(Reuters) Noah Browning - Downtown Ramallah sparkles. Cafes bustle with smartly dressed patrons, water-pipe smoke perfumes the air and basslines from trendy clubs shake the night. New model BMWs ply leafy avenues beneath villas and tall apartment blocks sprout from the West Bank hills. But it's more mirage than miracle. Government spending and living on credit at all levels of Palestinian society is rampant and may prove to be the economy's undoing. Salaries for a swollen public sector again cannot be paid in full this month. The productive base for the economy is shriveling while unemployment climbs. And foreign aid is waning partly because of global economic conditions and partly in a backlash to the Palestinians' abortive bid for statehood at the UN last fall.
2012-07-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive