Vladimir Putin all smiles for an elegant, surreal look at Russian history in Sochi
Winter
Olympics' opening ceremony was light on nationalism but with a share
of psychedelia and a utopian view of history
the
Guardian.com,
Friday 7 February 2014
Dancers
perform against a backdrop of onion domes during the opening of the
Sochi Winter Olympics
In
a buttoned-down black overcoat with a fur collar, Vladimir Putin
smiled a big smile as the lights went down in the Fisht Stadium.
Putin himself may have been restricted to an uncharacteristic
peripheral role by the Olympic charter, which only allowed him to say
one sentence, announcing the official opening of the Games. But the
triumphant smile on his face was worth a thousand words. For him,
these are the biggest two weeks of his political career.
Misfiring
Olympic ring aside, the games got off to an impressive start with an
opening ceremony that took a dreamy and sumptuous look at Russian
history, mounted on a scale that matches the preparations for the
Games themselves.
The
official opening ceremony came after another warm and sunny day in
Sochi, and was preceded by an hour of entertainment for those in the
stadium, not shown to television audiences either in Russia or
abroad. In a somewhat surreal turn of events, much of the hour had
been given a – perhaps unintended – gay theme. The competitors'
seats were painted in rainbow colours, the first song was a rendition
of Queen's We Are the Champions, followed by the faux-lesbian pop duo
tATu, who sang one of their hits from a decade ago, Not Gonna Get Us.
2. Emerging
markets split into tortoises
and hares:
Which will win 2014?
CNN
January 21, 2014
The
curtain goes up on Davos Janet Yellen and the U.S. economy in 2014
But
Davos 2014 may bring an end to sweeping generalizations, as those
here representing the Fortune 500 become more discerning in their
hunt for growth.
Jeffrey
Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University sees it
as the next phase of an economic evolution.
"Some
of these emerging economies are well managed, others have some fairly
miserable politics, some have good growth prospects, others fairly
mediocre," Sachs said in interview with CNN. "So I think
that it's good to scrutinize to get much more detail and fine grain
in one's analysis."
As
an institution, the World Economic Forum was quick to embrace the
shift of growth to the East and the rise of India and China. In the
early 1990s here in Davos, I bore witness to leaders of China being
welcomed on stage signaling the start of economic reforms. Mikhail
Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were here what as well after the Soviet
Union broke apart.
Large,
populous countries shows signs of racing ahead. But those that have
been slow to reform like Brazil, Russia and Turkey have lagged
behind.
Those
major forces of globalization sparked a decade-long drive by chief
executives to direct their investments to the developing world.
Nearly
a quarter century later, today's emerging markets can be divided into
the tortoises and hares. Large, populous countries such as China,
Nigeria, and the Philippines shows signs of racing ahead. But those
that have been slow to reform like Brazil, Russia and Turkey have
lagged behind.
With
growth that fell from recent highs, all three of the latter countries
bore witness to intense protests with citizens disgruntled about
decisions made at the top.
Sachs
says this trend is not limited to the developing world, but it is
more pronounced now with growth a third if not half of what it was
just a few years ago.
"We
see in just about every country throughout modern history that
politics can interfere with the good economic policy and that's
certainly happened in many of the major emerging economies,"
said Sachs.
3. China's
21st century challenge: Define your narrative or fall behind
CNN
January 23,
2014
In
November, China's Communist rulers announced an easing of the
controversial one-child policy amid a raft of sweeping pledges
unveiled including the abolition of 're-education' labor camps and
loosening economic controls.
(CNN)
-- If the 21st century belongs to China, as some have argued, then it
is worth asking what the defining Chinese idea will be.
It
is unsurprising that this very issue has ginned up ferocious debate
within China, as the country's might grows but its voice remains meek
on the global stage.
Economic
success alone has yet to evince a self-assured China that it can
offer a set of compelling values and ideas to the world. As a country
that prides itself on the continuity of its great civilization and
cultural force, China seems to grow increasingly dissatisfied with
punching below its weight in the world of ideas.
