Juggling Dynamite

Migrant workers built China’s cities, but can’t afford to live in them. Now a drive to replace slums with cheap housing will limit their options even further.

“Chen Shaoyun has carved out a place for his family in Shanghai. Over the last eight years, he’s built a small kitchen renovation business. He’s even bought a car and his son is doing well at school. But he lives in one of Shanghai’s slums. An estimated 130 million migrant workers live in urban slums across China. Chen is wealthier than most…” Here is a video report.

Anyone who followed the tragic murder of 37 year old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009 (see more on the story here and on the Justice for Sergei website here) will find this update interview interesting regarding the complicity of Cypriot banks and the Cypriot government in knowingly laundering illegally obtained funds. William Browder of Hermitage Capital Management connects the stories in this Reuters interview: “…the Russians essentially took over the Cyprus financial system many years ago and much of the money coming out of Russia is criminal money based on money laundering…” Here is a direct video link.

“Today is normally a day of joyful celebration in Greece, remembering the push for independence from Turkey in 1821, with military parades and a public holiday.

Except that many are eyeing the plight of their Cypriot cousins who have just had to bite the financial bullet, and wondering if after a long recession worse is yet to come for them.

“If you can’t trust a bank with your money, then what do you do? You don’t put it somewhere where someone could grab it to help bail out the country…” Here is a direct video report link.