EIU Country Analysis

Business Latin America Weekly report to managers of Latin America operations Internet delivery Business Latin America is available over the Internet three days ahead of its pub- lication date. The content is the same as the printed ver- sion, with

Barack Obama paid his first visit to China, where he held talks with his counterpart, Hu Jintao, and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao. A "town-hall meeting" in Shanghai was attended by only carefully vetted young people, and no questions

Australia is becoming one of the world#;s biggest exporters of gas WALLAROOS, bandicoots and other marsupials on Barrow Island off the north-west coast of Australia will watch curiously over coming months as workers start building a huge plant

Chinese firms are making and exporting ever more suspect phones CHINESE consumers appear fixated with Apple#;s iconic iPhone. It draws throngs of eager buyers in Shanghai#;s Xujiahui computer market. Similarly, at the Canton Trade Fair in October, vendors

Does local beat global in the professional-networking business? IN THE three-way fight between the biggest online professional networks--America#;s LinkedIn, France#;s Viadeo and Germany#;s Xing--this week the French contender scored a victory. Last year

In "For peat#;s sake, stop" (November #th), an overenthusiastic spell-checking system led to the word "rewetting" being rendered as "reletting" in three different places. We apologise for any confusion caused. SOURCE: The Economist

The president is making the country#;s well-wishers anxious WHEN Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) got independence from Britain in ####, it was one of Africa#;s richest and most developed countries. It has vast copper-ore deposits and some

A bitter local conflict threatens to spread across the region MUHAMMAD REDWAN and his family were being hammered from all sides. In early August, rebels from Yemen#;s Houthi clan took over his village in the rugged mountains of the

The government is having some rare success in trying to eradicate an old sore IN MOST African countries, the fight against corruption is deemed important but hardly a matter of life and death. In Sierra Leone it is exactly that

As Americans prepare to leave, Iraq#;s biggest neighbours vie for influence OF ALL the foreign officials an American general or ambassador would least want to be seen with, General Qassem Suleimani would--you may think--be high on the

"I#;D LIKE to see us put more risk on the table and actually trade a bit harder." In these times, such words from any banker might be enough to cause a little concern. Coming from the chief financial officer

Governments differ dramatically in how they tax--and how much they raise THANKS to the collateral damage from the financial crisis, government deficits have surged across the rich world. Once the recovery is entrenched this fiscal deterioration will need to

Misery for the cajas does not mean joy for the banks SPAIN#;S banks face a grim ####. True, the listed banks made over EUR# billion ($# billion) in net profits in the third quarter of this year. But most

Small firms risk financial starvation just as the economy recovers JUST when you thought an upswing was around the corner it seems that smaller firms have yet to face the worst. Nick Hood, executive chairman of Begbies Global Network, an

New firms are finding funds in Scotland, despite the downturn. Why? THESE are tough times for venture capitalists. According to their trade association, the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), investment in new and fledgling firms fell by ##% in ####

An exercise in bank-bashing which may just please consumers CRACKING down on financial services was always likely to be a highlight of the Queen#;s Speech, which sets out the government#;s legislative priorities until the general election next

IN HIS eighth novel--the first since he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in ####--Orhan Pamuk, who was born in Istanbul in ####, has conjured up a circle of characters who are riven by anxieties about Turkishness

WHAT Shakespeare does for a monarch, it is very hard to undo. Richard III, though softened and cleaned up by assiduous researchers, still limps murderously through the public imagination. And Henry V, even soberly revisited, never quite loses that stirring

The difficulty of pressing for change in a police state THOSE who hoped that the arrival in power of Barack Obama and Raul Castro would bring a thaw in the continuing ##-year cold war between the United States and

Another inquiry into vanishing stocks A MYSTERIOUS decline in the numbers of spawning salmon has become one of the rites of autumn in British Columbia, bringing worries of financial and job losses, threats of extinction and a perplexing lack of

If extended guarantees are overpriced, why are they so popular? CUSTOMERS tend to agonise over the relative merits of different models of electronic goods such as digital cameras or plasma televisions. But when they get to the till, many spend

The giant French utility#;s ambition to lead a global revival in nuclear energy is running into difficulties as a controversial new boss takes over NEXT week Henri Proglio will become the boss of EDF Group, the state-controlled French

Gulliver, our blog on business travel, won the award for innovation at this year#;s Business Travel Journalism Awards. SOURCE: The Economist

A brave attempt to save local fish IN THE bright midday sun, boats idle as fishermen unload the day#;s haul. This scene is commonplace in Maine#;s small fishing hamlets; but Port Clyde is known not for its lobsters

