Is finance like crude oil? Countries rich in minerals are often poverty-stricken, corrupt and violent. A relatively small rent-seeking elite captures vast wealth while the dominant sector crowds out the rest of the economy. The parallels with countries ‘blessed’ with powerful financial sectors are
Moscow’s recent overtures to Ukraine and Armenia concerning membership of the Russia-led Customs Union have been heavy on threats and hard-ball politics, and rather short on attempts at actually explaining the benefits of joining the Union instead of pursuing European Union integration. Which offe
Well-off Russian bureaucrats have got used to having a second home abroad, whether it’s a cottage in Ukraine or a castle in Spain. But these are now under threat from Vladimir Putin’s latest intervention – a ban on foreign bank accounts. Mikhail Loginov reports.
Governments and global development agencies will do well in the formulation of new social protection and social welfare policies, only if they take serious account of the experience of religious organisations in their provision.
As child poverty in the UK rises, it's time to ask about a century of charitable giving: does philanthropy just exist to protect a system which makes some people very rich?
The badger cull seeks the reduction of tuberculosis in our farmers' livestock, but are badgers the real cause of this epidemic, or just the scapegoats for an ill-informed policy?
Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake on the planet, is part of Russia’s DNA, and many romantic ballads sing of its size and beauty. Beyond the lake is a different story. Do Trans-Baikal Territory and its capital Chita have a future or is this a godforsaken backwater? Mikhail Loginov investigat
Russians with money love the United Kingdom, where their dodgy assets can be laundered and used to pay their children’s public school fees. But as Euan Grant reports, tax avoidance and evasion, as well as other financial crimes, are creeping up the international agenda.
Cyprus’s monetary crisis has drawn international attention to the island’s role as a tax haven and money laundry for Russia’s rich. Meanwhile, Putin has announced a crackdown at home — which Pavel Usanov believes is doomed to failure, given the all-pervasive corruption of life in Russia.
China’s steadily growing economic expansion throughout the world is a cause of concern for many governments. Eastern Europe and Central Eurasia are no longer so dependent on Moscow and China is quietly rolling out credit lines and investments in the region. Time to sit up and pay attention, says M
Due attention must be given to the decision-making processes and rationales that underpin and politicise philanthropy towards asylum seekers in the UK. There is a danger that philanthropy may become complicit in sealing the borders of the state of exception in which asylum seekers are already posi
The Yellow Peril was a feature of life in Soviet times and the demographics on either side of the Russia-China border do little to convince the fearful that Siberia will not be colonised by the Chinese. This is unlikely, says Ben Judah, who has travelled in the region
