Yesterday I did a post linking to a piece by Javier Blas in the FT, who had learned that Madagascar had agreed to lease half of its arable land - an area half...
Alex Evans
Alex Evans is a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, and the author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren't Enough? (Penguin, 2017), a book about the power of deep stories to unlock transformational change. He lives in North Yorkshire and is currently working on political polarisation and learning dry stone walling. Full biog here.
South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s arable land
Blimey. I've written here before about the growing importance of security of supply concerns in agricultural trade, and the fact that some countries -...
A Bretton Woods II worthy of the name
Ahead of this weekend's G20 summit, David and I have published a short paper entitled A Bretton Woods II worthy of the name. Key points: - The summit is...
Maldives to relocate to India?
It's a while since stories started to emerge about the possible evacuation to New Zealand of the population of Tuvalu, a Pacific small island state, as rising...
Everything you need to know about the food crisis in 4 minutes 20 seconds
I loved this public service announcement from the Japanese Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries - easily the most succinct and accessible summary...
The other Obama transition
As Edward Luce reported in yesterday's FT, Obama's sensibly merged his campaign team with the pre-election transition team headed by former White House chief...
When central banks lose control of interest rates
Just after the Bank of England's stunning 150 basis point cut yesterday, BBC business editor Robert Peston noticed an alarming signal of problems ahead. He...
This year’s World Energy Outlook
Next week sees the publication of the International Energy Agency's latest flagship World Energy Outlook, which has been heavily leaked to the Financial...
Why not to be the first person off the plane in Nigeria
Fantastic: This morning, at the airport in Brussels, I was chatting with a retired Scottish aid worker. He told about his friend who got on a flight in Lagos...
Deja vu? 1929 isn’t the half of it…
Marcello Simonetta in Forbes agrees that current events have a certain familiarity to them - but he's looking a lot further back than everyone...
How supermarkets are worsening the credit crunch
Take note of the important signal of problems in store on the front of today's FT. Reckitt Benckiser, the consumer goods manufacturer, has broken ranks to...
Sarah’s greatest hits
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E] Gnnnaaaaaaa. Bush looks positively cerebral by comparison.
Obama’s foreign policy team: a poll of pols
Since I've already renounced any and all claims to knowing anything about US politics, I'm happily unburdened by any pressure to predict the shape of an Obama...
More proof of team Obama’s internet supremacy
...as if any were needed: this just in from MoveOn.org (thanks to Dan Smith for forwarding). You can generate a video with your own name (or those of...
Incoming: the mother of all currency crises
Dani Rodrik: Paul Krugman frets that we are about to witness the mother of all currency crises in emerging markets, and I am afraid that he is right. As I...
Summits, Panels everywhere – but to what end?
We are now officially beginning some sort of post-credit crunch global governance feeding frenzy. We now have the following to look forward to: - The report...
Obama slides on US aid budgets
Think an Obama Administration would spell an upwards march on the US aid budget? Think again. The Obama / Biden campaign platform is formally committed to a...
What the credit crunch means for multilateralism
If you haven't read it already, World Bank President Bob Zoellick's speech on multilateral reform earlier this month is definitely worth a read. One of best...
The Chatham House Rule is for lightweights
Never mind the Chatham House Rule (which goes like this: "When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use...
The real Presidential debate
Amid the general consensus that all three of the Presidential debates were notable principally for their tedium, it emerges that McCain and Obama just needed...
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