The president continues to take his time AS HIS plane was refuelling in Alaska en route to Asia, Barack Obama made a vow to the troops who greeted him at Elmendorf air base. "I want you guys to understand I

Tapping remotely into a car#;s data systems provides lots of useful services IN THE early hours of the morning two men are robbed at gunpoint and ordered out of their Chevrolet Tahoe. The thief jumps in and roars off

Robert Rines, scientist and Nessie-hunter, died on November #st, aged ## EYEWITNESS evidence may be all very well in a court of law, but it cuts no ice with scientists. Robert Rines knew that perfectly, because he was a

America#;s president shows an alarming lack of self-confidence. So does China#;s FOR some critics of Barack Obama, America#;s dependence on China as the holder of some $### billion of its government debt is to blame for

The European Union serves up a dog#;s breakfast HEDGE-FUND and private-equity managers earn a lot of money, more than most people think justified by their contribution to society. Of course, the same could be said of rappers

Poor places need more than seeds, fertiliser or even food science IF FOOD aid is epitomised by a single image, it is that of neat bags of grain, stamped with the Stars and Stripes and labelled a "gift from the

Toyota spent the most on research and development (R&D) of any company in the world in ####, according to the European Commission#;s latest tally. The Japanese carmaker increased its annual R&D spending by #.#% to EUR#

Please see graphic below. SOURCE: The Economist

The tension between free trade and capping emissions STATEMENTS by Barack Obama on his travels through Asia have lowered expectations that December#;s global summit on climate change in Copenhagen will lead to binding cuts in carbon emissions. The urgency

Its advantages are oversold, but it is gaining adherents LIBERALS oppose a value-added tax because it falls more heavily on the poor. Conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine. Larry Summers, Barack Obama#;s chief economic adviser

A murky twist in the fight between the ruling party and the military old guard DURING an interview with a Turkish minister recently, your correspondent was asked to remove the battery from her mobile telephone. "Otherwise our conversation will be

The recession has left a fiscal burden that many countries will struggle to shed THE BAD thing for politicians about good news on the economy is that they can no longer avert their eyes from the state of public finances

The politics of deficits and economic statistics GREEK government statistics are notoriously unreliable. But rarely can the numbers have seemed more erratic than in recent months, when the forecast for this year#;s budget deficit more than doubled from #

The venerable but defeated SPD picks a new champion IT HAD the trappings of any other political party convention in Germany: the same airless arena, the same corporate kiosks offering free ballpoint pens. But the gathering of the Social Democratic

Public-service satisfaction guaranteed, or--what, exactly? ALTHOUGH it was introduced long before he left Downing Street, John Major#;s "cones hot-line" came to epitomise, in the public imagination, the intellectual exhaustion and shrunken ambition of the Conservatives#; last

COMMUNIST bullies had a nasty trick when dealing with opponents who had children: they took them away, sometimes to be adopted by childless party stalwarts, in nastier cases to be sent to orphanages and treated as the children of criminals

The war#;s winners fall out WHEN Sarath Fonseka sought permission this month to retire as chief of Sri Lanka#;s defence staff from December #st, President Mahinda Rajapaksa replied through his secretary that the general, who had led his

One man; one vote; one forlorn hope? ACCORDING to its chief executive, Donald Tsang, Hong Kong has reached another "critical juncture" in its political development. A reform proposal unveiled by his government on November ##th aims to increase the level

India#;s membership of Asia remains primarily cartographic AN EASY but instructive way to bait an Indian economist is to credit the Chinese economy with coming to Asia#;s rescue and arguably the world#;s. It is, claims the economist

Ben Bernanke remarked that the Federal Reserve was "closely" watching currency markets, and that the central bank would "help ensure that the dollar is strong". The weak dollar has caused commodity prices to nudge up, a potential inflationary threat. Any

Four years after his death, Peter Drucker remains the king of the management gurus IN THE normal run of things the management world is divided into dozens of mutually suspicious tribes--theoreticians versus practitioners, publicity-hogging gurus versus retiring academics

Governments around the world are making life difficult for corrupt firms IF EVER a clash was inevitable between one country#;s commercial law and another#;s business culture, it would be between America#;s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which

A survey reveals that desperate times have led to illegal measures THE recession has taken its toll on morals as well as profits. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consulting and accounting firm, has conducted a biennial survey of economic crime for the

Well, would you? ASK any New Orleanian whether they are ready for a new mayor, and they will say yes--and soon. A poll by James Carville, a Louisiana-raised consultant who was once Bill Clinton#;s campaign adviser and

