Earlier today, I attended a panel discussion on the political crisis in Syria at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Although the event had been planned in advance, today’s meeting took place with Russia’s and China’s weekend veto of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria fresh in everyone’s minds. Below, I summarise the main… [Read more]

Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos appointed Manuel Vicente as Minister for Economic Coordination on January 30, in a move which we believe gives some clarity over the country’s future leadership. In his new post, Vicente, the former CEO of state-owned oil giant Sonangol, is likely to have a wide range of policy-making powers and… [Read more]

Regular readers of this website will recall that we coined the acronym BLANKs in 2008 to refer to a group of extreme frontier market economies in Asia which have considerable development potential, but are being constrained by highly unusual or adverse political or geopolitical conditions. These are Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Afghanistan, and North Korea. All… [Read more]

Japan and Italy have quite a bit in common. Both have histories stretching back 2,700 years. More recently, both are underperforming economies that have accumulated colossal debt burdens which rapidly ageing (and in Japan’s case, already shrinking) populations will struggle to pay off. In addition, both countries have weak political systems characterised by dozens of… [Read more]

As the first anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring passes by, attention is naturally focused on the political transitions in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and the quasi-civil war in Syria. Iraq hasn’t attracted too much attention of late, and even the United States’ withdrawal of its troops in December 2011 was a low-key… [Read more]

Business Monitor Online has recently published two new analyses on North East Asia. China: With the economy heading towards a ‘hard landing’, we believe it will become increasingly difficult for the central government to report strong growth figures. While the headline GDP figure is as much a political issue as an economic one, a greater… [Read more]

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s proposed referendum for the independence of Scotland is an existential issue for the United Kingdom. Business Monitor Online recently published a primer on the subject, discussing the following questions: What will be the choices on offer to the Scottish electorate? When will the referendum be held? Who will vote in… [Read more]