Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Clive Crook: A paralysed, diminished America 
This weekend’s Nato summit in Lisbon concluded a flurry of top-level international meetings that, from President Barack Obama’s point of view, were frustrating, unproductive, or plain embarrassing, writes the FT columnist. However, his advisers wish you to know that US standing in the world is not the least bit diminished. Really, they say, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this. They insist that the global recession, which started as a result of US economic mismanagement, has not lessened American prestige and power. The falling out in the Group of 20 leading nations over macroeconomic co-operation is hardly worth mentioning. Allies’ reluctance to stay engaged in Afghanistan was only to be expected.
Jim O’Neill: Time to end the myth of currency wars
In recent weeks, the phrase “currency war” has been used liberally. Let us hope this is a passing fad: it is inappropriate, and actually a fiction. In truth there are no real currency wars, just normal currency markets responding to events. Let us review the facts, says O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The Chinese currency has risen by about 20 per cent against the US dollar in the past five years. About a tenth of this appreciation has happened since this summer. On a trade-weighted basis the renminbi has risen by about 14 per cent over the same time. Whichever measure you use this is quite a move, and one with powerful consequences.
Amartya Sen: New pressure can oust Burma’s generals
It is difficult for me to talk about Burma without a deep sense of nostalgia, writes the Nobel laureate who now teaches at Harvard. I grew up in Mandalay, between the ages of three and six; my earliest memories are all there. But the magically beautiful country I remember from my early years has been in the grip of a supremely despotic military rule for almost half a century, with collapsing institutions, arbitrary imprisonment, widespread torture, and terrorised minority communities. The situation has remained terrible for so long there is now a kind of defeatism that makes frustrated well-wishers eager to be thrilled by little mercies. So while Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from unjust confinement is a great moment for celebration, it is also a time to think clearly about what the world can do to help her cause.
Wolfgang Münchau: How to stop Ireland’s financial contagion
If you merge 16 small open economies, you get a large closed economy. But here is the catch. If you assemble the leaders of the 16 small open economies, you get a roomful of 16 small-economy politicians. Economic governance through the European Council has proved always cacophonous and often incompetent. It is an institutional framework of finger-pointing. The Irish say they are not Greece. The Portuguese say they are not Irish. The Spanish finance minister said last week that Spain is not Portugal. There are no prizes for guessing what Italy is not, says the FT columnist.
David Walker: Britain must call for more open bank pay rules
My 2009 report on corporate governance in financial institutions recommended that major UK banks disclose the numbers of “high end” employees in remuneration bands above £1m. But the report was also clear that unless such disclosures in the UK were matched by other countries, it would put British banks at a competitive disadvantage. So far the government has not acted, says Sir David Walker, writing in a personal capacity.
beyondbrics: Russia-China gas deal: Wen to sign?
The drama that once accompanied China-Russia summits has gone and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Moscow for meetings with Russian leaders is no exception, writes the FT’s Stefan Wagstyl. The political tensions which once ran through the lines between Beijing-Moscow like electric charges have not disappeared but they have faded before the realities of hard-headed economic cooperation. Business tops the agenda – headed by oil and gas issues.
Analysis: Offering the gift of life
It was around May last year that the children of the Central African Republic’s south-western plains started to change colour, writes the FT’s Tom Burgis. Some mothers in this remote corner of a forgotten country blamed the red and white patches on their offspring’s bodies on the tiny fish that supplement their meagre diets; others suspected a curse. Neither explanation was too far wide of the mark. As medics went from hamlet to mud-brick hamlet, they diagnosed a virulent outbreak of an old affliction: hunger.
Lex on Actelion
Jean-Paul Clozel, chief executive of Actelion, may wish to keep the Swiss drugmaker independent, but that looks increasingly unlikely, notes Lex. As more suitors circled this week, its shares jumped 12 per cent, taking the total rise to 40 per cent since October. Said to be interested are Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and Amgen, enough competition to result in a bid leaving Mr Clozel with few options. Yet, valuing Actelion is tricky.