Michael GoldfarbMarch 5, 2012 13:13

Greek debt crisis: next hurdle looming

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Potatoes are on the menu instead of meat for many Greeks. Clearly, the demand is high in the northern city of Thessaloniki. (SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty Images)

this story is part of globalpost's continuing coverage of world business. for more visit our new business page.

For the last three weeks I have been working on a series of articles that will appear on GlobalPost shorty about the alarming rise of xenophobic ultranationalism in eastern Europe. Nazi worship is not just for the fringe out there.

While I was on assignment the deal for Greece's second bail-out was agreed but I knew there would be plenty left in the story to blog about when I came back to it.

Michael GoldfarbMarch 5, 2012 11:57

Putin and Abramovich: Russian leadership style gets different results

Putin steamrolls opposition, Abramovich steamrolls managers

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Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich at a recent Chelsea match. You never see Vladimir Putin looking so miserable. Sport is so much more unpredictable than Russian politics. (BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)

Chelsea Football club fired its manager, Portugal's Andre Villas-Boas, Sunday . No surprise there. Vladimir Putin was elected Tsar of all the Russias … sorry, President of Russia the same day. No surprise there either.

This coincidence says much about the limits of autocracy in non-autocratic environments.

For Putin the autocrat, Russia is effectively a personal fief with a constitution. When he says he want to return to the presidency from a stint as Prime Minister - no problem. It's his.

For 40-year old Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who took his first steps towards an estimated net worth of $13 plus billion back in the days when Boris Yeltsin sold the state oil company for a fraction of its value, things aren't quite so easy.

Michael GoldfarbMarch 2, 2012 15:52

Bearing witness to Syrian atrocities: British Photographer Paul Conroy

Photographer wounded in the attack that killed Marie Colvin testifies to what he saw

After a dangerous journey out of Homs - one in which a number of his Syrian guides were killed trying to get him to safety - British photographer Paul Conroy has finally made it back to Britain.

He has given a couple of television interviews. This one is at the BBC.

"I think its important to bear witness," he says. "It's a slaughterhouse."

I urge you to watch.

Michael GoldfarbMarch 1, 2012 14:57

Oscar-winner Jean DuJardin's new film was changed to help him win

French magazine claims controversial 9/11 scene was eliminated

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Jean Dujardin on his arrival back in Paris following his Oscar triumph. (MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images)

Jean DuJardin is probably still in orbit after winning the Best Actor Oscar on Sunday night for his performance in "The Artist." The French nation is there with him. It isn't every day that a French actor beats George Clooney and Brad Pitt in a competition.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 29, 2012 14:35

James Murdoch steps down as head of News International

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James Murdoch on a recent trip to London. (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)

The younger Murdoch had been in the firing line over the company's response to the phone-hacking scandal.

The line coming from News Corp, the parent company of all Rupert Murdoch's businesses, is this is no big deal. James Murdoch is deputy COO of News Corp and his move to New York has been long planned. News International, which runs News Corp's British newspaper holdings, is a fairly small part of the Murdoch empire, so resigning that title is to be expected.

They can spin it any way they want but you can't tell me that on July 1st of last year that was the plan.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 29, 2012 13:22

Happy Birthday, BBC World Service

The world's first global broadcast news organization turns 80 today

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Bush House, long time HQ of the BBC World Service. (Peter Macdiarmid/AFP/Getty Images)

80 years ago today, the British Empire still straddled the globe, and radio broadcasting had been around for less time than the internet has been around today.

The powers that ran the BBC - a government-backed service - decided to link up British dominions via the new medium and launched the Empire Service, exactly 80 years ago today. The global network, which has since been renamed the World Service, has become the most important broadcasting organisation in the English speaking world (sorry CNN, it's true). Via its language services it provides vital news and information to many other countries.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 28, 2012 13:13

David Hockney blockbuster exhibition thrills London

English painter draws massive crowds to Royal Academy of Arts

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The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 by David Hockney. Painted in oil on 32 canvases (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm) It is the culmination of 52 pictures created on the 75 year old artist's iPad. (Jonathan Wilkinson/GlobalPost)

A Bigger Picture is the name of the David Hockney exhibition - and it really is filled with big pictures, all of them landscapes. A good thing too, because the Royal Academy's intimate galleries are crammed with sell-out crowds. So, unlike other blockbuster exhibitions, you can actually see the work.

But even if the pictures were smaller you would see them and feel them. This side of Van Gogh you won't see brighter colored landscapes. But where Vincent's works take color to the brink of madness, Hockney takes color to the level of celebration and joy. In doing so he makes the green and pleasant English countryside into something epic.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 27, 2012 17:17

Rupert Murdoch empire's roller coaster ride goes through whiplash turn

New revelations of phone-hacking and corruption ruin British debut of the mogul's new Sunday paper

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Rupert Murdoch: then and now. Holding the first edition of The Sun published after he bought it in 1969 and holding the first edition of The Sun on Sunday published yesterday. The positive buzz about the 80 year old's indefatigability was undone today by new revelations of alleged illegal payments made by Sun journalists to public officials. (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch launched a new Sunday newspaper to replace the defunct News of the World.The NoW was closed suddenly last July when the phone hacking scandal exploded around it.

The new newspaper was called the Sun on Sunday. The Sun is Murdoch's daily tabloid, his most successful and notorious newspaper here. Today the Sun became embroiled in revelations that are arguably more dangerous to the Murdoch empire than the phone hacking at the NoW.

At the Leveson Enquiry, set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, the Metropolitan Police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, in charge of the investigation into illegal activities at News International, publisher of Murdoch's newspapers here, gave an interim report.

She painted a picture of systematic corruption of public officials by The Sun. One public official received £80,000 ($126,500) over a period of years to provide confidential information about individuals to the paper.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 27, 2012 13:42

Spain's Rajoy confronts reality

The Spanish Prime Minister is backing a few steps away from his deficit reduction plan

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A massive demonstration last week in Valencia Spain. It was in response to police violence against an earlier demonstration by students protesting austerity cuts to education, and youth unemployment. (JOSE JORDAN/AFP/Getty Images)

this story is part of globalpost's continuing coverage of world business. for more visit our new business page.

Mariano Rajoy was sworn in as Spanish Prime Minister just before Christmas and pledged to meet EU imposed budget targets for 2012/13 of reducing his country's deficit to 4.4 percent of GDP this year from an estimated 6 percent in 2011/12

Then he saw the books.

Then the EU's economists forecast a recession throughout the euro zone including a prediction that Spain's economy would shrink by more than 1 percent in 2012.

Michael GoldfarbFebruary 27, 2012 09:32

Battersea Power Station up for sale again

Iconic building's dereliction is a symbol of the limits of free market capitalism

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If you've got a couple of hundred million bucks and access to mortgage finance Battersea Power Station in London could be yours. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

London - Got a spare billion or two and want to buy into the London property market? Then you might want to consider bidding for Battersea Power Station situated on Thames, a mile and half west of Parliament due south of Chelsea.

It's current owners, Irish property company Treasury Holdings are in receivership and being forced to sell the property on the open market.

Let's let real estate agent, Stephan Miles-Brown, Head of Residential Development, Knight Frank, put what you'd be buying into hyperbolic perspective: “Battersea Power Station is as iconic as the Chrysler Building in New York or the Eiffel Tower and familiar to people who may have never even been to London."