Bloomberg Businessweek - July 20-26, 2015

Page 21

Global Economics CIA officer who is a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, in an e-mail. Yet it reaches only a small number of militants and falls short of “dealing in a more wholesale manner with the roots of jihadi radicalism in the kingdom,” he wrote. The authorities work with Sunni clerics to help deter young Saudis from going on jihad, train the police to identify and arrest returning jihadis, and try to disrupt the financial networks supporting them. More than 2,600 Saudis have traveled to Syria since 2011 to fight for militant groups such as Islamic State, and 668 have returned, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Many end up in al-Ha’ir or other top-security prisons. So do Saudis who funded, recruited, and housed the fighters. The number of inmates at the maximum-security prisons now exceeds 4,200, according to official figures. That number includes jihadis and others, such as rebellious Saudi Shiites, who are deemed enemies of the state. All the inmates at al-Ha’ir get a monthly allowance of 2,000 riyals ($533), which they can withdraw from ATMs in the prison, and they have opportunities for education and access to psychologists. “The main purpose is to rehabilitate them,” says Colonel Mohammed “Abu Salman,” the head of al-Ha’ir. For security reasons the colonel gives his nickname only. In a courtyard inside al-Ha’ir, young men, all jihadis, sit on benches talking. One says he’s a Saudi American from Texas, giving no further details. Another says he fought six months with a group linked to Islamic State in Aleppo. He says he headed home when he grew worried about his family and was arrested when he landed at the airport in Jeddah. In al-Ha’ir’s medical ward, a 25-year-old man lies in bed, paralyzed from the waist down. He says he was shot by a sniper in the province of Idlib in northern Syria, after two years fighting for the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. He made it to Turkey, where Saudi diplomats helped get him home. He says he now regrets his journey to Syria, knowing he’ll probably never walk again. —Glen Carey

Currencies The Mighty Pound With the fate of the euro in question over the past three months, the big winner in the currency market has been the British pound. Investors spooked by the prospect of Greece’s exit from the euro zone were drawn to the pound’s stability and the U.K.’s strengthening economy.

The pound’s rise is “due to the relative economic outperformance we’ve seen, rather than any big change in rate expectations.” —Simon Smith, chief economist at FXPro Group

The best and worst performers Change in the value of major currencies vs. the U.S. dollar from April 13 to July 13 -10%

-5%

0%

5%

10%

British pound Danish krone euro Swedish krona Swiss franc

19

Singapore dollar The pound climbed

5.7%

The kiwi fell to its lowest level in

Taiwanese dollar Norwegian krone Brazilian real Canadian dollar

beating the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, the FTSE 100, gold, and oil

Australian dollar Japanese yen

5

years before recovering slightly

Mexican peso South African rand South Korean won New Zealand dollar

Rise of the pound Deutsche Bank GBP Trade Weighted Index, which tracks the British pound against a basket of currencies

Index value

Favorable wage data and a bullish statement from the Bank of England drove this rally

90.0

87.5

The bottom line The Saudis are trying everything from prison to hotel privileges to turn jihadis into responsible citizens. Edited by Christopher Power Bloomberg.com

By David Goodman and Mark Glassman

4/13/15

The pound dipped on preelection fears of a minority government but rebounded when the Tories won a majority

85.0 7/14/15

DATA: COMPILED BY BLOOMBERG


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What I Wear to Work: NBBJ’s Sarah Morse favors pants a little short, skirts a little full, sleeves a little long

1min
page 69

The Critic: Lil Wayne’s self-released new album is a ringing F-You to his label. Too bad it’s no good

3min
page 68

Travel: Get back to the land in Morocco, Hawaii, or other great farmstay vacation sites

4min
pages 66-67

Drinks: The fern bar, with its sweet ’70s drinks, is the new speakeasy in several U.S. cities

2min
page 64

Charter schools earn an A in muni bond sales

4min
page 40

Everybody wants searchable apps, except app makers

3min
page 34

Survey: Tips on mentoring, from executives who ought to know

1min
page 65

Clarifying CEO pay makes things murkier

4min
page 39

Innovation: Carpeting the ocean floor to harness wave power

5min
pages 35-37

Biofuel developer Euglena has seen the future, and it’s pond scum

5min
page 33

A high-level Republican kaffeeklatsch ponders ways to get out the vote

3min
page 30

In Portland, Maine, a master class in how not to raise wages

4min
page 28

Currencies: While the euro zone squabbled, the pound looked awfully good

4min
pages 21-22

What’s a nice hotel doing in the middle of a Saudi prison?

3min
page 20

With Ferrari on the exit ramp, Fiat Chrysler buffs up Maserati

4min
page 23

What Texas really needs, the USDA figures, is more wasps

4min
page 29

Briefs: A same-sex suit at Wal-Mart; Honda vs. the feds

6min
pages 25-27

In a Brazil shantytown named for Dilma Rousseff, they’re over her

2min
page 19

Boutique owner Pavlina Papailiopoulou followed her dream—to Greece

4min
page 24
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