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Editor’s note: Mark Bowman is managing director of brewing company SABMiller Africa.

(CNN) — Nothing better sums up Africa’s extraordinary mixture of challenges and opportunities than agriculture. On the one hand, Africa is home to one in four of the world’s hungry and is the only continent which fails to grow enough food to meet its own needs.

Yet it has also half of the world’s unused land suitable for farming. Better still, increasing yields on existing farmland by 50% — still far below the global average — would not only meet Africa’s own food requirements but provide a sizable surplus for export. With global food supply needing to increase by an estimated 70% by 2050, the continent is at the heart of the challenge of food security.

All this explains why agriculture in Africa is finally getting the attention it deserves from both the continent’s governments and donors.

The recent Nutrition for Growth summit generated pledges of $4.1 billion to fight malnutrition and hunger. This builds on the commitments made at Camp David 12 months ago when we, along with other local and multinational companies, committed to collectively invest over $3 billion across the agricultural value chain in Grow Africa countries.

There is now increased pressure on G8 leaders, meeting this week in the UK, to tackle the issues at the heart of food insecurity, including “land grabs.”

Read this: African land grabs, mirage in the desert

In the worst cases, local communities and farmers have been evicted from land they long regarded as their own. Farmland which was once productive can be left idle. Plans to grow crops for export in the future can also be difficult to stomach when local people don’t have food to eat today.

Land purchases which ignore the interests of local communities and the local landscapes are both morally wrong and commercially short-sighted. We need action both nationally and globally to stop them.

But there is a danger that these clear-cut cases fuel opposition to all outside investment or create a false choice between large-scale commercial farming and smallholders. The truth is Africa desperately needs to maximize the potential of both to meet the needs of its citizens.

With smallholder farmers still producing 80% of the food and supporting 65% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, they are central to any successful sustainable solution. We need to lift the barriers which have seen them locked out of the developments in agriculture from which farmers around the world have long benefited. Where this has happened, the results can be remarkable.

Read this: Africa can feed itself in a generation

As a company, we have been working with African farmers for many years. We buy our raw materials from all sorts of farming systems, from large-scale commercial barley farmers right through to near-subsistence cassava farmers who we are keen to help become viable commercial operators — and at least half of the grains we use come from local farmers.

African farmers key to growing economies

Farm Radio Malawi boosts agriculture

A green revolution for Africa?

The challenge for all who want to see African agriculture drive prosperity for its people is to maximize the benefits which both smallholder and large-scale commercial farming can bring. There is no single answer to preventing land grabs but at the heart of any solution is the need to improve land rights. It is no coincidence that many of the most questionable acquisitions have taken place in countries with the weakest system of land rights in place.

As much as 90% of the land in sub-Sahara Africa is untitled. The result is that communities which may have lived and farmed the land for many generations have no enforceable legal claim to it. In the worst cases, this can allow land to be sold off by governments from under their feet without any hope of compensation.

Read this: Land grabs really water grabs?

Improved land rights which go at least some way to recognize history and usage would help prevent this from happening. Nor is it impossible to put in place. Countries such as Botswana and Ghana have already improved their laws so customarily held lands have the force of private property.

Giving people the protection of legally enforceable land rights does not only give them security. It also gives them greater incentive to invest in their farms and an easier route to get this investment. The lack of legal paperwork to their land remains a major reason for the refusal of banks to lend to farmers.

Improving land rights would also help commercial organizations who want to invest and farm in a responsible way. The present position gives us the worst of all worlds. While bad investors can get away with riding roughshod over the rights of smallholders and communities, the present free-for-all makes it difficult for good investors who want to farm in a way which is beneficial to local people and the environment from accessing land.

It is not just weak land rights which are holding back African agriculture, and the solutions are complex and multi-faceted. But work to put in place a fair and enforceable system would be a major step to helping the continent fulfill its rich potential.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of Mark Bowman.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/_jhi9KBwqEM/index.html

(Financial Times) — The British government will implement the recommendations of a review into the failings of the British banking system speedily, including considering whether bankers should be threatened with prison, a minister said on Wednesday.

