into improper mutual-fund trading, making him the first executive to face a criminal charge in the rapidly widening probe into the industry's practices UNTIL this summer,...

European industry feels the heat; European industry; Hot summer, cool climate.
October 21, 2003... Europe's industrialists are confident that things are looking up. But new output figures from the EU's three largest economies cast some doubt on this AT THE Frankfurt motor show last month, two giants of the European car industry unveiled...

Hard money; The Buttonwood column; Gold v promises.(about exchange rates)(Column)
October 21, 2003... Money used to be backed by gold. Now it is backed by the promises of central bankers. Are these worth less than they were? IN BETWEEN saving the world from terrorism, President George Bush is finding time to dash off to Asia at the end of...

Finding Nemesis.(securities watch)
October 21, 2003... Of technology stocks and short-term memory loss LAST weekend, Buttonwood took his daughters to see "Finding Nemo", a cartoon about a clown fish looking for his son (Nemo) who has swum off and been scooped up by a diver. The father is aided...

It's security, stupid.(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit)
October 21, 2003... Liberalising trade and investment were supposed to top the agenda of the APEC summit in Thailand this week. But George Bush has other things on his mind THE Thai authorities ensured that security was tight outside the Asia-Pacific Economic...

Trimble gets his lines wrong; Northern Ireland's peace process; A great leap, er, sideways.
October 21, 2003... What was billed as an historic day in Northern Ireland's peace process has ended in confusion, with unionists rejecting as inadequate a further act of disarmament by the IRA OCTOBER 21ST was supposed to go down in history as a day when...

Trimble gets his lines wrong; Northern Ireland's peace process; A great leap, er, sideways.(David Trimble)
October 22, 2003... What was billed as an historic day in Northern Ireland's peace process ended in confusion, with unionists rejecting as inadequate a further act of disarmament by the IRA OCTOBER 21ST was supposed to go down in history as a day when...

Passing the hat; Aid for Iraq; Can you spare a few billion?
October 23, 2003... Representatives from more than 70 countries are meeting in Madrid to discuss aid for rebuilding Iraq. Their pledges are likely to fall far short of the tens of billions America needs EVERYONE knows America needs a lot of money to put Iraq...

Coming clean or playing for time?
October 23, 2003... European foreign ministers have persuaded Iran to suspend its programme to enrich uranium that may be used to make nuclear weapons, and to allow tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities. But sceptics fear this may merely be a delaying...

The secret steroid.
October 23, 2003... In what may become one of the biggest drug scandals in sporting history, samples given by athletes worldwide, including at the recent world championships in Paris, are to be re-tested for the presence of a new steroid that was designed to evade...

Mutual recriminations; Mutual-fund scandals; Spitzer's latest crusade.
October 24, 2003... The rapidly widening probe into the mutual-fund industry's practices in America is likely to result in big changes to the way money is managedi UNTIL this summer, most of the anger generated by three years of falling share prices was...

Money myopia.
October 24, 2003... Britain looks set to raise interest rates. Will its deeply indebted households be able to cope? BRITAIN is no longer "first in, worst off and last out" of world recessions, Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer (finance...

The right kind of money?
October 24, 2003... At a donors' conference, countries have pledged an estimated $17 billion for rebuilding Iraq, on top of $20 billion from America. This is still not enough and there are plenty of strings attached EVERYONE knows America needs a lot of money...

Stability? What stability? Putin v Khodorkovsky; Another oligarch bites the dust.
October 28, 2003... There is no shortage of theories about why Russia's president approved the arrest of the country's richest man. Whatever the motive, the move has unnerved investors MOST observers at least agree on one thing now: that the prosecutors'...

Senseless in Gaza.
October 28, 2003... Israel pays a heavy price for maintaining its small but heavily fortified settlements in Gaza and is busy expanding its settlements in the West Bank. Without a big policy change the peace process has little hope of succeeding NOTHING...

Baghdad, city of bombs.
October 28, 2003... A spate of deadly attacks has shaken the Iraqi capital, narrowly missing America's deputy defence secretary. America is putting on a brave face, but its worries are evident WHEN Paul Wolfowitz, America's deputy defence secretary, toured...

A Titan or a Titanic price? Bank of America's takeover of FleetBoston; A pricey powerhouse.
October 28, 2003... Bank of America has agreed to pay $47 billion in shares to acquire FleetBoston Financial, filling a gap in the mature but wealthy New England market and creating America's second-largest bank. The deal is bold but the price is steep IT WAS...

Unhappy families.
October 28, 2003... Time for some soul-searching by emerging-market investors, again. Thank you Russia, again "ALL happy families are alike; all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way," wrote Leo Tolstoy at the beginning of "Anna Karenina". In capital...

A Titan or a Titanic price? Bank of America's takeover of FleetBoston; A pricey powerhouse.(banking industry merger)
October 29, 2003... Bank of America has agreed to pay $47 billion in shares to acquire FleetBoston Financial, filling a gap in the mature but wealthy New England market and creating America's second-largest bank. The deal is bold but the price is steep IT WAS...

Chemical warfare.(European Union's regulations for chemical industry)
October 29, 2003... Industrialists say the European Union's proposed chemicals law will lead to big job losses. Greens and Brussels bureaucrats counter that it will cut disease rates, saving a fortune on health costs EVERY day, we come into contact with...

Baghdad, city of bombs.
October 30, 2003... A spate of deadly attacks has shaken the Iraqi capital, including the assassination of a Baghdad deputy mayor. President George Bush is putting on a brave face, but his worries are evident WHEN Paul Wolfowitz, America's deputy defence...

Stability? What stability? Putin v Khodorkovsky; Another oligarch bites the dust.(Mikhail Khodorkovsky's arrest)(President Vladimir Putin)
October 31, 2003... Russia's richest man has been arrested and officials have seized his stake in Yukos, an oil giant. Whatever the motive, the move has unnerved investors MOST observers at least agree on one thing now: that the prosecutors' campaign against...

Senseless in Gaza.(Israel's fortified settlements in Gaza Strip)
October 31, 2003... Israel is paying a heavy price for maintaining its small but heavily fortified settlements in Gaza but is nevertheless expanding those on the West Bank. Now even the country's army chief wonders if Israel's harsh security policies are in its...

America's economy roars ahead; America's economy; Roaring ahead.
October 31, 2003... America's economy, fuelled by strong investment, easy credit and heavy tax cuts, is growing faster than anyone expected, and faster than many can remember AMERICA'S pre-millennial boom years were dubbed the "roaring nineties" by Joseph...

Trichet's cachet; The European Central Bank; Trichet takes over, promising not to be a monetary Napoleon.(Jean-Claude Trichet)
October 31, 2003... Jean-Claude Trichet begins an eight-year term as president of the European Central Bank on November 1st. He promises to be a team player. But the euro area needs something more than monetary policy by committee HE MAY be an unelected...