Trade

By Simon Johnson | (Project Syndicate) | – – WASHINGTON, DC – With the United States’ presidential election on November 8, and a series of elections and other political decisions fast approaching in Europe, now is a good time to ask whether the global economy is in good enough shape to withstand another major negative […]

European Union

Why did UK leaving European Union hit your Retirement Account so Hard?

contributors

By Andre Spicer | (The Conversation) | – – Despite reassurances that we shouldn’t listen to the experts, the financial markets have gone and behaved almost exactly as the experts predicted. Following the news that the UK will be leaving the EU, the pound has dropped to a level not seen since 1985. The FSTE […]

Economy

Can Europe compete with China in post-Sanction Iran? Will the US Let it?

contributors

By Moritz Pieper | (The Conversation) | – – The cake is quite big, but everyone wants a slice. Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, visited Iran last month accompanied by business leaders from the energy, transportation and defence sectors. It was a return visit after the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, had made Italy his first […]

Plutocracy

Curtains for Trans Atlantic Trade Deal? Greenpeace Leak Exposes Corporate Takeover

contributors

By Deirdre Fulton | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – The secret documents represent roughly two-thirds of the latest negotiating text, and in several cases expose for the first time the position of the U.S. Confirming that the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership amounts to “a huge transfer of power from people to big business,” […]

Featured

Reinventing Saudi Arabia after Oil: The Prince’s $2 Trillion Gamble

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, 30, the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia laid out his vision for Saudi Arabia on Monday in a plan called “Vision 2030.” He wants to get Saudi Arabia off its oil dependence in only 4 years, by 2020, and wants to […]

Banking

The Chinese are Coming: First ‘New Silk Road’ Train reaches Iran’s Capital

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a sign of China’s increasingly powerful role in Central Asia and the Middle East, on Tuesday a Chinese train arrived in Tehran after a 14-day journey. The freight train just used existing rail links to go from China to Kazakhstan, then to Uzbekistan, then Turkmenistan, […]

Economy

The Surprising Reasons Oil Prices Keep Falling

contributors

By Marcelle Arak and Sheila Tschinkel | (The Conversation) | – – Global stock markets have been in a tailspin this week. And the sinking price of oil received at least some of the blame. Just this week, the cost of a barrel of crude reached a 12-year-low of US$27, down from more than $100 […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Arabs Caught between Trump and ISIL: Casino Capitalism driving backward Identity Politics Worldwide

contributors

Maged Mandour | ( OpenDemocracy) | – – Backwards looking politics is a malaise affecting both the west and east. It breeds violence as global elites clamber to maintain their grip on power. Flickr/Darron Birgenheier. Some rights reserved.Comments by leading republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, on banning Muslims from entering the United States garnered […]

Investment

Investing in Iran after Deal? Be careful of doing business with the Revolutionary Guards

contributors

By Mohammad M. Hedayati-Kakhki | (The Conversation) | – – The merest hint of a successful deal over Iran’s nuclear programme is enough to get people excited. And as the country emerges from economic isolation, nowhere is the enthusiasm more keenly felt than in the huge oil firms with a chance to make a splash […]