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Provinces become battleground in China's WTO offer

Provinces become battleground in China's WTO offer

Talks over China's offer to join the World Trade Organisation's government procurement agreement will likely focus on purchase practices by the country's many provinces, where local protectionism tends to be more prevalent

Like most WTO members, China has not yet joined the GPA, which requires a separate negotiation process. Members of the sub-group, mostly wealthy developed countries, pledge to give each other reciproc...

Rural schools from apartheid cloud S Africa's future

Rural schools from apartheid cloud S Africa's future

A tap with running water came when apartheid ended, electricity came 14 years later but the text books for each student have yet to arrive at Knoppiesfontein Primary Farm School

It is one of nearly 2,600 remaining schools set up by white farmers to warehouse the offspring of farmhands until they could work the fields - a glaring symbol of an apartheid-era education system des...

FAO: Wheat prices not yet a threat to inflation

23/08/2010

World wheat price rises are not yet sufficient to trigger global food inflation, an economist at the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation has announced, even though they almost do...

Gazans want "Marshall Plan", Israel policy falls short

27/07/2010

Wael El Wadiah's Gaza snack food factories once employed 250 people. Today, denied access to the West Bank market by Israel, he employs a few dozen workers in what is left of a bus...

Doha talks in 2011 hinge on US politics-India

20/07/2010

There is likely to be little movement in the Doha world trade talks by the end of this year and progress in 2011 will hinge on the outcome of November's US mid-term elections, Indi...

Russia's Black Sea navy is burden for Ukraine

12/05/2010

Russia's Black Sea fleet might not carry much weight in strict military terms but its presence in the port of Sevastopol will burden Ukraine's future for generations to come, criti...

Brazil's Rousseff yet to emerge from Lula's shadow

23/02/2010

A photo opportunity during Carnival is a must for Brazilian politicians and Dilma Rousseff, who is running for president, did well this year by partying with pop star Madonna and d...

Dutch looking away from Europe

23/02/2010

The collapse of the Dutch government over troop deployments in Afghanistan will distance the country from its EU neighbours, reduce its involvement on the world stage and could pro...

The downside of the Eurozone

21/12/2009

Opponents of quick euro adoption have long argued that losing the flexibility of an independent currency could be painful for economies whose cyclical endurance is limited by lower...

Chinese farmers struggle with climate change

15/12/2009 | Chris Buckley

In northwest China, farmers count the costs of a changing climate in lost crops, dry wells and lives weighed down by poverty...

The new rust belt

21/08/2009 | Krisztina Than

Heavy industries across eastern Europe, once the beacons of communist “planned economies”, survived the collapse of communism 20 years ago but may not live to see the end of the cu...

Riders on the storm

21/08/2009 | Pascal Fletcher

The Caribbean's small island states ride out hurricanes year after year, but they are fighting to stay afloat in a global economic storm that is battering rich and poor nations ali...

Terminal failure

21/08/2009 | Catherine Hornby

From queuing barges and traffic jams to falling cargo volumes and quieter terminals, a struggle with overloadingat Europe's biggest port has turned into a fight for business...

Solidarity workers defiant as bailouts mount

2009-06-12 | TNE

Two decades after they helped overthrow communism in eastern Europe, shipyard workers in Poland's Solidarity are ready to fight for the right to share the subsidies that have baile...

Watching the despots

 | Chris Holt

New satellite imaging technology is making it easier for the international community to keep an eye on the activities of some nations. From new developments, to the work of some of...

A social time bomb

01/06/2009 | Sonya Dowsett

Tensions mounting between native job-seekers and immigrants competing for a declining pool of work in Spain will intensify in 2009 as generous benefits for those laid off reach the...

Reverse brain drain

01/06/2009 | Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Anurag Kotoky

The economic crisis that has sent the US economy into its worst recession in decades, has tarnished the sheen of the 'American Dream' for many Indians who are opting for university...

Qualitative growth

21/05/2009 | Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson

A conceptual framework for finding solutions to our current crisis that are economically sound, ecologically sustainable, and socially just...

Still ahead of the curve

22/06/2009 | TNE

Oscar Niemeyer has created some of the most iconic buildings of the twentieth century...

787 powers on

19/08/2008 | TNE

The power's on to the 787 Dreamliner, but it comes more than a year after it was originally scheduled...

Conspiracy theories through the ages

04/03/2008 | Michael McCaw

Since Plato's Republic, man has wrestled in the political arena, concealing various daggers behind many cloaks. The New Economy investigates...

Drugs of choice

11/06/2007 | Ben Olsen

Small Thai firms are taking on the giants over the production of generic versions of potential lifesaving drugs. And this time they have government backing...

Finding FDI hotspots

11/06/2007 | TNE

Direct investment is approaching record levels, but which countries are attracting the most money?...

Afghanistan and America's troubled backyard

09/08/2010 | Bernd Debusmann

The US is spending around $6.5bn a month on the war in faraway Afghanistan, where a large part of it...

Is immigration a desert mirage for the GOP?

27/07/2010

US Republican state Senator Russell Pearce, a long-time fixture in Arizona politics but until recent...

UN lists Kyoto plan B options if no climate deal

21/07/2010

The UN's climate agency has for the first time detailed contingency options if the world cannot agre...

Legalising pot may kill buzz in California enclave

19/07/2010 | Alexandria Sage

Below the perpetual fog that shrouds the redwood groves, green hills and rocky coastline of remote H...

20 years on
20 years on

20 years on

The impact of Tiananmen...

From the archive

787 powers on

19/08/2008 | TNE