Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday, 4 May 2012


Le Monde diplomatique

May 2012

... France, next chapter; US and China, partners still; Egypt and Libya, Islamists in action; Al-Jazeera's star wanes; African mercenaries for US wars; Vietnam, universities on the cheap; Occupy, the first year; Russia's new middle class; US, the enemy within; Tony Judt, wise words...and more...

  • Piracy as good policy - Serge Halimi

    The head of state, confident after electoral victory, tells the governor of the central bank what to do, introduces forex controls and announces that a key sector of the economy, sold off to private investors 13 years ago, is to be nationalised. Two members of the government are appointed to head this enterprise, now in public hands again, and its private owners are told to go. The European Commission, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are furious about this "shabby act of (...)
    Translated by Barbara Wilson
  • France's presidential election

    Adieu Sarkozy? - Alain Gresh

    The first round of the presidential election encouraged François Hollande, the left's candidate, and discouraged the incumbent president. And now for the crucial alliances
    LMD English language exclusive

  • An agreement to disagree - Antoine Schwartz

    Out of a collapse at the 2007 presidential elections has come a new alliance of the far left, including the Communist Party, banded together as the Front de Gauche to challenge the current norms of economic thought
    Translated by Charles Goulden

  • Sarkozy's family fails* - Alain Garrigou

    Nicolas Sarkozy has been not only president but head of a 'family' of big businessmen - some of whom have moved back and forth between the public and private sectors, to their great financial gain. Can the next president do things differently?
    Translated by Charles Goulden
  • Slaves to the private military in Iraq

    Cheap help from Uganda - Alain Vicky

    Private security firms won lucrative contracts to supply support staff and security guards to back up US forces in Iraq. They recruited Ugandans and pushed them to the limit, on low pay and no benefits
    Translated by Charles Goulden
  • Islamists in the Arab spring

    Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood divides* - Alaa al-Din Arafat

    The movement has compromised pragmatically with Egyptian regimes since its foundation. Can it now make internal compromises with its different generations and factions?
    Original text in English

  • The Muslim Brothers' choir* - Mona Abouissa

    They are the fourth group to sing for the Brotherhood in 25 years, superstars of political rallies who haven't given up their day jobs and must balance their talent and their religion
    Original text in English

  • Libya's rebel leader with a past - Vicken Cheterian

    Post-Gaddafi Libya cannot move on until its militia disarms. Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a returned jihadist from Afghanistan, heads the Tripoli Military Council. Can he be a stabilising force?
    LMD English edition exclusive
  • Compromised Al-Jazeera no longer leads

    Television channels the Arab Spring* - Yves Gonzalez-Quijano

    Social media were far less important to last year's revolutions than the news broadcasters of the Arab world, where new channels will now challenge the current ones
    Translated by Stephanie Irvine
  • US and China: a rebalancing of power

    The odd couple* - Shen Dingli

    Both China and the US have profited and lost out in a bizarre yet unbreakable economic partnership. And though Beijing may effectively be embarking on an arms race, it does not yet have Washington's strategic capability. This is the moment to rebalance relations
    Translated by Charles Goulden
  • Good universities, but only for the few

    Vietnam: cheap degrees for the masses* - Xavier Monthéard

    Vietnam has expanded university education as fast as it can, but it doesn't have the money to admit all who want to be students, or to give those students who get in adequate modern teaching
    Translated by Stephanie Irvine
  • What happened to the global anger?

    The year of occupation* - Raphaël Kempf

    It began when angry Spaniards took over a square in Madrid and experimented with the democracy that had been taken away from them. In New York, it was a park; in London, the churchyard of St Paul's Cathedral
    Translated by Krystyna Horko

  • Does Russia have a middle class?* - Alexander Bikbov

    Russia's media decided that those demonstrating against the re-election of Vladimir Putin must be middle class. And now they're describing themselves that way
    Translated by Stephanie Irvine
  • Where US gun culture meets segregation

    The enemy within - Rowland Atkinson and Oliver Smith

    Gated communities for the lower middle classes as well as the rich are little frontier towns with their own sheriffs, suspicious of every outsider
    LMD English edition exclusive
  • Tony Judt, historian of all Europe

    Frequent bouts of wisdom - Robert Zaretsky

    Tony Judt's purpose was not to tell coherent but untruthful stories of the past. It was to get down what happened in all its confusion and ambiguity
    LMD English edition exclusive

Diplomatic channels

Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 15:58