She#;s back, and this time she#;s selling books ONE day in January last year, Sarah Palin was watching her son graduate from boot camp. As she gazed at the ranks of "tall and strong and serious" young men

Barack Obama and others admit that Copenhagen will at most produce only an outline climate agreement. But that would be a lot better than nothing EXPECTATIONS for the Copenhagen climate conference, to be held next month in the Danish capital

Wolves are being blamed for damage actually done by dogs FARMERS have never liked wolves. That is why wolves are rare where farmers are common. Fashion, though, is swinging round to the wolf#;s point of view in many places

The search continues for a pill that will lift a woman#;s libido BACK in the ####s a drug firm called Pfizer thought it had a treatment for angina. Unfortunately, the new medicine failed its clinical trials. But a curious

The bluefin tuna is still being managed badly. A trade ban is on the cards IN A world where wildlife is under increasing pressure, good management can mean the difference between survival and extinction. In the Atlantic Ocean and the

Is Congo#;s President Joseph Kabila flirting with dictatorship? AFTER ## years of rapacious dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko and nearly a decade of chaos following his demise in ####, Congo#;s elections in #### marked the first time the

Don#;t cut the deficit now--but explain how, eventually, you will FOR years America#;s fiscal problems had a surreal quality. No one disputed that an ageing population and health-care inflation could bust the budget, but that prospect

The European Union lashes out at hedge funds and private equity "WHEN a fight breaks out in a bar, you don#;t hit the man who started it. You clobber the person you don#;t like instead." That is the

Why China resists foreign demands to revalue its currency PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, on his first visit to China this week, urged the government to allow its currency to rise. President Hu Jintao politely chose to ignore him. In recent weeks

Either central banks are wrong to keep rates low, or markets are wrong to expect recovery LIKE a truck rolling downhill, the rally in risky assets is proving hard to stop. Good economic news causes share prices to rise because

Unprecedented levels of government debt may require radical solutions STUDENTS at National Defence University in Washington, DC, were recently given a model of the economy and told to fix the budget. To get the federal debt down, they jacked up

A mistress#;s diary shows Benito Mussolini was a rabid anti-Semite "THESE disgusting Jews, I must destroy them all." Adolf Hitler#;s dinnertime conversation? No. This is one of several anti-Semitic rants ascribed to Italy#;s fascist leader

A nakedly political Queen#;s Speech marks the start of the election campaign "THERE are times, perhaps once every ## years, when there is a sea-change in politics," said the last Labour prime minister to lose a general election

Luring foreign students is getting harder IN MEDIEVAL times, the choice was simple. A Christian man of means could enroll at one of a handful of universities, two of which were in England. Since then, continents have been discovered, everyone

A shoe-in for the Academy Awards, already "PRECIOUS", which was released across America on November ##th, and opens in Europe early next year, should in any rational world be the most depressing ### minutes anyone could spend in the

Czechoslovakia was born out of trickery and died in failure. Only up to a point OUTSIDERS tend to have a soft spot for Czechoslovakia. Poignant music by Leos Janacek, Antonin Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana recalls the struggle for nationhood that

The debate over whether Monsanto is a corporate sinner or saint FEW companies excite such extreme emotions as Monsanto. To its critics, the agricultural giant is a corporate hybrid of Victor Frankenstein and Ebenezer Scrooge, using science to create foods

The president pays Asia the compliment of courtesy; rewards are not immediate IT TOOK Barack Obama nearly a year in office to get to East Asia. When he did, it was for an intensive nine-day obstacle course, which he

Tough choices as a deadline is missed AT HIS inauguration, Barack Obama insisted that the choice between America#;s safety and its ideals was a false one. In a clear dig at his predecessor for abuses in the "war on

The long, slow effort to set standards IN THE long list of problems that plague American education, one is primary: what should students learn? For decades, however, this question has baffled people. In an education system run by the ##

How Gordon Brown and the Labour Party should use their last months in power TWO syndromes often beset governments whose time is almost up. One is listlessness and drift, as discipline crumbles, morale plummets and ideas dry up. Conversely, some

Business as usual will not do it IN #### Henry Kissinger, then America#;s secretary of state, told the first world food conference in Rome that no child would go to bed hungry within ten years. Just over ## years

Investment in agriculture is soaring. So, worryingly, is distrust of markets and trade "THE world#;s attention is back on your cause." That was Bill Gates talking to agricultural scientists gathered recently to honour the late Norman Borlaug, father of

