The Navy is launching an autonomous combat drone, which may add to tensions between the United States and China, suggests journalist and author Richard Parker in an opinion essay for the New York Times. The US drone technology can withstand radiation that would kill human pilots and can carry...
Click here for the article in The New York Times.
Risk and creditworthiness of state debt are largely assessed by three major agencies based in the US. Nations rated low – due to low revenues, excessive borrowing or threat of default – pay high interest rates to borrow. As Greece and Portugal struggle to repay massive debt, facing steep downgrade...
Click here for the article in Spiegel Online.
Countries that don’t have massive oil or natural-gas reserves may soon be able to construct their own biofuel reserves. Spanish and French scientists, working for the small firm Bio Fuel Systems, or BSF, are researching a new alternative fuel – based on algae mixed with carbon dioxide. Like solar...
Click here for the article in AFP.
The recent bleak unemployment report for the US suggests that the economic recovery is likely to be W-, rather than, V-shaped. But the 9.8 percent unemployment rate is only part of the picture: when including the “underemployed”, the rate is roughly double. What this means is that the US isn’t...
The latest job numbers in the US have torpedoed hopes for a V-shaped recovery and instead fuelled fears of W-shaped double-dip recession. Stockmarkets typically rally when companies lay off workers as a lower cost base raises the prospect of higher...
Making up fake quotes may once have been considered a school boy prank. Today, when those quotes are posted on the world’s foremost online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and then are incorrectly attributed by numerous online news services, it becomes an experiment in how globalization monitors itself. A...
Click here for the article on Associated Press.
Food prices have doubled during the past two years, and Moisés Naím of Foreign Policy observes that politicians, journalists and economists often blame the recent hikes on growing demand by rising middle classes in the developing world. But Naím cautions against blaming people in India and China...
There are many culprits we can blame for higher food prices. But the poor isn’t one of them.
The spike in food prices is a global crisis, and it is destabilizing politics and economics everywhere. Food prices...
Pain from the US financial crisis is spreading globally, with leadership in developing countries often blaming free-market failures. The free market is under attack worldwide: Honduras’s president deems its laws "demonic" and the Brazilian head of state suggests its speculation causes the...
Financial meltdown will not cause the U.S. to abandon democratic capitalism, but the outcome is less clear for countries deciding whether capitalism is the best system. In many of these countries the choice is not...
Low interest rates and easy loan terms encouraged people and businesses around the globe to live beyond their means. Those loans were based on assets that have since plummeted in value, explains Ho Kwon Ping, chairman of the board of trustees for Singapore Management University. Investment banking...
It's university graduation season again and invariably, many graduates I encounter want to become investment bankers.
In less than a year, financial stocks have plummeted by over 70 per cent in value....