May 2012

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 (...)

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Gated communities for the lower middle classes as well as the rich are little frontier towns with their own sheriffs, suspicious of every outsider

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