MADRID | By The Corner Team | Has Spain joined the club of spied countries by the American National Security Agency, like Germany and France? The Spanish intelligence believes communications via SMS, e-mails and phone calls have been monitored, although Spanish minister José Manuel García-Margallo denied it on Tuesday.
MADRID | By Javier Flores and Tania Suárez | Major foreign investment operations in Spain are essentially financial and take place in strategic sectors. Bill Gates’ purchase of 6% of Spanish construction company FCC for €113.5 million is a good example. And the trend will continue and speed up in the coming months.
SHANGHAI | By Hong Hao via Caixin | A great amount of research shows bourse trends can be foreseen, even if those for individual stocks cannot. Is the stock market predictable? It has been a haunting question. As early as 1900, in his doctorate dissertation titled The Theory of Speculation, Louis Bachelier laid out in some 70 pages why predicting stock prices would be futile.
Jan-Werner Müller at The Guardian via Presseurop | Europeans have been stunned and dismayed by the gridlock that brought the US government to a near-default. But should the anti-EU parties make a breakthrough in the upcoming European elections, the Union would face a similar situation, writes a German political scientist.
MADRID | The Corner Team | The major European banks Asset Quality Review (AQR) will be released on Wednesday. And the criteria for classification of bank assets to be presented by the ECB are key to start estimating more accurately the outcome of the stress tests in 2014, Santander analysts point out. Capital requirements of major entities would be of €55billion, concentrated mostly in Italian banks.
BEIJING | By Yu Hairong at Caixin | The Shanghai FTZ was supposed to be a step towards China’s financial openness. However, the negative list is too long and hardly reflects any improvement on existing foreign investment restrictions.
LUXEMBURGO | By Fernand Morbach at Luxemburger Wort via Presseurop | The Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) of former prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker who resigned in July came first in general elections held on October 20, with 33.6 per cent of the vote and 23 seats (out of a total of 60) in Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies. This is down from 26 seats in the previous administration.
MADRID | By Javier Arce | “Searching for a sugar man”, the incredible life of Sixto Rodríguez masterfully told by Malik Bendjellou, is leaving the Spanish billboard after 34 weeks. So unexpected as undeniable success: the film is, after “Bowling for Columbine”, the most seen documentary in the history of Spanish theaters.
By Roberto Benavent at BBVA OPENMIND | Russian writers Anton Chejov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Spanish Pio Baroja are only among the distinguished authors that studied engineering or medicine before devoting themselves to the arts. Is it merely a coincidence? And why is it so unusual to find examples where it has happened the other way round?
ISTANBUL | By Orhan Kemal Cengiz Radikal at via Presseurop | The recent report on progress in negotiations on Turkey’s accession to the EU finally deals sensitively with the issue and should trigger a calm debate among the Turkish public on its relationship with the Union, writes the star columnist of the influential “Radikal” daily newspaper.