 |
In the long-standing battle between state and market, America's currency hangs in the balance. Click here to continue reading…
sexta-feira, 29 de abril de 2016
Turkey: Deal Concluded To Send Troops To Qatar
| April 28, 2016 | 21:38 GMT |
Ankara concluded a military agreement with Doha that involves deploying Turkish troops to Qatar, Hurriyet reported April 28. The deal was signed by Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz and his Qatari counterpart, Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah. Speaking in March in Doha, Yilmaz said that a Turkish military base in Qatar would be completed within the next two years. The deal is part of a larger defense agreement signed by the two countries in 2014. The two countries have shared positions on several notable regional issues recently, including condemning Russian action in Syria and backing particular rebel groups fighting in the country.
 |
Russia: Putin To Visit China In June
|
quarta-feira, 20 de abril de 2016
Postering: Russia's Newest Form of Protest
Postering: Russia's Newest Form of Protest
A man holds a protest poster during an anti-war rally in central Moscow. (VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
A new form of political protest is spreading quickly through Russia, and it may become more popular still as the country's September elections approach. Since late last year, satirical posters caricaturing Russian leaders and Kremlin policies have been appearing on the streets of Moscow. Authorities have been quick to take them down, only to find passersby — and the activists who put the posters up in the first place — posting them on social media, where they have attracted even more attention. Taken together, the posters' professional quality, witty content and rapid dissemination suggest that Russian protesters may be developing and adopting more peaceful tactics to express their discontent.Russia's Carrot-and-Stick Strategy
| April 21, 2016 | 02:00 GMT |
|
Russia has shown signs in recent days, particularly when it comes to Ukraine, that it is willing to compromise. But Russia's goodwill goes only so far. While it was discussing prisoner swaps with Kiev and delaying elections in separatist parts of eastern Ukraine, Russian warplanes were harassing U.S. vessels and aircraft in the Baltic and Black seas and Russian artillery units were moving to the battlefields of Aleppo. Moscow is also investing heavily in its nuclear force, alarming officials in Washington and threatening to undermine two decades of arms control efforts. Click here to continue reading…
sexta-feira, 15 de abril de 2016
Postering: Russia's Newest Form of Protest
Postering: Russia's Newest Form of Protest
Summary
A new form of political protest is spreading quickly through Russia, and it may become more popular still as the country's September elections approach. Since late last year, satirical posters caricaturing Russian leaders and Kremlin policies have been appearing on the streets of Moscow. Authorities have been quick to take them down, only to find passersby — and the activists who put the posters up in the first place — posting them on social media, where they have attracted even more attention. Taken together, the posters' professional quality, witty content and rapid dissemination suggest that Russian protesters may be developing and adopting more peaceful tactics to express their discontent.
Analysis
The first notable example of these protest posters emerged in December 2015 on Pokrovka Street, deep in the heart of Moscow. At first glance, it looked like an advertisement for a new adaptation of Anton Chekov's play "The Seagull." But the Russian word for seagull, "chaika," is also the surname of Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika — and upon closer inspection, the poster joked that the play starred Chaika's two sons, who are currently being investigated for corruption. The words "Browder and intelligence agencies" were also buried within the poster, pointing to Hermitage Capital Management CEO and Kremlin critic William Browder, whose lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was killed in a Russian prison. After authorities removed the Chaika poster, more appeared throughout the city over the following week.
The poster on the left portrays a piece of cheese shaped like Crimea on a rattrap, the one on the right makes reference to Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. (VARLAMOV/Facebook (R), LEONID VOLKOV/Twitter)
Not long after, a second poster — this time featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin — appeared nearby. It portrayed Putin as Russian singer Philip Kirkorov, saying "I'll sing to you. On all the country's TVs! The Best Songs." The poster listed fake song titles such as "The Ruble Falls — Revenues Grow," and "We Will Not Seize Your Pensions." Eugene Levkovich, the founder of a relatively new Russian protest movement called Julia & Winston, claimed credit for the poster and referred to himself as a "poster guerrilla." He added that Russia's dissatisfied citizens have no other way to express themselves, since the police detain anyone holding signs or protests. According to Levkovich, the poster cost him 15,000 rubles (about $226) to make, a hefty sum for the average young Russian amid the country's current recession.