Greg Clark, financial secretary to the Treasury, promised to implement the report’s proposals “at a pace” and to respond in full within a month.

Read more: British banks need $38 billion to fill cash gap

He said it seemed a “perfectly reasonable observation” that very senior people at the top of banks should be held to account for the risks they take but stopped short of committing to a new criminal offence of reckless misconduct in charge of a bank.

Banking boss: Pay cap ‘will hurt banks’

Banking boss: Pay cap ‘will hurt banks’

Official: Tough road for EU bank union

“We think it’s a good report, it makes all the right recommendations in terms of the changes to the culture of banking,” he told BBC news.

He added that the government had introduced a new criminal offence for benchmark manipulation which was punishable by imprisonment.

Read more: U.K. banks’ next $1 billion payout

“They’ve asked us to consider whether it’s possible to implement this further offence for very senior people. We’ll do that, we’ll respond to parliament and then if necessary we’ll legislate,” he said.

But Lord Myners, former Labour city minister, warned that “very little” would change for “several years” after the report. He said George Osborne, chancellor, would respond with “fine words” in his Mansion House speech on Wednesday night but there would be many further reviews, for example, on competition, pricing, and account portability.

The review — which also rebuked the government for interfering in state-backed banks — was cautiously welcomed by the City of London.

Boris Johnson, mayor of London, welcomed the report’s focus on good governance and said wrongdoing should be “rooted out and punished”. But he also said the City needed to remain competitive and that the UK should help bring other global financial centres towards better, but not heavy-handed, regulation.

Mark Boleat, policy chairman at the City of London Corporation, the Square Mile’s local authority, said the report contained some “sensible suggestions” on incentives, accountability and increased competition that would foster long-term thinking and improve risk management.

Read more: Europe financial sector is fragile, says IMF

He added: “It is important, however, to note that much work has already been done in this area and the impact of past reforms should be properly assessed before more changes are introduced. What the banking sector needs is clarity and certainty from policy makers over the future shape it will be required to take in coming years.”

Anthony Browne, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, called it the “most significant report into banking for a generation”. He said banks looked forward to working with the government to reform the sector.

Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the parliamentary committee that wrote Wednesday’s report, defended the decision to include the threat of prison for bankers in cases of “very serious misconduct”.

He insisted it would only be used if the government was forced to bail out a bank.

Mr Tyrie said a new criminal offence of reckless misconduct in charge of a bank was needed because bankers could harm the whole economy.

“Bankers are different. Bankers and banks are in a position where they cannot just do harm to their shareholders but do harm to the whole economy and end up putting taxpayers on the hook,” Mr Tyrie told the BBC’s Today programme.

“Remember this can only be triggered — the reckless misconduct investigation — when there has been taxpayer support for a bank.”

He said the financial crisis was like Murder on the Orient Express where “everyone had some small contribution on the deaths and nobody was responsible”.

Mr Tyrie said it was “absolute nonsense” that bankers could be driven out of the UK by the report’s suggestions. He added he was not criticising paying the successful well but was proposing measures such as long deferral of bonuses to ensure the money was truly deserved.

Additional reporting by James Pickford.

© The Financial Times Limited 2013

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Editor’s note: Leading Women connects you to extraordinary women of our time — remarkable professionals who have made it to the top in all areas of business, the arts, sport, culture, science and more.

(CNN) — When Annie Leibovitz photographed the heavily pregnant actress Demi Moore for her private album, she never intended for that image to be seen by a wider audience.

But the young editor Tina Brown decided to put the picture on the cover of her magazine Vanity Fair. That was 1991.

More than two decades later, that very Vanity Fair cover is one of the most memorable images of our time.

“I didn’t expect the storm that it created,” Brown, now editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek Global, told CNN. “It was a good risk because we put on an unbelievable amount of sales. It became a kind of iconic picture for women.”

Tina Brown: I’m living my dream

The cover was one of a series of bold and sometimes controversial decisions that have cemented Brown as one of the most influential magazine editors of a generation.

Newsweek ending print run

The risks Brown has taken — from adding celebrity culture to highbrow news magazines to ending the print run of Newsweek magazine — have brought both success and failure throughout her career.

