My out-of-consensus speculation that the Bank of England’s round of interest rate rises may be pretty much done looks sounder by the day. There may be one more rate increase, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were pretty much over with it, and even if the next move (the end of this [...]

After a series of posts on the rise of the euro earlier in the year, I’ve been relatively quiet on this front of late. This doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away. The growing feeling that the US economy was taking off certainly eased the pressure, and the euro has hovered around the low [...]

Colin Powell has been making the headlines over the weekend for his seemingly more realistic appraisal of the difficulties facing current US policy in Iraq when compared to the view emmanating from other members of the Bush administration. Again Juan Cole has been offering some informed comment on the topic here.
All of which makes [...]

Despite the recent revival of optimism about the forthcoming Turkey negotiations following the apparent resolution of the ‘adultery ban’ issue, it is clear to everyone that significant hurdles still remain to be overcome. Among these may now need to be added a referendum on Turkish membership in France.
Turkey will not join the European Union for [...]

This should come as a shock, but somehow I am not exactly surprised. Mediterranean cooking evidently isn’t always as benign and healthy as it seems.
Greece was warned on Thursday that it could face legal action for grossly under-reporting its national deficit and debt figures but was told it would not be ejected from the 12-country [...]

While Volkswagen’s long cold summer trundles on relentlessly there is more news on the wage reduction/increasing hours front.
Following the decision by workers at Siemens and DaimlerChrysler to work longer hours announced earlier in the summer, Volkswagen itself and construction company Bilfinger are looking for similar deals. (The Economist this week has a profile [...]

The Turkish Justice and Development party (AKP) seems to be backing down on the criminalisation of adultery agenda. This is a welcome development and, for once, an example of where targeted EU pressure may be effective. It also seems to be the case that external pressure is working in tandem with internal processes for once:
Civil [...]

Whilst noting that the EU Commission is trying to gently nudge Turkey on the criminalisation of adultery issue - European Commission spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori told a Brussels news conference that the proposed law “could trigger confusion and damage the perception in the European Union of Turkey’s reform efforts” - this post is [...]

Homilies are not my strong point, so I will be brief.
Today is the third anniversary of a sequence of events which changed the course of contemporary world history, and lead to the loss of several thousand vibrant and innocent lives: we will remember them.
Those who died amidst the gnarled and twisted wreckage which remained following [...]

There’s a fair amount of talk again this week about the various government deficits and what to do with them. Earlier in the week the FT had a piece about the current state of play with the US deficit whilst the Economist is busy musing one more time over the ongoing saga of the [...]