Indeed,
much of the 20th century was defined by the rise of the United States
and the dominance of the American idea: It was essentially an
articulation of what modernity means.
To
be modern meant widespread economic prosperity, a healthy middle
class, and technological superiority, combined with values that
emphasized individual rights and freedoms to pursue whatever lives,
liberties, and happiness that one sought. It was a manifestation of
the ideals that were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, a
document that, at the young nation's inception, defined what kind of
country the United States ought to strive for.
It
seems that China has little choice but to look to its distant past in
search of a continuous narrative and an indigenous idea that can
carry the nation forward in the 21st Century.
4.
Japan-China
tensions take center-stage with Abe in Davos
Reuters,
Jan 22
2014
DAVOS,
Switzerland (Reuters) - Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing took
centre-stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday as
Japan's prime minister called for military restraint in Asia and a
senior Chinese academic branded him a troublemaker.
Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe defended his visit to a controversial shrine to
Japan's war dead, which outraged China and South Korea, and took a
veiled swipe at China's military buildup in his speech to global
business leaders.
Sino-Japanese
ties, long colored by what Beijing considers Tokyo's failure to atone
for its occupation of parts of China before and during World War Two,
have deteriorated in the past two years over a territorial dispute,
Abe's visit to a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's wartime
past and a new Chinese air-defense zone.
Asia's
two biggest powers each accuse the other of bellicosity. Strategic
experts in Davos said their tensions posed the biggest risk of
conflict around the world in 2014, along with hostility between Iran
and Saudi Arabia.
"We
must ... restrain military expansion in Asia, which could otherwise
go unchecked," Abe, the first Japanese leader to give the
keynote address, said in a speech dominated by a defense of
expansionary economic policies dubbed Abenomics.
"The
dividend of growth must not be wasted on military expansion," he
said. "We must use it to invest in innovation and human capital,
which will further boost growth in the region."
Abe
is pursuing a more assertive military and national security policy,
such as moving towards approving the use of force to help allies
under attack and calling for debate on revising Japan's pacifist
post-war constitution.
His
government has ended years of declines in defense spending and plans
modest increases in coming years. At the same time, Tokyo has
criticized China's decades of hefty rises in military spending and
implicitly accused Beijing of a lack of transparency in its defense
budgets.
"Military
budgets should be made completely transparent and there should be
public disclosure in a form that can be verified," Abe said,
following his government's custom of not naming China in such
references.
5.
Lessons
from a self-made billionaire
CNN
July 11,
2013
Woman
billionaire: How I did it
STORY
HIGHLIGHTS
- Worth $3.6 billion, Zhang Xin is the world's seventh richest self-made woman
- Xin runs China's largest real estate developer
- She rose from assembly line of a Beijing factory to property magnate
- Her family partly owns a 40% stake in NYC's GM building
Leading
Women connects you to extraordinary women of our time -- remarkable
professionals who have made it to the top in all areas of business,
the arts, sport, culture, science and more.
(CNN)
-- Zhang Xin is an example of true grit success. She rose from the
faceless assembly line of a Beijing factory to a property magnate
richer than Donald Trump and Oprah.
Her
company, SOHO China, literally changed the landscape of Beijing and
Shanghai over the past two decades. Forbes magazine has listed her
family's net worth at $3.6 billion.
And
she's not stopping there. In a private transaction (not related to
her company business), her family and the Safra banking family of
Brazil just bought a 40% stake in the iconic GM building in New York
City -- the building that houses the flagship Apple store on Fifth
Avenue.
Zhang
recently sat down with CNN's Pauline Chiou to talk about everything
from her Beijing childhood to the volatile property market and how
her 14-year old son tried to get a job at McDonald's.
Failure
is part of the puzzle
CNN:
Did you
come across a lot of bumps in the road and a lot of failures?
Zhang
Xin: Every
day. I
mean, I
think that's just life. You
will always bump into difficulties, challenges and problems. It
appears to be that we seem to be doing quite well, but as it is now,
we're still having challenges every day. So I think that's just
nothing unique. That's just life.
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