Word: debts
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...Ketjapi," published in 1956 and the last of the 13 stories, is about a Sundanese debt collector who moves to Jakarta after his marriage fails, his only consolation the melancholic tones of the story's namesake instrument, his future "tattered and full of holes." It's an equally apt description of Indonesia, which had recently emerged a sovereign but brittle country after centuries of Dutch rule, Japanese occupation and four years of revolution. Reflected in each of Pram's protagonists from the fringe - illiterate wash maids, scabietic houseboys, night watchmen, guttersweeps - are the growing pains of a tentative new nation...
...much of Dubai has been built on short-term loans, based on the idea that income from the projects would buoy liquidity and help roll forward debt payments. For example, Dubai's driverless metro system, one of the most advanced in the world, is financed through three-year notes, which the city-state believed they could renew as ticket fees helped pay the interest. Now, the international consortium that is building the system - including the Japanese construction giants Mitsubishi and Obayashi as well as the Turkish company Yapi Merkezi - are probably left with huge fees unpaid...
Creditors, therefore, had to go to the negotiating table to be able to wring out payment. Dubai's on-balance-sheet debt seems to be about $80 billion (and some observers believer there could be a substantial amount of off-balance-sheet debt as well). About 40% of the official debt is held by British banks, 30% by E.U. firms, about 9% by U.S. institutions and 7% by Japanese ones. According to a source close to Dubai World, the city-state's representatives now wants to write off some $30 billion of its debt...
Sheik Mo, as he's dubbed by the media, was tweeting in London last week when officials back home stunned financial markets by announcing a request for a six-month repayment standstill on part of the sheikdom's $80 billion debt. The immediate issue is Dubai's inability to come through on a $3.52 billion tranche due in mid-December. Yet, with some 400 property projects already reportedly frozen in Dubai, the news raised the specter of a gigantic default that would sink exposed creditors around the world. "Inspired by Islamic artifacts," read the sheik's post on Twitter during...
...once more; Abu Dhabi's ruling al-Nahyan family, as cautious as the al-Maktoums are daring, knows that it, too, will be dragged back by the demise of Dubai. A glance at the $600 billion-plus balance sheet of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund puts Dubai's debt crisis in a softer light. And, as far as Dubai's leaders are concerned, the problem is largely limited to egregious overborrowing by one company in one sector: Nakheel, the Dubai World subsidiary behind huge property projects like the Palm and the World, built on injected sand off the Gulf...