Please see graphic below. SOURCE: The Economist

Japan #;s economy grew strongly in the third quarter. It expanded at an annual rate of #.#%, aided by a #.#% rise in domestic demand and rapid export growth. The recession ended in the euro zone, where GDP

As the world economy tumbled into recession, most rich countries#; governments tried to prop up ailing carmakers by dishing out cash to drivers who scrapped an old vehicle to buy a new one. According to the OECD, America#;s programme

Please see graphic below. SOURCE: The Economist

Please see graphic below. SOURCE: The Economist

Tough times for Slovakia#;s democracy AN IRREVOCABLE shift away from the bad habits of the past was meant to be the result of joining the European Union. In Slovakia#;s case, the shift is now backwards. In the past

Plans to abolish a tax on investment causes uproar in town halls IN THE rolling hills and medieval villages of France, a modern rebellion is stirring. The country#;s ##,### directly elected mayors are in revolt, angry at government

In our story last week on right-wing parties in Europe ("Right on Down"), we mistakenly referred to the Civic Forum in the Czech Republic. We should have said the Civic Democrats. Sorry. SOURCE: The Economist

America is listening to Russia#;s call for new security arrangements in Europe IN THEORY, Russian diplomats accredited to NATO are welcome friends: the reality is murkier. For more than a decade now, Russian officials have been trusted to roam

Public wireless internet has had a tough time in America. Can Britain do better? ON A cold and drizzly autumn day, no one would mistake Swindon, a prosperous mid-sized town near Bristol, for northern California. But it does lie

A shadow culture secretary begins to makes his mark THE Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has rarely been the frivolous sideshow suggested by its Whitehall nickname, "the ministry of fun". It was a training ground for some of

"SOME literary works are mortal; Jane Austen#;s are immortal," writes Harold Bloom in his foreword to this delightful volume. In it, ## writers--from Virginia Woolf to Jay McInerney, from Somerset Maugham to Fay Weldon, from Martin Amis to

JAMES LEES-MILNE (####-##) notched up two big achievements. First, he was a seminal figure in England#;s National Trust, which earned him the bouquet of "the man who saved England" by protecting scores of fine houses (and sometimes

Kevin Rudd says sorry for a past evil CEREMONIES in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra are typically attended by visiting royals, heads of state and other dignitaries. On November ##th several hundred ordinary, middle-aged Australians, with

Manny Pacquiao, boxer, national hero and political wannabe A HUSH fell over the Philippines as a bell rang, eight time zones away, to start Manny Pacquiao#;s title fight in Las Vegas. The people of Manila deserted the streets to

The anti-graft pressure mounts on Hamid Karzai IT WAS no secret what the world wanted to hear from Hamid Karzai when Afghanistan#;s president was sworn in for a second term on November ##th: a commitment to get tough

First build a road, then flood it JOSE CHAVEZ, a farmer, is one of the few people in the Inambari area who welcomes a plan to build a huge hydroelectric dam where the departments of Madre de Dios, Cusco and

In some ways the pain is less bad than the statistics suggest. But recovery will be harder than in the past unless complacency gives way to reform THE last time Mexico suffered an economic slump, in ####, it turned to

SOURCE: Industry Briefing

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Kuwait is heading for yet another government and constitutional crisis as MPs have once again turned the heat on ministers through subjecting them to parliamentary "grilling". Matters are set to come to a head on

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT After more than four months in government, the administration of President Mauricio Funes has yet to announce a comprehensive public security policy to deal with El Salvador#;s huge problem of rising violent crime. In

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT All sectors contracted, with the exception of agriculture, which managed growth of #.#%, and financial and government services, which expanded by a weak #.#% and #.#% respectively. Commerce and construction were the

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT According to the draft, current revenue will drop by almost #% in ####, mainly owing to lower tax revenue (which is expected to fall by #% year on year). Capital revenue will fall by ##

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Sovereign risk Stable. Low revenue, combined with spending pressures, will keep the fiscal deficit wide, lifting the public debt/GDP ratio to ##% in ####, but access to official borrowing should help the sovereign meet

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Background: Saudi Arabia was formed in #### by King Abdel-Aziz al-Saud. The support of the clerics and the maintenance of a conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam (often unofficially known as Wahhabism after a

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Policy towards private enterprise and competition ####-##: Private investment is encouraged, often in partnership with major parastatals or in projects contracted out by the public sector. However, given the subdued global economic environment, public

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT Background: Nigeria gained independence in ####. Following the first military coup in #### and the subsequent civil war in ####-## the army became the dominant political player and was only briefly out of power