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Juan Gabriel Vásquez reflects on the continued prevalence of sortes vergilianæ, a form of bibliomancy, or choosing a passage from a book at random in the belief that the verses one finds will describe one’s fate.
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By Harris Mylonas and Akis Georgakellos.
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After Greece’s elections, everything suddenly looks very different. But it remains unclear whether anything much will actually change.
By Georgy Satarov
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The widespread protests against electoral fraud and state malfeasance that spread throughout Russia nine months ago are largely over. However, Putin and his regime may be celebrating “stability” too early. Russian society has become a dry peat bog, waiting for a spark to ignite it.
By Alex Gourevitch and Chris Bickerton
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The unravelling of political support for Eurozone agreements is not just a product of a far right surge across Europe. Elite opinion lacks consensus on the modalities of austerity and the deficit-reduction assumptions of the EU’s fiscal compact, and national governments are finding it increasingly difficult to implement unpopular fiscal policies.
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With Britain now in talks to sell part of the government’s 82% stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland to Abu Dhabi sovereign-wealth funds, the Islamic world’s growing financial clout is once again on display. That clout also poses a systemic challenge to the dominant way that finance is now practiced around the world.
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez/tr. Jeremy Osner
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“War is hell,” said Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration: he said it following the killing of 16 civilians, among them children, by a deranged sergeant in the Afghan province of Kandahar. This massacre unleashed on the world a series of images that one cannot look at without being reminded of similar massacres from the Vietnam War — for instance, My Lai.
By Kenneth Rogoff
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High salaries for athletes and movie stars are easily accepted by the public. So why, if a financial trader or a corporate boss is paid a fortune, does the public suspect that he or she must be undeserving or, worse, a thief?
By Harold James
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Germany’s position in Europe looks increasingly peculiar and vulnerable. In the chaos of German unification in 1990, when Germany’s neighbors were terrified of the new giant, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised a European Germany, not a German Europe. Today, however, the terms of any European rescue effort are obviously set by Germany.
By Simon Johnson
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Breaking an oath to tell the truth is perjury, and lying in official documents is both perjury and fraud. These are serious criminal offenses, but apparently not if you are at the heart of America’s financial system.
By Esther Dyson
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Within the tech community, there is much angst about whether the Web is about to be “closed.” However, the Web’s openness or closure is not a matter to be settled once and for all, but rather a fluctuating situation
