Here is a summary of the highlights from The Economist this week (Nov. 15th 2014):
The Spanish region of Catalonia held an unofficial vote on whether to become a separate state. 81% of those who voted backed independence, but only 37% of the electorate turned out. The government in Madrid said the poll was invalid.
The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, was the target of criticism and reports in the press of plans to oust him. 74% of voters think that he is performing poorly and his party’s lead in polling over the Conservatives has collapsed.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, is facing a worsening political crisis. The government’s handling of the disappearance of 43 students in September, who had apparently been kidnapped by police and murdered by a drug gang in the state of Guerrero, has provoked continuous protests. Crowds set fire to the doors of the National Palace in Mexico City in anger.
In Britain, America and Switzerland, regulators fined six banks – HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup – a total of $4.3 billion for manipulating foreign exchange markets.
In South Korea the captain of a ferry that capsized in April, killing over 300 people – mainly students – was sentenced to 36 years in prison for negligence. Many families of the victims wanted him executed.
15 women in India died after sub-standard sterilisations in a government-run camp. One doctor was arrested.
NATO and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said Russia had moved columns of armoured vehicles and artillery into eastern Ukrainian secessionist regions. Kiev announced that it was sending reinforcements to the area after the collapse of a ceasefire agreed upon in September.
According to my compatriots, leadership is a wonderful thing: leadership is about inspiring people and communicating effectively; leadership is the ability to organise, motivate and instil trust in others; leadership is about passion, and a positive attitude. It’s about emotional intelligence. And, more than anything, leadership is about vision, vision, vision and more vision!
But in the real world leadership paints a very different picture.
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