The Greek crisis explained, in pictures

Between 2007 and 2012 several Eurozone countries — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain — needed bailouts. In each case, the recipient countries threatened that they would leave the Eurozone if the bailout terms were too harsh. Germany and the other AAA-rated...

Is a wave of sovereign defaults on the way?

The sovereign debtor that would win hands down a nomination as “most likely to fail” is surely Greece, which has just threatened to default on its next payment to the IMF. But Greece could be a distraction – history suggests sovereign default risk is rising elsewhere,...

Is Cuba coming in from the cold?

One of the most extraordinary geopolitical trends of recent years has been what might be called, with apologies to John le Carré, “coming in from the cold.” Many countries that had excluded themselves from the globalization system and maintained an adversarial...

Can Russia change direction?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and I go way back. In the late 1990s, as a young political risk analyst, I traveled down to Houston to talk to one of the oil majors about a large investment they were planning to make in Venezuela. “Venezuela is risky,” I confidently...