Reuters Investigates
Insight and investigations from our expert reporters
from Africa News blog:
Are African governments suppressing art?
By Cosmas Butunyi
The dust is finally settling on the storm that was kicked off in South Africa by a controversial painting of President Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed.
The country that boasts one of the most liberal constitutions in the world and the only one on the African continent with a constitutional provision that protects and defends the rights of gays and lesbians , had its values put up to the test after an artist ruffled feathers by a painting that questioned the moral values of the ruling African National Congress .
For weeks, the storm ignited by the painting called ‘The Spear’, raged on, sucking in Goodman Gallery that displayed it and City Press, a weekly newspaper that had published it on its website. The matter eventually found its way into the corridors of justice, where the ruling ANC sought redress against the two institutions. The party also mobilised its supporters to stage protests outside the courtroom when the case it filed came up for hearing. They also matched to the gallery and called for a boycott of City Press , regarded as one of the country's most authoritative newspapers.
from FaithWorld:
Gaddafi’s secret missionaries: Muslim preachers and Machiavellian politics
(Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi reads during a mass prayer during a celebration to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohammed in Agadez March 30, 2007. REUTERS/Samuel De Jaegere)
On a tidy campus in his capital of Tripoli, dictator Muammar Gaddafi sponsored one of the world's leading Muslim missionary networks. It was the smiling face of his Libyan regime, and the world smiled back.
Fridge Fires
Last Friday’s special report about faulty refrigerators started with a fire in a London tower block. After oil and gas correspondent Tom Bergin read about the fire he started to investigate the actions of Arcelik, a Turkish company that made the fridge the L
from Global News Journal:
Tragedy or stagecraft: N. Korea’s food crisis
Tim Large, editor of Thomson Reuters Foundation’s AlertNet humanitarian news service, gives the back story to his special report Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl <http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-korea-north-food-idUSTRE7956DU20111007> . Any opinions expressed are his own.
Malnourished children presented at a clinic in North Korea during a guided tour of a disaster-hit province. (Reuters/Tim Large)
Remember the Philly trader?
Back in May, Matthew Goldstein wrote about commodities trader and hip-hop promoter Tyrone Gilliams in the special report “A fame-seeking Philly trader’s rap falls flat.”
Today Gilliams was arrested on charges of running a $4 million investment scam.
Time to re-read the original story, which detailed allegations by Ohio businessman David Parlin that Gilliams used some of Parlin’s money to sponsor a glitzy black-tie charitable event in Philadelphia attended by rappers and local politicians.
from Unstructured Finance:
Debts no honest man could pay
By Matthew Goldstein
For months now we've been hearing a lot about the $14 trillion in debt owed by the U.S. government. But there's been far too little talk about the almost equally high debt tab owed by U.S. consumers.
The Federal Reserve recently reported that total outstanding debt owed by U.S. consumers was $11.4 trillion, down from its third-quarter 2008 peak of $12.5 trillion. At that pace, it could take years for U.S. consumers to delever, or in plain English--reduce the debts they owe on their homes, credit cards, autos and student loans. But when it comes to the staggering sum of consumer debt in this country, it's pretty clear that time is not on our side.
Behind the scenes at UBS
Emma Thomasson and Edward Taylor tell the inside story of UBS’s turbulent week in today’s second special report “How a rogue trader crashed UBS.”
UBS chief Oswald Gruebel’s decision to resign after the bank said a rogue trader lost as much as $2.3 billion was not just a response to the immediate crisis. It was also an admission that the bank’s latest scandal has effectively undone all his efforts over the past two years to lobby against tougher bank regulations.
The alleged rogue trades have killed any remaining ambitions UBS might have to compete with the titans of Wall Street. They also cast a huge shadow across the entire industry and make tough new regulations far more likely, as the 67-year-old hinted in a memo to staff after he quit. “That it was possible for one of our traders in London to inflict a multi-billion loss on our bank through unauthorised trading shocked me, as it did everyone else, deeply. This incident has worldwide repercussions, including political ones,” he wrote.
Nevada’s Big Bet
What happens in Nevada, stays in Nevada. Literally. Especially when it comes to Nevada shell companies.
That’s the gist of our latest special report in the SHELL GAMES series, “Nevada’s big bet on secrecy.”
Stress testing the UAW
Today’s special report from Detroit, “Crunch time for America’s richest union,” takes a close look at the finances of the historic United Auto Workers union.
Over its 76 years, the UAW has built up a more than $1 billion war chest that has proven to be its big stick at the negotiating table and on the political stage.
More bloodshed in Monterrey
After the latest news from Mexico where armed men torched a casino in Monterrey, killing at least 52 people, it’s a good time to re-read Robin Emmott’s special report “If Monterrey falls, Mexico falls.”
As the story says:
In just four years, Monterrey, a manufacturing city of 4 million people 140 miles from the Texan border, has gone from being a model for developing economies to a symbol of Mexico’s drug war chaos, sucked down into a dark spiral of gangland killings, violent crime and growing lawlessness.
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