Read: Arianna Huffington tells women: ‘Less stress, more living’

“Unfortunately taking risks comes so easily to me that you can call it reckless at times,” said Brown. “I have to hold myself back a little and think ‘wait a minute, be careful because you know you can blow it, too.’”

British-born Brown revived the fortunes of two ailing bastions of the newsstand, Vanity Fair, which she began editing aged just 30, and The New Yorker.

In the 15 years Brown edited Vanity Fair, she took its monthly sales from 200,000 to 1.2 million and is credited with saving the magazine with her signature formula of mixing serious news with celebrity culture.

She again worked her magic at The New Yorker, which she edited for six years, increasing circulation by 145% on the newsstand and 28% overall.

In 1998, she left The New Yorker to launch Talk Magazine, which folded after only three years.

Her latest venture is perhaps the most controversial of all. Brown launched news website The Daily Beast — named after the fictional newspaper in the Evelyn Waugh novel “Scoop” — in 2008 and merged it with Newsweek in 2010.

While The Daily Beast is gaining a loyal digital readership — with up to 16 million unique users a month and advertising up 30% year on year — Brown’s Midas touch has yet to work on Newsweek.

Like many weekly print magazines, circulation for Newsweek has slumped — from three million in 2007 to 1.5 million in 2012. And after 80 years on the newsstand, Brown took the stark decision to make Newsweek an all digital publication, printing its farewell edition on December 31, 2012. Twitter lit up with #LastPrintIssue, which also featured on the last cover of the magazine’s final edition.

Although it continues as an online magazine, its owner IAC has now announced it is seeking a buyer for the Newsweek brand.

Read: Lessons from Olympics can help solve financial crisis, says Greek Ambassador

At the age of 59, Brown is now running an all digital business for the first time in her career, and divides opinion on whether she can adapt her operation to meet the demands of a fickle online media world.

“Great editors have great successes and great failures,” says Ken Doctor, digital media analyst and author of Newsonomics, “[Brown] had remarkable success with Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, but Talk was a spectacular failure.

“She is a ‘tweener,’ connecting Britain and U.S. sensibilities, connecting celebrity and serious news, connecting print and digital. There are not many people who have done that.

“She has ridden with the times in creating The Daily Beast; she is someone who adapts and learns.”

Others, however, see Brown as a great magazine editor of her time, and believe she has yet to master the digital media landscape.

“She is a creature of a different age,” says Jeff Bercovici, media and technology staff writer at Forbes. “The formula she brought with her is the opposite of what works online. In the digital world, successful sites have started really small and gradually built up with unknown writers. Her line was to hire expensive writers and do something with panache, but that doesn’t work online.”

Though she has her critics, Brown marks her own success by the fact that people are still talking about her.

“I don’t think any editor wants to put out anything that falls into silence,” says Brown. “I do tend to have points of view that are sometimes counter to the wind.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/e6DKU3uAwIM/index.html

(CNN) — Rapid economic growth, rich stores of natural resources and a fast-growing population have all helped usher in a new era of optimism around Africa’s future. But is there a missing link that’s preventing the continent’s economies from boosting their business potential and achieving their development goals?

“Yes,” claims the African Management Initiative, pointing out the continent’s “acute shortage” of high-quality, well-trained local managers.

The Johannesburg-based group wants to tackle the continent’s talent gap by creating one million skilled African managers over the next 10 years.

“The demand is there,” says Rebecca Harrison, director of the non-profit organization. “We meet business owner after business owner across the continent who tell us that, if they are growing, then getting good managers is the biggest challenge right now.”

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Why are investors turning to Africa?

Read this: Hotels, the latest African gold rush

Harrison describes poor management in Africa as one of the biggest “bottlenecks for growth” across a range of organizations — from large companies and multinationals to governments and NGOs.

But more importantly, she says, it’s holding back the “engine of job creation” in most countries: small and medium-size businesses.

“We read headlines every day about ‘Africa Rising,’ we are seeing African economies take off and we are just finding on the ground that these small and medium-size companies are unable to grow, create more jobs and expand their businesses because of that lack of middle-management capacity.”

