Reuters Investigates

ElBaradei: From nuclear diplomat to Cairo politics

Who is Mohamed ElBaradei, the professional Egyptian opposition figure who joined the ranks of disaffected Eypgtians to topple President Hosni Mubarak after thirty years in power?  Does the 68-year-old diplomat and lawyer have what it takes to become Egypt’s next president if it holds free and fair elections? 

Louis Charbonneau’s special report takes a close look at ElBaradei’s performance while at the helm of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where he stood toe-to-toe with the Bush administration over Iraq and Iran. It tells how he survived a plot by hawkish U.S. politician John Bolton to oust him and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 jointly with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.  It looks into his questionable record as a manager while showing that he may have what it takes to lead Egypt — if he wants the job. 

 To read this story in multimedia PDF format click here

Dubai comeback already?

We went behind the scenes of Dubai’s debt debacle last November and found a much more sober city-state starting to rebuild itself from the $59 billion hole that was dug by the whizz kids who had powered its transformation. Loans don’t come as easy — particularly the nod and the wink of association with the royal family isn’t cutting it like it used to.

Some people see a connection between the crisis and the fact that Dubai has also started to tighten up on its trade with Iran, in line with broader international sanctions, but we’re not so sure about that.

What did come across loud and clear in our reporting is that the new-new Dubai is currently being led more by older, senior types who had been thrown off the ladder by the MBAs and the like on their way up. Some of the financial types we spoke to worried about this: we don’t need civil engineers, one said, we need financial engineers. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

In case you missed them

Just because it was summer, doesn’t mean we weren’t busy here at Reuters. Here are a few of our recent special reports that you might have missed.

Tracking Iran’s nuclear money trail to Turkey. U.N. correspondent Lou Charbonneau – who used to cover the IAEA for Reuters –  followed the money to Turkey where an Iranian bank under U.S. and EU sanctions is operating freely. Nice to see the New York Times follow up on this today, and the Washington Post also quizzed Turkey’s president about it.

Blue-collar, unemployed and seeing red – Chicago correspondent James Kelleher went on the road for this story about the long-term unemployed and what that means for Obama and the Democrats at November’s midterm elections.

Even though he’s been forced to move back in with his parents and has virtually no income, Stevenson opposes Obama’s proposal to let some tax cuts for the wealthy, dating back to George W. Bush’s presidency, expire at year’s end in order to raise revenue and reduce the deficit. 

“How is more people, keeping more of the money they earn, bad for the economy?” he said. “The answer is — it’s not.”