By Arnout Nuijt Positive news about Brazil’s economy is hard to find these days. In fact the bad news is piling up. A recent report by the Financial Times of London, quoting Brazil Central bank figures, suggests the country has entered technical recession more than 7 months ago by shrinking slightly for two consecutive quarters… Read More Has Brazil really entered recession? Then here is what to do
By Arnout Nuijt With less than six months to go, South Africa’s national elections already fuel many speculations. As I wrote earlier, the big game changer may be Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters. The EFF may grab up to 10% of the national vote (one poll put them even at 12%), mostly votes previously cast… Read More The Democratic Alliance and South Africa’s 2014 elections
By Arnout Nuijt It’s been months now since we saw a completely unpredicted, rare and wild explosion of mass demonstrations and protests against the authorities in Brazil. The protests were not aimed directly at Dilma’s present PT-led government, but at all parties, state governments as well as municipalities, in short Brazil’s corrupt and inefficient political… Read More As Brazil’s protests become a fading memory, the presidential campaign seems increasingly “old school”
By Arnout Nuijt Many, many years ago, he was “my first Mexican”, the diplomat who came to visit us at our office. He never knew it, but he taught me the risks of cultural profiling, the generalisations and assumptions we make of the world’s different cultures and their ways of doing business, aka intercultural communication.… Read More Intercultural communication? Just be yourself
By Leo Beerden GADGET REPUBLIC Gadgets are gadgets because they are novelties, nice-to-haves, but essentially superfluous. Oh, really? They used to be anyway. But that was before we started carrying them around and trust them with our precious data. So what will happen once we’ll start wearing our gadgets while connecting them? Connected wearables will… Read More Wearable technology is coming and it is connected
By Arnout Nuijt Yes, Federal Chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU alliance won an astounding victory in Germany’s federal elections on Sunday September 22nd and that is exactly her problem now. Her party failed to win an absolute majority in the Bundestag by a narrow margin. Much worse, her preferred coalition partner, the liberal FDP, was… Read More Is Angela Merkel’s victory a pyrrhic one?
By Arnout Nuijt In April 2010 I visited the EBX head offices in Rio together with a couple of foreign business reps. They were both seasoned fellows, gentlemen who had been everywhere and seen it all. For reasons of discretion, let’s call them the Accountant and the Banker. We were curious about EBX, the expanding… Read More Mr Eike Batista’s incredible X-factor
It was King Willem-Alexander’s first King’s Speech, when he read out the yearly government statement in the historic Knight’s Hall of Dutch Parliament on September 17th. And what a first it was. Though he read it well, King Willem-Alexander was not to be envied. A Kings’ Speech about another 6 billion Euro to be collected… Read More Should the King read out the King’s Speech?
By Arnout Nuijt South Africa’s former African National Congress Youth League leader, Julius Malema, last week successfully registered his political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), for the 2014 national elections. Mr Malema promises to provide free and quality education, healthcare and sanitation, as well as redistributing land and nationalising the mines. Although he was… Read More Why Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters could become a game changer for South African politics
By Arnout Nuijt Late Thursday night news broke that Dutch telecoms firm KPN had activated its firewall against a hostile takeover by Mexican magnate Carlos Slim. A foundation, led by a handful of venerable representatives from Dutch business circles, exercised its right to emit emergency shares that would give it nearly 50% of voting rights… Read More Why Carlos Slim will fail to win KPN
Geopolitical Weekly 