Aiming high

For sure, creating one million well-trained, locally grown managers by 2023 to spearhead Africa’s business development is an overly ambitious proposition in a continent where top business schools are few and far between — there are about 90 institutions offering an MBA in Africa, according to an AMI report, whereas India has more than 1,500.

The AMI, which says it has a network of more than 5,000 African managers and entrepreneurs, estimates that there are about 10 million people in managerial and supervisory positions across the continent.

“If we can reach one in 10 of the 10 million managers out there indirectly, if we can have one in 10 African managers operating really effectively, then the continent will be a different place,” says Harrison.

Educating future managers

To achieve its target, the AMI, which gets most of its funding from the Lundin Foundation, in Canada, has started launching a series of initiatives designed to expand access to key education tools, including a virtual campus tailored specifically for African managers and entrepreneurs.

“What we want to do is leapfrog the traditional bricks-and-mortar approach to business schools and business training,” says Harrison.

“We want to leverage technology to deliver high-quality practical relevant management education at a price that people can afford, combining online content with offline peer support.”

Read this: Africa’s new skyscraper cities

On June 17, the AMI began its pilot of a two-week course where participants access free web-based practical tutorials in the form of video, audio or text to sharpen their management skills.

The “Launchpad: Success@Work in 21st Century Africa” module, which will have low bandwidth requirements and be available on mobile, will cover topics such as effective communication, goal setting and time management.

Harrison says it is part of the AMI’s efforts to eventually develop Africa’s first full-blown Massively Open Online Course (MOOC), in conjunction with three of Africa’s leading business schools — Nigeria’s Lagos Business School, Kenya’s Strathmore Business School and South Africa’s Gordon Institute of Business Science

“The idea is to partner with the business schools in the continent and get the business teachers to deliver their content online and then to support that with offline learning,” says Harrison. “So the model is the learning is free but if you want a certificate you pay a small fee.”

The AMI says about 600 people have signed up for the pilot MOOC.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/HGNqGAv7AQ0/index.html

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Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/du1vBpMWgT4/index.html

Editor’s note: Leading Women connects you to extraordinary women of our time — remarkable professionals who have made it to the top in all areas of business, the arts, sport, culture, science and more.

(CNN) — When Annie Leibovitz photographed the heavily pregnant actress Demi Moore for her private album, she never intended for that image to be seen by a wider audience.

But the young editor Tina Brown decided to put the picture on the cover of her magazine Vanity Fair. That was 1991.

More than two decades later, that very Vanity Fair cover is one of the most memorable images of our time.

“I didn’t expect the storm that it created,” Brown, now editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek Global, told CNN. “It was a good risk because we put on an unbelievable amount of sales. It became a kind of iconic picture for women.”

Tina Brown: I’m living my dream

The cover was one of a series of bold and sometimes controversial decisions that have cemented Brown as one of the most influential magazine editors of a generation.

Newsweek ending print run

The risks Brown has taken — from adding celebrity culture to highbrow news magazines to ending the print run of Newsweek magazine — have brought both success and failure throughout her career.

Read: Arianna Huffington tells women: ‘Less stress, more living’

“Unfortunately taking risks comes so easily to me that you can call it reckless at times,” said Brown. “I have to hold myself back a little and think ‘wait a minute, be careful because you know you can blow it, too.’”

British-born Brown revived the fortunes of two ailing bastions of the newsstand, Vanity Fair, which she began editing aged just 30, and The New Yorker.

In the 15 years Brown edited Vanity Fair, she took its monthly sales from 200,000 to 1.2 million and is credited with saving the magazine with her signature formula of mixing serious news with celebrity culture.

She again worked her magic at The New Yorker, which she edited for six years, increasing circulation by 145% on the newsstand and 28% overall.

In 1998, she left The New Yorker to launch Talk Magazine, which folded after only three years.

Her latest venture is perhaps the most controversial of all. Brown launched news website The Daily Beast — named after the fictional newspaper in the Evelyn Waugh novel “Scoop” — in 2008 and merged it with Newsweek in 2010.

While The Daily Beast is gaining a loyal digital readership — with up to 16 million unique users a month and advertising up 30% year on year — Brown’s Midas touch has yet to work on Newsweek.

