大象传媒

Owen Bennett Jones introduces insight, wit and analysis from 大象传媒 correspondents around the world. In this edition, Matthew Teller finds Amman's hospitals and hoteliers being buoyed up by Libyan medical tourism; Paul Adams wonders how long Newt Gingrich's 'freight train' approach to winning the Republicans' Presidential nomination can stay on track.

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The Arab Spring and its associated revolutions have changed relationships between states, as well as between people and rulers within each country. And sometimes the results have been unpredictable: the side-effects have included the paradoxical strenghtening of some repressive regimes, some long-awaited or long-feared diplomatic realignments and a good deal of financial chaos. However, some states are reaping profits from the changes - as Matthew Teller saw for himself in the hospital wards and hotel lobbies of Amman, in Jordan.

"More baggage than a freight train full of toxic waste" - and still a winner

It's become a clich茅 at political rallies in the US: anyone who has even a passing interest in running for the White House is invariably introduced with: "please welcome the next President of the United States" - and then their name. And the Republican names? Right now, for all intents and purposes, it's down to Mitt or Newt.

Paul Adams was as surprised as anyone at Newt Gingrich's crushing victory over Mitt Romney in the decidedly unpromising territory of South Carolina. How come this famously bedrock, religious, right-wing state put aside its reservations and voted for a man so far from its professed ideal?