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lerová aneta langerová marta kubišová and jiří stránský denouncing corruption and calling for change but complaining is easy as is casting a protest vote the newcomers will certainly put the old guard under greater scrutiny dent cultures of impunity and give heart to others who want to change the system but that is not enough what the ex communist countries need is a big new impetus to complete the changes in officialdom and public services promised but not fully achieved after the collapse of communism accession to the european union and nato gave that process a boost but it has proved only temporary in some respects the countries of the region are regressing to restore momentum the new outsiders must show that they can win power and use it and at the same time not fall into the mire that has engulfed their predecessors read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 8 14 pm 2 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese thursday may 20 2010 important announcement i have also been made international editor starting in september however i will continue to write on the east european region for the print edition of the economist as well as running a new blog called eastern approaches i am delighted to receive material from outsiders it need be no more than a short email and a link to something interesting such as a news item a pamphlet or another blog my aim is to post something new every day i am also interested in books which i can feature in the book of the week slot my email is edwardlucas at economist com my column europe view will now move to this blog as a regular weekly posting it has had 183 outings in its current form and and another 100 odd in its humbler preincarnation as wi l der europe in european voice i will continue to post my main articles from the economist and other outlets on this blog which is about to have a snazzy redesign read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 1 56 pm 1 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese monday may 17 2010 estonia after the euro just in case anyone is interested here is a video of me and toomas hendrik ilves discussing estonia after the euro part two is here and part three here read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 3 27 pm 0 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese thursday may 13 2010 battle of britain book review britain and the second world war boys in blue may 13th 2010 from the economist print edition the battle of britain five months that changed history may october 1940 by james holland bantam press 677 pages 25 buy from amazon co uk every country s version of the second world war is selective for russians it starts with hitler s unprovoked attack in 1941 and highlights the colossal battles in the east for americans it starts with pearl harbour and features the normandy beaches and guadalcanal germans may privately start the story rather earlier with the humiliation at versailles which brought economic collapse and fuelled hitler s rise to power each version is true up to a point and each seems a bit odd to outsiders james holland s comprehensive and readable history of the battle of britain exemplifies the particular british blend of amnesia and nostalgia that the war arouses yet in any terms this is a tremendous story in september 1939 britain was fighting a phoney war alongside a seemingly powerful ally france less than a year later the country s survival depended on whether a fragile array of a few hundred fighter planes flown by exhausted young men could prevent hitler s luftwaffe from gaining the air superiority necessary for operation sealion the first invasion of england since 1066 the happy combination of youthful gallantry triumphing against overwhelming odds with brainy boffins giving the vital technological edge through radar and the brilliantly designed spitfires and hurricanes as well as inspirational leaders using flawless tactics and matchless rhetoric is irresistible the author has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject weaving together reminiscences from both sides statistics and technical details into the broader picture he describes the collapse in france and the near miraculous rescue in mid 1940 of nearly 340 000 british and french soldiers from the beaches of dunkirk he also tells the story of the carnage of poorly protected merchant shipping in the early months of the war which threatened to strangle britain s supply lines he ends with hitler s fateful decision to postpone sealion in september of the same year the luftwaffe had lost too many planes and pilots to the raf s fighters while bomber command had punctured germany s myth of invincibility it was as winston churchill said not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning published to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle of britain this book should sell well but it will leave many readers unsatisfied one problem is its glibness hitler can rightly be criticised for his many disastrous mistakes but to write of the nazi leader s almost complete lack of military understanding is wrong his problem was too much self taught military knowledge not too little similarly to call the german general gerd von rundstedt a pigheaded fool is lazy language that would be out of place in a schoolboy essay let alone in something that purports to be the work of a professional historian throughout the book the language is unsettlingly colloquial and anachronistic confusingly mr holland calls the pilots by their first names though they refer to each other in diaries and memoirs by their surnames a bigger problem is that the author s enthusiasm for his subject is not matched by his grip of history he peddles the anglocentric myth that britain was alone in the summer of 1940 insultingly forgetting greece poland and the entire british empire too many characters appear with annoyingly similar potted biographies their tinnily told stories swamp the rather skimpy treatment of the underlying war winning narrative such as the innovative tactics of a brilliant new zealander keith park and the way that max aitken revolutionised aircraft production heroism is indeed captivating but it was more than heroism that kept britain out of nazi captivity read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 3 23 pm 0 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese new rachman novel new fiction inky fingers may 13th 2010 from the economist print edition the imperfectionists by tom rachman dial press 272 pages 25 quercus 16 99 buy from amazon com amazon co uk for younger readers stories about newspapers in their heyday may have a whiff of industrial archaeology akin to tales about whaling or steam trains tom rachman s first novel is set in rome on a once mighty american owned international newspaper surely quite unlike the paris based international herald tribune where he used to work the book links together 11 characters each sharply drawn in a separate chapter read singly each would be a good short story together they make an excellent novel the opening picture is of the paper s elderly paris correspondent whose skills as a hack have deserted him after a lifetime of dissolution the last is of the drippy scion of the once formidable founding family