|
This is the front page of our current issue. You can read all the main
articles from the print edition on the website, or download a free PDF
version of the paper. You can also search our archives for articles from
previous issues.
|
|
 A Chinese border guard in Dandong monitors the frontier with North Korea. The world looks on as Pyongyang ramps up the aggression. But North Korea is only one of many 21st-century Asia-Pacific flashpoints
April 12, 2013
Is Europe’s past – centuries of contention, rivalry and internecine warfare – going to become the template for Asia’s future?
The bellicose stance of the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un
has alarmed the world. First of all, his regime proclaimed that North
Korea had reverted to a “state of war” with South Korea – a curious
statement, because technically the two countries never concluded a peace
treaty after the Korean War in the early 1950s (South Korea did not
even sign the armistice agreement).
|
|
Read more...
|
|
 Made in Germany by the mittelstand: products from Würth and Tente (bottom), two of the country’s most successful SMEs. The “Mittelstand” and other reasons for Germany’s robust economy in times of crisis
April 12, 2013
As a result of the global economic crisis, Germany’s reputation around
the world has undergone a dramatic transformation. On the one hand, the
German economic model is praised by world leaders like President Barack
Obama and others for its manufacturing and export success, and for the
maintenance of its brand of social capitalism in difficult economic
times. On the other hand, Germany has taken a lot of criticism lately
from those who don’t like its approach to the eurozone debt crisis,
accusing it of neglecting regional imbalances that allow Germany to
prosper at the expense of European neighbors. Many people increasingly
view Germany through both these lenses simultaneously, as a kind of
split personality striking a Faustian bargain with the Mephistopheles of
its own economic success.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
The SPD looks back at a history of 150 years
April 12, 2013
The SPD’s candidate for chancellor stands in the lobby at party HQ,
an elegant glass palace in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, surrounded
by a phalanx of TV cameras and microphones. Peer Steinbrück is
presenting a new postage stamp, issued to mark the party’s 150th
anniversary. He smiles for the photographers and quips with reporters.
In the background there is a large group of men and women, gray-haired
but colorfully attired in rucksacks and trekking shoes. This is the age
group that is referred to as “hale and hearty pensioners” in Germany.
One woman complains to her husband that she can’t hear what Steinbrück
is saying. “Yes, but all this isn’t for us. It’s for TV,” he replies.
The last SPD chancellor left office in 2005. Gerhard Schröder went to
the country one year before the scheduled date for elections partly due
to the difficulties he had keeping his own rank and file in line. In
the end he narrowly lost the election to the CDU’s Angela Merkel
although the Social Democrats remained in government as part of her
grand coalition. But the SPD has had no role in federal government since
the 2009 elections. Right now it is in opposition but keen to get its
hands on the lever of power again.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