Like many weekly print magazines, circulation for Newsweek has slumped — from three million in 2007 to 1.5 million in 2012. And after 80 years on the newsstand, Brown took the stark decision to make Newsweek an all digital publication, printing its farewell edition on December 31, 2012. Twitter lit up with #LastPrintIssue, which also featured on the last cover of the magazine’s final edition.

Although it continues as an online magazine, its owner IAC has now announced it is seeking a buyer for the Newsweek brand.

Read: Lessons from Olympics can help solve financial crisis, says Greek Ambassador

At the age of 59, Brown is now running an all digital business for the first time in her career, and divides opinion on whether she can adapt her operation to meet the demands of a fickle online media world.

“Great editors have great successes and great failures,” says Ken Doctor, digital media analyst and author of Newsonomics, “[Brown] had remarkable success with Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, but Talk was a spectacular failure.

“She is a ‘tweener,’ connecting Britain and U.S. sensibilities, connecting celebrity and serious news, connecting print and digital. There are not many people who have done that.

“She has ridden with the times in creating The Daily Beast; she is someone who adapts and learns.”

Others, however, see Brown as a great magazine editor of her time, and believe she has yet to master the digital media landscape.

“She is a creature of a different age,” says Jeff Bercovici, media and technology staff writer at Forbes. “The formula she brought with her is the opposite of what works online. In the digital world, successful sites have started really small and gradually built up with unknown writers. Her line was to hire expensive writers and do something with panache, but that doesn’t work online.”

Though she has her critics, Brown marks her own success by the fact that people are still talking about her.

“I don’t think any editor wants to put out anything that falls into silence,” says Brown. “I do tend to have points of view that are sometimes counter to the wind.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/e6DKU3uAwIM/index.html

(Time) — Trust us, we’re from Silicon Valley.

America’s largest Internet companies are tripping over themselves to bolster their public image following blockbuster disclosures about their role in the U.S. government’s controversial data-gathering program.

Ever since news reports suggested that major tech firms — including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo — provide the National Security Agency (NSA) with unfettered or “direct” access to their servers, the companies have been waging an aggressive campaign to demonstrate that they’re not government stooges.

Now, several of the top Silicon Valley firms are engaged in a game of one-upmanship to show that they are the most transparent Internet company on the block.

The initial reports about “direct access,” as part of a classified U.S. intelligence system called Prism, have turned out to be wrong. But the Prism reports have highlighted long-standing privacy fears about how the largest U.S. tech companies handle their vast troves of user data. The Internet giants have come under scrutiny following reports that the NSA uses Prism to examine data — including e-mails, videos and online chats — that it collects via requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), one of the controversial laws at the heart of the current NSA-snooping furor.

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Facebook admits role in NSA surveillance

Following the Prism leak, which was supplied to the Guardian and the Washington Post by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo all issued statements — in strikingly similar legal language — denying that they give the NSA “direct” or unfettered access to their computer servers.

But the companies apparently felt the need to go further than those denials, and in recent days have engaged in a competition to demonstrate their commitment to transparency.

MORE: Google: We’re no NSA stooge, and we’ll prove it if the feds let us

Although Silicon Valley has roots in the U.S. military — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was central to the development of the Internet — today’s big tech companies are keen to demonstrate their independence from the government and often display a libertarian streak.

Many engineers in Silicon Valley are sympathetic to “hacker” culture. Above all, Silicon Valley tech titans are wary of losing the trust of consumers, which could endanger their businesses. These companies are no doubt well aware of the numerous more secure alternatives to their services, some of which enable users to roam the Internet anonymously.

Google kicked off the transparency battle last week when it asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller for permission to publish “aggregate numbers of national-security requests, including FISA disclosures — in terms of both the number we receive and their scope.”

That request was noteworthy because it was the first time Google had even acknowledged that it receives national-security FISA requests. Facebook and Microsoft quickly followed suit with similar requests. A Department of Justice spokesperson told TIME that the agency is in the process of reviewing the request.