Putin is portrayed as Russian singer Philip Kirkorov on the left. A picture of Stalin's death mask is shown on the right, with a cryptic message. (JULIA & WINSTON/Facebook (R), DAVID HOMAK/Twitter)
In January, yet another poster cropped up in Moscow's Garden Ring near the Paveletskaya railway station, one of the largest in the city. It featured an image of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov with the word "shame" written underneath. The poster was raised following a Krasnoyarsk City Council deputy's public condemnation of Kadyrov as "the shame of Russia," a description the Chechen president heatedly disputed. Meduza journalist Daniel Turov received threats from the police after he snapped several photographs of the poster before it was removed by a local Chechen.
Then on March 5, the anniversary of Josef Stalin's death, the same railway station was plastered with a fourth poster, this time showing Stalin's death mask. It said, "This one died and so will that," prompting rampant speculation on social media as to whom or what the second half of the phrase was referring to. Human rights groups including Open Russia jumped at the chance to disseminate the image and condemn both Stalin and Putin. Meanwhile, the country's TV Rain linked the poster to the efforts of opposition heavyweight Alexei Navalny, although there is no evidence that Navalny or his Anti-Corruption Foundation were involved in the poster's production.
Unsurprisingly, the recent publication of the Panama Papers has given the poster guerrillas new fodder for their work. The leaked documents revealed that several of Putin's friends have stashed away billions of dollars, likely at the president's behest, in offshore holdings. In a matter of days after the Panama Papers' April 3 release, a poster was put up in central Moscow on Zemlyanoye Val Street. The image, possibly taken from a poster for the movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in which Johnny Depp plays a drug-addled journalist, asks "What Panama?" And this week, yet another highly stylized poster appeared portraying Crimea as a piece of cheese on a rattrap.
One poster apes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas author Hunter S. Thompson, while Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is shown on the right with the word "shame" written beneath him. (OPEN RUSSIA/Facebook (R), PPRUZAVIN/Instagram)
The protest posters are beginning to show up in other cities, too. In Rostov, for instance, a professional but less stylized banner was raised over a road full of potholes and covered in trash. It read, "Vote for United Russia, and your life will be like this road." Each of these postering incidents, though minor on its own, has rippled throughout social media and many Russian media outlets.
So far, the poster guerrilla movement is small, but its level of professionalization reflects a notable shift among activists who do not feel safe protesting publicly in Russia's current environment. The quality of the posters also raises questions of whether their producers are receiving sums of money from larger groups, such as the country's established liberal opposition or foreign backers. An interesting pattern across the posters is that none of the personalities they criticize — Putin, Kadyrov, Chaika and United Russia — are tied to the federal security services. Though this may well be a coincidence, the security branches' responses to the posters, and whether or not they become the subject of future posters, will be worth watching.
The same is true of the protest posters' content, which so far has spanned the many grievances of the Russian population. Putin's corruption and reverence for Stalin, Russia's weak economy, the annexation of Crimea, and the manipulation of elections have all become targets of the poster guerrillas. As the country prepares to hold its first parliamentary elections since the widely disputed votes of 2011 and 2012, such political statements could increase as protesters try to spread their message and the Kremlin moves to stop them.
Turkey's Terrorists Get More Organized
| April 15, 2016 | 09:00 GMT |
|
Turkey's biggest Kurdish militant group is looking to expand, and it might turn to Russia for help. The Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known by its Kurdish acronym, PKK, has established an umbrella organization for the country's leftist militancies in an effort to broaden its own capabilities and extend its support base beyond the pro-Kurd community. Because Russia has a long history of using Turkey's militant groups — especially the PKK — to promote its own interests in the region, there is little doubt that Moscow will seize the opportunity to ratchet up the pressure against Ankara. Click here to continue reading…
terça-feira, 12 de abril de 2016
Vietnam: Japanese Destroyers Visit Strategic Port
| April 12, 2016 | 09:52 GMT |
Two Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force guided-missile destroyers made a port call at Vietnam’s strategic Cam Ranh Bay naval base on April 12, the first visit of its kind, Kyodo reported. The two destroyers are expected to conduct joint drills with the Vietnamese navy. Cam Ranh Bay faces the South China Sea, including the contested Paracel and Spratly island chains, a source of dispute between Vietnam and China. Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said at a news conference he expects bilateral defense cooperation with Vietnam to grow. This visit was agreed to in November between Nakatani and his Vietnamese counterpart at the time, Phung Quang Thanh.
