I remember it was not so long ago that people imagined China was so, so far away. Now this kind of news is almost daily.
“Media and publishing group Bertelsmann on Tuesday announced the first big Sino-foreign wholesale book distribution business in China, as overseas investors seek new ways to get access to the country’s book-sales [...]

The ever readable Martin Wolf has been writing in the FT on Italy:
“Let us think the unthinkable: could the eurozone disintegrate? The answer is yes. Disappearance of the zone as a whole seems hugely unlikely, so long as the commitment to the European project survives. But the exit of one (or more) members, a sovereign [...]

Any opinions from Germany on this?
“Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der’s re-election hopes were dealt a fresh blow on Tuesday after a charismatic political rival said he would join leftwing groupings to run against the German leader.
Oskar Lafontaine, former chairman of Mr Schr?der’s Social Democratic party, said he would give up his party membership and enter the electoral [...]

The French embassy in Germany (which just relaunched its website) offers a
German review of the daily French press (and as well a French review of the German press) but unfortunately not as RSS streams.

The latest data on French household spending show that it rose rather faster than expected in April. This suggests that consumer spending is still supporting economic growth in sharp contrast with the pattern in Germany. In Germany the domestic economy actually *contracted* in the first quarter. True the German economy grew, but this was [...]

Tensions between Russia and Latvia have been escalating since escalated during the Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. In particular the two countries have an outstanding territorial dispute. The war of words is now on the rise with Putin today resorting to what Mosnews calls a Soviet-era [...]

As efforts continue to resolve the deadlock over the forthcoming reform of the EU budget, this article from reuters give some background on what the impact on Spain might be.
“Spain is set to be the big loser in tough negotiations on the EU’s 2007-2013 budget as the bloc’s paymasters led by cash-strapped Germany seek [...]

The Federal Reserve should continue to raise U.S. interest rates but the European Central Bank should ease euro zone monetary policy, the OECD says in its semi-annual Economic Outlook out today. Euro zone growth forecasts of 1.2 % for 2005 and 2.0% for 2006 are based on the assumption that the ECB, which [...]

Here’s the link to the Eurostat report on Italy’s deficit revisions. The language is very formal, but between the lines it isn’t hard to see the frustration with the kind of data they’ve been getting.
It is recalled that Eurostat was not in a position to validate the figures for Italy in the context of the [...]

As if Turkey’s membership talks weren’t already under enough pressure from the French referendum, today we have the suggestion that a change of government in Germany will only serve to complicate the picture even further.

Read more… or Read more right here… [...]