Then, over the weekend, Facebook, which unlike Google has never published a transparency report, reached an agreement with the government allowing it to disclose data on U.S. information requests. Facebook said that for the six months ending Dec. 31, 2012, it received between 9,000 and 10,000 data requests, including criminal and national-security-related requests, covering between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

“We’re pleased that as a result of our discussions, we can now include in a transparency report all U.S. national-security-related requests (including FISA as well as National Security Letters) — which until now no company has been permitted to do,” Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot said in a not-so-subtle dig at the company’s rivals.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft released similar data, indicating that the company received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national-security requests affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts.

“This only impacts a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s global customer base,” John Frank, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, said in a blog post. “Transparency alone may not be enough to restore public confidence, but it’s a great place to start.”

On Monday, Apple joined the party and announced that from Dec. 1, 2012, to May 31, 2013, it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data related to between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices, including both criminal investigations and national-security “matters.” Apple said it was releasing the data “in the interest of transparency.”

Yahoo followed late Monday, saying it received “between 12,000 and 13,000 requests, inclusive of criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and other requests.”

MORE: Here’s why Google is buying Waze, a red-hot mobile traffic app, for $1 billion

Here’s the problem. According to the agreement Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo reached with the government, the companies were only permitted to release aggregate numbers of total U.S. data requests. Crucially, they were not permitted to separately break out the number of FISA requests.

For this reason, we don’t know if they received 50 FISA requests, 500 or 5,000. As a result, the disclosures, while laudable, skirt around the central issue of the NSA-snooping controversy, which is the nature and extent of the companies’ participation in secret U.S. national-security investigations.

“We believe the companies should be allowed to break out specific numbers for FISA requests,” said Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based public-interest organization. “These numbers would provide nationwide transparency. We also believe that individual users targeted under FISA should receive notice that they were subject to surveillance, even after the fact, so they have the chance to contest the surveillance in court.”

For Google, which earlier this year was the first Internet company to disclose requests made for National Security Letters (NSLs) — a separate type of query than FISA requests — the arrangement struck by Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo was not satisfactory.

“We have always believed that it’s important to differentiate between different types of government requests,” Google said in a statement. “We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national-security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.”

MORE: Viewpoint: Obama’s ‘patent troll’ reform: Why everyone should care

Twitter, which was not named in the NSA leak as a participant in the Prism program, quickly threw its support behind Google.

“We agree with Google,” Benjamin Lee, Twitter’s legal director, said in a Twitter message. “It’s important to be able to publish numbers of national-security requests — including FISA disclosures — separately.”

Thus, the contours of the transparency battle were drawn. On one side: Facebook, Microsoft and Apple. On the other, Google and Twitter.

For their part, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo said they would continue to urge the government to allow them to be more specific about national-security requests, including FISA requests. Facebook said it would continue “to push for even more transparency, so that our users around the world can understand how infrequently we are asked to provide user data on national-security grounds.” Microsoft said: “What we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues.”

But only Google has thus far resisted striking a deal with the government on the disclosure of data requests. On Monday, a Google spokesperson told TIME that the company had no update on its negotiations with the government concerning breaking out FISA requests.

copy 2012 TIME, Inc. TIME is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used with permission.

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Editor’s note: CNN’s John Defterios is reporting from the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum from June 20. Watch his show, Global Exchange, Sunday to Thursday 1900 UAE and follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) — Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank gave their updated projections on the global economy ahead of this week’s G8 Summit in North Ireland. It was not pretty reading.

In a nutshell, according to the World Bank, it looks like this:

Global growth is stable, but slow. It is now forecast to reach 2.2% from last year’s 2.3%. The industrialized countries are barely sputtering along. The 34 countries that are members of the OECD will be just above 1% and the developing countries just over 5% this year and a hair over 5.5% through 2015.

But tucked into the World Bank “Global Economic Prospects” report is an interesting caveat; developing country performance would be much lower without the two pillars of emerging markets and the two anchor members of the BRICS: China and India.

READ MORE: Does Brazil deserve to be the ‘B’ in BRIC?

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Strip them out of the equation, according to the World Bank, and developing countries see their top line number come down to 3.6% this year — a full 1.5% lower. That spread should be consistent through 2015, according to the forecasts.