quinta-feira, 7 de abril de 2016
As mexidas no apoio ao desemprego e na proteção do emprego realizadas num período em que há recursos por utilizar nas economias saídas da crise geraram contração económica, conclui um estudo do FMI publicado esta quarta-feira. O documento faz parte do "World Economic Outlook" preparado para a reunião da Primavera na próxima semana
O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) mudou de 'agulha' em matéria de reformas estruturais, sobretudo no campo laboral. “Reformas nos regimes de proteção ao emprego e nos sistemas de subsídio ao desemprego têm efeitos positivos nos tempos bons, mas podem enfraquecer a procura agregada e o produto nos maus momentos”, conclui um estudo do FMI inserido como capítulo 3 do “World Economic Outlook” (WEO). Este relatório macroeconómico será divulgado na íntegra na próxima reunião da Primavera do Fundo em Washington na próxima semana.
Esta quarta-feira, a organização dirigida por Christine Lagarde divulgou antecipadamente um estudo polémico sobre este segmento das chamadas reformas estruturais que sugere, em alternativa, reduções nos impostos sobre o trabalho e aumento da despesa pública em políticas ativas no mercado laboral. Estas políticas têm um efeito positivo no curto e no médio prazo, em parte “porque ocasionam algum grau de estímulos orçamentais”.
O estudo intitulado “Momento para um impulso pelo lado da oferta? Os efeitos macroeconómicos das reformas nos mercados de produtos e laborais nas economias desenvolvidas” é assinado por Romain Duval, Davide Furceri, Alexander Hijzen, João Jalles e Sinem Kılıç Çelik e vem colocar em causa a receita do costume centrada precisamente naquelas duas vertentes. Jalles é um economista português que trabalha no Departamento de Assuntos Orçamentais do FMI, tendo estado anteriormente na OCDE, no Banco Central Europeu e no Banco de Portugal.
Dois multiplicadores de crescimento
Os especialistas encontraram inclusive dois “multiplicadores” na investigação empírica que fizeram relativamente a “maus momentos” em economias desenvolvidas com processos de reformas estruturais. Por um lado, uma redução de 1 por cento na carga fiscal sobre o trabalho aumenta o produto em 0,7% no ano da reforma e em 1,2% ao fim de quatro anos. Por outro, um aumento de 10% na despesa dirigida a políticas ativas de emprego aumenta o produto em 0,2% no primeiro ano e em 0,7% depois de quatro anos. Em períodos de expansão, os efeitos não são estatisticamente diferentes de zero.
O estudo recomenda políticas macroeconómicas complementares baseadas na expansão orçamental que potenciem as reformas laborais, nomeadamente em áreas como a educação e a inovação. Em contraste com o efeito negativo que as reformas estruturais centradas no agravamento das condições de emprego e desemprego tiveram em períodos de contração orçamental.
O Fundo conclui, agora, que, quando a economia atravessa uma situação persistente de fraqueza, de recursos por utilizar, os impactos de tal tipo usual de reformas laborais são nocivos no curto e médio prazo, gerando um efeito de contração económica.
O problema do capital e do trabalho inativos
Tecnicamente os economistas falam de situações em que há uma margem persistente de recursos por utilizar, usando o termo inglês “slack”. No jargão económico, isso quer dizer que há situações em que se amplia a diferença entre a capacidade produtiva da economia e o nível presente de produção. Significa que há capital e trabalho que poderiam ser utilizados, mas que estão inativos. Esse é o quadro atual nas economias desenvolvidas. O estudo publica gráficos que mostram uma tendência de queda do PIB em resposta a reformas laborais que pioraram o regime de emprego (como o favorecimento de lay-off) e o sistema de subsídios ao desemprego em condições económicas fracas.
É referido, também, um estudo específico de Jakob Miethe e Davide Furceri sobre as condicionantes políticas dos avanços em reformas estruturais, onde se conclui que a densidade sindical, a orientação política dos governos na ocasião e as posições em termos orçamentais (consolidação ou expansão) estão “fracamente correlacionadas com a ocorrência de reformas no mercado de produto e laboral”. Contam mais como circunstâncias impulsionadoras se as economias em questão estão em períodos de fraco crescimento e/ou alto nível de desemprego, se há predomínio de um sistema parlamentar, se se regista uma situação de clara pressão em virtude de reformas que estão a ser tomadas por vizinhos ou parceiros comerciais, e se se está longe de um período eleitoral.
