The European Commission’s has just published the latest set of EU trade trade figures. Among the surprising details are that overall EU textiles imports were little changed. China textile importas, of course, rose - by 40% - but this was offset by a decline in 54.4% (from Burma) and 41.4% from the [...]

Russia’s by now well known demographic problems are not, IMHO, going to leave us in peace, the danger is always going to be there of a nasty political evolution which we will in the end have to sit up and take notice of. One of the many possibilities seems to take the form of the [...]

While China seems to be badly in need of entering the ‘information society’, Russia seems to be going flat-out in the opposite direction:
Russia moved closer to an effective ban on many foreign non-governmental organisations as its parliament on Wednesday considered a bill that human rights groups have criticised as another step towards a “totally closed [...]

Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, a personal account of the challenges and benefits of globalisation, has just won the inaugural Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
But Stephen Roach, writing in yesterday’s Morgan Stanley GEF, doesn’t agree. For him the world is ‘hardly a flat one‘.
With all due respect [...]

The Head Heeb: A murder in Cote d’Ivoire
“While unsuccessful attempts continue to break Cote d’Ivoire’s political deadlock, the latest scandal to arise concerns the murder of a local gang leader by French peacekeepers”
Jonathan’s conclusion:
“Absent a political solution in Cote d’Ivoire, however, it is unlikely that this will be the last or only such case. The [...]

The International Energy Agency have just published their forecast for oil demand next year, and its more of the same, with the emphasis on more.
Global oil consumption is expected to increase by 1.75m barrels a day next year to total 85.2m b/d, suggesting that a recent fall-off in demand is temporary… For 2006, the [...]

Is China about to drive smartly past the EU and establish itself as a global R&D powerhouse? Somehow I doubt this, but nonetheless it seems to be the view of Janez Potocnik, EU commissioner for research, who is quoted by the FT as saying: The Chinese trend is extremely clear. If the trend continues, they [...]

Today is Sunday and I still seem to be having technical difficulties posting on AFOE, so I’m doing this as a test to see whether I can mange to do something on AFEM.
Firstly a link from the Economist Great Thrift Supplement (of which I’ll have more to say as and when I can post [...]

Standards that is. The Chinese domestic appliance manufacturer Haier just got voted into the number one slot by FT readers in a survey which included quality, trustworthiness, innovation and management, together with branding. Haier recently hit the headlines when it unsuccessfully tried to buy Maytag - owner of the Hoover brand - now it [...]

One day it might be worth writing a post on the life and times of Judge Balthasar Garzon. Today we might just note that he finally has ‘his man’: the US have just agreed to hand-over Lahcen Ikassrien to Spanish authorities. Ikassrien is being held in Guantanamo, but it is important to note that Garzon [...]