In China, economics influences politics

Two points were given more than their fair share of market and media coverage last week. The World Bank cut its projections from China quite severely to 7.7%, down more than 0.5%.

The view was circulated that the BRICS have lost their luster; in essence their better days are far behind them.

Andrew Burns, author of the World Bank report, said that investors should adjust their expectations.

There will be a “new normal for developing countries of slower growth,” Burns suggested. However, referring to the 2008 — 2009 global financial crisis, he said the overall environment “will be more stable because we put behind us the very serious risks.”

A game changer for India’s economy?

The past week of trading was a nasty one for emerging market countries. Their equity markets and currencies remain under pressure on fears that the U.S. Federal Reserve may alter course on its bond purchases and thereafter raise interest rates if necessary.

READ MORE: Building on the BRICs

Hotels focus on traveling women

“It is robust growth, strong growth, growth we should be happy with,” Burns said. “But well off the highs that we saw in the earlier part of the last decade.”

Perhaps what we should be doing, however, is looking at China and India. The two countries posted their worst performances in more than a decade last year, but the weight of two and a half billion people and their demand for commodities to fuel growth (even at a slower pace) are the developing world’s two pillars.

Rising demand in the emerging world has led to a 17.6% increase in South-South trade for the last decade. In another major shift, half of the products made in emerging markets now goes to partners in other emerging markets.

The emerging markets are less dependent on the developed world than ever before.

READ MORE: China spaceship blasts off

Managing Brazil’s growing economy

But this is an important period of transition which is far from complete. China is trying to move away from being an economy overly dependent on exports and government investment to one that benefits from domestic-led demand. India, other strategists suggest, needs to unleash growth by cutting the size and role of government.

Can Brazil handle the power of Twitter?

A decade ago, after investment bank Goldman Sachs authored the BRIC acronym, these countries were lulled into thinking that commodity demand would be a one way bet that would override a need to accelerate economic reforms.

READ MORE: World’s most powerful leaders meet

This is evident is both Brazil and Russia, which are struggling to recover after the financial crisis. Brazil, according to the World Bank, is projected to bounce back to 2.9% this year after struggling at below 1% in 2012. Russia’s growth is pegged at just 2% to 3% in 2013, despite North Sea Brent oil prices hovering at $100 a barrel for three years running.

Both of these countries should be experiencing a “halo effect” of sorts, with two things in common.

Putin makes surprising pitch in English

Both have landed the hosting of two global sporting events: The FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games between 2014 and 2018. They will be on the global radar for sporting fans, opening the way for substantial visitor growth.

Russian diplomat defends Assad support

But re-energizing these economies is not that simple.

Brazil is trying to contain a protest movement with many feeling alienated by the infrastructure buildout and rising cost of transport. Last autumn, Russians took to the streets again frustrated they are not seeing the fruits of middle income growth.

The games may begin from 2014, but both these countries may miss the full benefits of golden opportunities to promote the next wave of growth.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/HMDaujFgouE/index.html

Macau (CNN) — Triad attacks. Prostitute calling cards. Illicit money flows.

This is the dark underbelly of Macau — Asia’s gambling capital. The only Chinese territory where casinos are permitted, the city has transformed itself in little more than a decade from a sleepy backwater to a neon-lit monument to China’s passion for gambling.

Gambling revenues in the city surpassed Las Vegas in 2006 and are now six times greater. But the former Portuguese colony’s dramatic rise has come at a cost, with many in Macau questioning whether growth has been too fast and furious.

“You really don’t know whether society as a whole has benefited,” said Samuel Huang, an associate professor in gambling studies at the Macau Polytechnic Institute.

Portuguese lawyer Jorge Menezes, 47, has experienced first hand the city’s more brutal side.

Last month, he was attacked in broad daylight by two men as he walked his five-year-old son to pre-school in what he believes was an intimidation attempt linked to his work as a lawyer.

“I was walking with my son and suddenly I felt a huge blow on the back of my head,” he told CNN from his office just a block away from where the attack took place.

“I turned around, already bleeding, and he threw another blow toward my head and then a second guy came at me from behind.

“I couldn’t run away because my son was there. I needed to protect him.”

