Category: News Desk

Russia Expanding Customs Union

Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan are the countries to watch as Russia builds its influence in its periphery through the customs union. Analyst Eugene Chausovsky examines Russian designs for integrating Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan into its customs union and how that challenges the European Union and China.

Russia has recently made moves to expand the customs union; an economic grouping consisting of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, to two other former Soviet states, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.

Creating Talibanistan: A Super-Caliphate in ‘Afpak’

On 23 May 2011, Pakistani security forces secured a key naval aviation base in Karachi after a 17-hour standoff with a team of jihadist operatives. The group is believed to be composed of as few as six and as many as 20 militants. They infiltrated the high-security facility to destroy U.S. supplied P-3C Orion anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft and damage a second.

Economics Humor: Gas Prices

Gas prices rising more than you can cope with? Don’t feel bummed out, and cheer up with some light-hearted humor about gas prices:

US House Prices: Worse Now Than During Subprime Crash

Just when you thought the US housing market was recovering, S&P/Case-Shiller house price index fell by 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2011, the lowest its been in 8 years.

Capital Economics says the latest double-dip in housing should come as no surprise. It’s very much following a pattern seen in the early 30s, when a brief recovery also petered out. The same has also happened in other big housing busts around the world, the think-tank says. It believes prices are going to fall even further before we hit rock bottom, maybe sometime next year according to MarketWatch.

Corporate Spying: The Next Growth Industry

The corporate spying business is booming. The largest companies around the world are all involved in “competitive intelligence gathering” by highly trained professionals according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“Corporations have people trained to obtain raw data from a wide range of sources and apply traditional intelligence analysis techniques to produce usable information,” PwC dispute analysis and investigations director Richard Batten said.

A 2008-Scale European Financial Crisis This Year? Niall Ferguson

The European debt sovereign crisis is back. Spain’s government party gets trounced in local elections, Fitch cuts Greece’s credit rating and S&P threatens to downgrade Italy. Bloomberg contributor talks about the situation in Europe:

Bloomberg: The worst electoral defeat for the socialist party in more than three decades in Spain it seems, a very harsh public repudiation of austerity measures. What does this tell you about the future of the Euro and the European Monetary Union if the Spanish can’t get behind budget cuts?

Does the Internet Grow GDP?

According to a new report from McKinsey, the current Internet revolution is driving fast-paced economic change not seen since the 19th century. The research firm found that Sweden leads the world in Internet contribution to GDP at 6.3 percent. So how do Asian nations fare?

Walmart vs Wumart: The Battle for Chinese Retail Dominance

The US has Wal-Mart, China has Wumart – China’s largest supermarket chain operates 469 franchise stores; including 330 convenience stores and 100 hypermarts in Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin and surrounding areas. Like it’s American counterpart, the prices are wonderfully low. 

It’s Q2 profit rose by 20 percent and the company opened 69 new outlets over 12 months. It’s secret: mergers and acquisitions after competition from local and foreign rivals intensified as China relaxed restrictions on foreign retailers.