O estudo deixa uma porta aberta para economias sujeitas a forte pressão orçamental, como é o caso dos periféricos do euro. “Onde as restrições orçamentais são vinculativas, uma implementação orçamental neutra de tais medidas [de estímulos fiscais] ainda pode apoiar o crescimento”, lê-se no estudo. E, mais adiante: “Sempre que possível o estreitamento dos benefícios ao desemprego e o enfraquecimento da proteção do emprego devem ser acompanhados de outras políticas que compensem os seus custos de curto prazo. Em alternativa, [tais reformas penalizadoras] podem ser promulgadas agora, mas só entrarem em vigor quando a recuperação for mais robusta ou só serem aplicadas aos novos beneficiários, protegendo os chamados direitos adquiridos”.
Quanto às reformas nos mercados de produtos, sobretudo quando viradas para reduzir as barreiras à entrada de novas empresas sobretudo em sectores não transacionáveis, geram um efeito “expansionista” no médio prazo e, em certas condições, mesmo no curto prazo. A desregulamentação nos mercados do transporte aéreo e das telecomunicações nos anos 1990 é apresentada como caso, quer em tempos bons como maus.
Lagarde faz recomendações para a zona euro
Esta mudança na apreciação das reformas estruturais foi antecipada por Christine Lagarde esta semana na conferência que proferiu em Frankfurt organizada pelo Bundesbank e pela Universidade Goethe, onde apontou para a necessidade de complementar a política monetária com reformas estruturais “mais específicas” e uma política orçamental “mais amiga do crescimento”. Lagarde falou inclusive “dos suspeitos do costume” para se referir às reformas estruturais no mercado laboral e de desregulamentação nos mercados de produtos e de serviços.
No estudo publicado no WEO sublinha-se a importância complementar da política monetária para as reformas estruturais, apesar da sua perda de impacto ter sido sublinhada recentemente pelos ministros das Finanças e pelos banqueiros centrais do G20: “Tendo em conta os efeitos incertos sobre os preços por parte das reformas nos mercados de produtos e laborais, e em meio a uma persistente baixa inflação em muitos países, um quadro forte e credível de política monetária que mantenha ancoradas a médio prazo as expectativas de inflação e que alivie as restrições de uma política de taxas de juro no limite inferior – incluindo a flexibilização quantitativa ou taxas negativas sobre os depósitos, onde for relevante – pode prevenir o risco de que as reformas conduzam à deflação, aumentem a taxa de juro real, e baixem a procura agregada”.
A diretora-geral do FMI fez mesmo recomendações específicas em matéria de reformas. Para a zona euro exemplifica sugerindo a implementação de melhor formação e de políticas que façam um casamento eficaz da oferta e da procura em matéria de emprego. Para os Estados Unidos aconselha a subida do salário mínimo federal e o reforço de benefícios às famílias.
terça-feira, 5 de abril de 2016
Letter from Armenia: Deciphering the Border War
| April 5, 2016 | 17:26 GMT |
 |
Amid fresh fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, a taxi ride through Yerevan grants insight into the Armenian mindset. Click here to continue reading…
Iceland: Prime Minister Resigns Over Panama Papers
| April 5, 2016 | 16:28 GMT |
Icelandic Prime Minister Sigumdur David Gunnlaugsson resigned on April 5 after the release of the Panama Papers brought to light his family's offshore investments, The Guardian reported. More than 11.5 million documents were leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, revealing questionable financial arrangements made by world leaders, politicians, public figures and known criminals dating back to 1977. The prime minister faced growing pressure to step down after struggling to explain his holdings in an offshore company at the time of Iceland's economic collapse. According to local media, Gunnlaugsson's coalition partners in parliament and the country's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, must approve the prime minister's resignation before it becomes official. Some reports have said that Iceland's agriculture and fisheries minister, Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, may take over as prime minister. The Panama Papers scandal looks as though it will have a long life.
domingo, 3 de abril de 2016
 Nagorno-Karabakh Stalemate Flares Into Violence
| |||||||||||||||||
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)