Menezes, who injured his wrist and required stitches to his head, said the two assailants each had a brick tied to one of their hands.

“I was told it’s a technique used by mafioso in mainland China, because they can carry it without being seen as a weapon.”

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A spokesman for Macau’s Public Security Police, confirmed that the lawyer was attacked by two Chinese men brandishing hard objects who later fled. They added the case was under investigation.

In the run-up to the city’s return to China, gang violence was commonplace, claiming the lives of some 37 people in 1999 alone — though violent crime became rarer as the city’s gaming market boomed.

However, some recent cases have unsettled residents. In 2012, a longtime operator of VIP casino junkets, Ng Man-sun, was beaten by six men in his hotel in what was reportedly a dispute with his ex-lover.

The city also feared a return to violence after the release of a notorious gangster known as Wan Kuok-kio or “Broken Tooth” in December after 15 years in prison.

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Menezes says he rarely goes out to socialize and he cannot think of a personal motive for the attack: “I have no doubt that it’s linked to work. It is definitely an attempt to intimidate me or put me out of action for a few months.

“I was working on cases that could bring direct or collateral damage — collateral in the sense that there are third parties that are affected by what I am doing,” he said, declining to say who he thought was behind the attack.

As a precaution, he has recruited a security guard cum secretary, but Menezes says he intends to stay put and continue representing his clients.

Steve Vickers, a former intelligence officer with the Hong Kong police and a specialist in triad activities, claimed Macau’s gaming sector retains deep ties to organized crime.

“The scene has changed over the past 10 years as the pie has vastly increased,” said Vickers, who now runs a specialist risk mitigation and corporate intelligence consultancy SVA. “It’s not the cowboy town it was when Broken Tooth was running around.

“The big boys have moved in … and they do not want visible street fights, with people being beaten up because it’s bad for business and brings attention.”

By and large, Macau remains a safe place with 182 violent crimes reported in the first three months of this year, up one from the same period a year earlier, according to figures from the Secretary for Security. The city is home to 500,000 people, while Macau’s three dozen casinos attract more than 28 million visitors a year.

Vickers says that while the city’s big casinos, some owned by U.S. tycoons Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, operate correctly and legally, they work in a “messy environment.”

They are reliant on income from high rollers and these VIPs are usually brought in from China by junket operators.

“The junkets are an integral part of the gaming scene and they facilitate the transfer of funds, the finding of the high rollers and they facilitate the breaching of Chinese capital controls.

“You won’t find their names on the front (door) but the hard reality is that Chinese junkets are largely controlled by triad societies.”

China tightly controls the amount of money individuals can take out of the country, with a limit of 20,000 yuan ($3,262) per day and citizens traveling to Macau, which is considered a special administrative region, are subject to these limits.

However, China has turned a blind eye to the abuse of capital controls, said Vickers although he added, this could change as the country’s new leaders look to crack down on corruption amid worries about officials funneling money through the city.

Macau government officials did not immediately respond to a request from CNN for comment.

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The triads are also said to be involved in prostitution rings, another bone of contention for local Macau residents — although prostitution is not illegal.

Macau is on a U.S. State Department watch list for human trafficking and according to the 2012 report, criminal syndicates are involved in recruitment.

It says many women fall prey to false advertisements for casino jobs but upon arrival are forced into prostitution.

Many of the city’s sidewalks and underpasses are littered with prostitutes’ calling cards and fliers for saunas and pole dancing clubs.

“I don’t know how to explain this to my children,” said Huang at the Macau Polytechnic Institute.

Authorities are keen to diversify Macau’s appeal and turn the city into a broader entertainment destination that attracts families and not just casino goers.

New resorts boast attractions like wave pools, fake beaches and high-class dining but there’s little evidence that sales of spa treatments and slap-up meals will ever begin to approach revenue from the gambling tables.

“I don’t think promoting a more family-friendly environment will be easy,” said Huang.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/BScBJZ-9uSQ/index.html

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To celebrate the exhibition’s 50th airshow, CNN takes a look back at some of the most iconic moments and achievements over the course of Le Bourget’s 104 year history.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/r7ZxHbocO3o/index.html

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