who fails even to announce the paper s closure properly in between comes an agonisingly incompetent new freelance correspondent in cairo a memorably ferocious pedant who guards the paper s prose and accuracy and the paper s most loyal reader an italian nobildonna who miss havisham like prefers ancient editions of the paper to the up to date issues most of the characters have interestingly unhappy love lives with neat twists to their betrayals and disappointments though bleakly portrayed they still attract the reader s sympathy not least for their precarious ill paid jobs and filthy working conditions the office carpets not cleaned since 1977 according to the paper s lore one longs for them to leave and get proper jobs novels about journalism by journalists tend to be strong on score settling and colour but rarely survive the feuds they describe mr rachman s escapes that category though it lacks the transcendent absurdity of evelyn waugh s scoop 1938 it could sit well on a bookshelf next to michael frayn s towards the end of the morning 1967 which so vividly captured the feel of the old newspaper industry in the 1960s on the brink of its television led transformation into the power and prestige of the media this novel describes the final echoes of the newspaper story dedication and ambition fighting a losing battle against backbiting and cheeseparing and ending in a largely unlamented closure readers will look forward to mr rachman s next novel they may hope he picks a more cheerful theme read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 3 23 pm 0 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese estonia and the euro from the economist print edition the baltic states euro not bust may 13th 2010 from the economist print edition estonia gets a green light to join the euro other baltic states will benefit too surprises are estonia s stock in trade its return to the world map in 1991 after a 51 year absence startled outsiders so did what came next a fast growing economy based on flat taxes free trade and a currency board in 2004 it confounded pessimists expectations by joining the european union and nato now it is set to pull off another coup gaining green lights from the european commission and the european central bank in its bid to adopt the euro on january 1st 2011 many thought that highly unlikely only two years ago a property bubble in the country popped rocking the banking system and sending gdp plunging by 14 1 in 2009 doom mongers said devaluation was inevitable but they were wrong flexible wages and prices have helped the economy stabilise unit labour costs fell by 7 5 in the final quarter of 2009 exports were up by a sixth in the first quarter of 2010 and the central bank forecasts growth this year of 1 although that depends on the pace of recovery in sweden and other export markets thanks to a fiscal tightening of a stonking 7 5 of gdp estonia easily meets the euro zone s public finance rules its gross debt in 2009 was only 7 2 of gdp compared with 115 in italy and the government deficit is 1 7 greece s is 13 6 the concern is sustainability will future governments be so thrifty inflation is low in the past 12 months the average figure was negative at 0 7 well below the euro zone s 1 target but the ecb report calls for continued vigilance as well as efforts to raise productivity and competitiveness the real problem for estonia is political not economic some euro zone members france is often mentioned think that allowing an obscure and volatile ex communist economy to join a currency union that already has too many dodgy members should not be a priority if estonia is really so solid why not wait a year to be sure yet that would send a perverse message estonia is almost the only country in the whole eu that actually meets the common currency s rules all those that use the euro have gaily breached the deficit and debt limits the grit shown by estonian politicians and the public in shrinking spending raising taxes and cutting wages has been exemplary punishing estonia which obeyed the rules while bailing out greece which has breached them flagrantly would do little for the euro s credibility with governments and investors alike estonia has two more hurdles to jump before it can scotch the scoffers an eu committee meeting at the end of may followed by a finance ministers summit in early june few think that france and other doubters will actually block estonia s bid persuasion and horse trading will probably bring agreement then the decision will be irrevocable that will give heart to latvia and lithuania which hope to join the euro later in the decade like estonia their currencies are pegged to the euro so they bear the pain of a rigid monetary regime but also miss out on the lower borrowing costs and higher investment that membership of the currency can bring the next task is to stoke growth and cut unemployment now over 15 after that the aim should be to reach nordic quality public services and an economy based on brainpower by 2018 when estonia celebrates its 100th birthday and also holds the presidency of the eu read more summary only posted by edward lucas at 3 20 pm 0 comments social bookmark this post view blog reactions translate portugues francais espanol deutsche italiano chinese korean japanese europe view greece viewed from the region europe view default and other dogmas may 13th 2010 from economist com the experience of ex communist countries in the 1990s undermines many of the claims now made about greece for anyone from the ex communist world with a medium term memory the frantic efforts under way to save greece and the other wobbly southern members of the euro zone are rather puzzling for a start what is so bad about default and restructuring in the 1990s russia restructured 32 billion worth of soviet debt into prins and ians both are now stored in the museum of financial archaeology and may be viewed on application to the curator in 1998 it defaulted on those debt instruments people said russia s financial credibility would never recover one banker said he would rather eat nuclear waste than invest in russia again but within a couple of years russia was flavour of the month it was the same story with poland which restructured its debt after 1989 thanks to heavy politicking from america the freely elected authorities were allowed to swap sovereign debt incurred by the communist regime into less onerous brady bonds stored in the same museum also viewable on application hungary which did not have the same backing from america has had to pay its debt in full that depressed its growth rate in the 1990s and meant lower government spending and higher taxes hungary should have benefited from this sacrifice by gaining a better credit rating it didn t funny things markets the moral is that investors memories are short if greece were to restructure its debt it would not take long for greed to trump fear and for capital to start flowing again a second piece of dogma undermined by the experiences of the ex communist countries is that leaving a common currency area is all but impossible the czech and slovak korunas separated without even a ripple of disturbance the yugoslav dinar disappeared in a puff of hyperinflation but the currencies that succeeded it did pretty well almost from the word go the death agonie...