Article Economic Issue

Talk about good timing. With Germany assuming the rotating presidencies of the European Union and the Group of Eight (G8) developed nations, the country is enjoying an economic resurgence. It remains a formidable exporter of goods worldwide, its unemployment rate has eased and a recent major tax increase has not dampened economic activity as much as many had feared.

Still, there is some question whether the recovery is sustainable and whether Germany is up to meeting such long-term challenges as an aging population and a declining birth rate, according to faculty members at Wharton and German business schools, as well as other experts. The country continues to grapple with labor market issues that inhibit corporate flexibility at a time of increasing pressures from globalization.

Georgia ignored while snake handlers doze

As soon as Georgians drive out the snake handlers presently snoozing in the shade of the Gold Dome, we need to begin prying our way back into the 21st century. There is much to be done, and not much time left to do it.
If we wait, our sister states will run right over us and leave us with the economic dregs. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia are so far out front in scientific research that we may never catch up. Even Alabama is running ahead. Georgia needs to ratchet up development of our research and teaching ASAP, right after we atone for slavery and prepare for Confederacy Memorial Month.
The University System Regents should cut the bull. The University of Georgia needs a medical school now. It doesnt matter whether the school is a startup or reacquisition of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

Emerging-Market Bonds Advance After US Jobless Rate Declines

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Emerging-market bonds rose, pushing yields over Treasuries to the lowest in almost two weeks, after a report showing the U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly fell in February suggests the world's largest economy keeps expanding.

The U.S.

CHILE: NEW ALCOHOL LAWS TO TARGET UNDERAGE DRINKING

(April 6, 2007) The sale of alcohol in Chile to people under the age of 18 is illegal, as is drinking in public. A walk through any of Santiagos public parks, however, shows that these laws are not always observed. This may be about to change, with new laws set to change the way alcohol is sold in Chile.

Central to the laws are new health warnings on alcohol labels, and the regulation of alcohol advertising on television and at sporting events. And, for the first time, parents of underage drinkers could face fines and even jail sentences. According to the new legislation, between 8 and 12.5 percent of labels on alcoholic drinks must be occupied with health warnings, instead of the 25 percent that was originally proposed. The labels will advise consumers not to drink alcohol if they are pregnant, driving, or underage.

Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia

There was a time in history when travel diaries were the way people in London, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam found out about the countries they had yoked to their imperial ambitions. India, Sumatra, and rural Donegal-the places that funneled raw materials and gold into the great imperial centers-came alive in journals and long letters to leading newspapers. Most the diarists focused on the exotic, but not a few accurately predicted that no matter how many dragoons were sent to terrorize the Irish countryside, insurrectionary groups like the "Whiteboys" would appear in their wake to burn down a landlord's house. Or divined that all the "khaki boys" in the British Army would never quell the fierce Pushtin tribesmen of the Northern Frontier.

Benjamin Dangl, the author of "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia," is a sort of 21st century version of these 18th and 19th century commentators who distained the colonial comforts of Dublin or Delhi to head off into the outback.

EU hits Half Century

The European Union (EU) celebrated its 50th Anniversary at its summit in Berlin under the German Presidency in the last weekend of March. It stands as a solid economic bloc of 450 million people committed to democracy, secularism and a force in the global economy. Its major role in the WTO-Doha Round negotiations could determine the success of those long-delayed negotiations. Most importantly, the EU has been able to create a foreign policy niche for itself by focusing on the "softer" areas like promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law around the world.

In these five decades the very character of the European entity has changed dramatically. From the original six members it now has 27 with Turkey still at the door. The experiment is still the most successful where age-old enmities were laid to rest forever.

Healthy Birds 'Could Be Culled To Stop Flu'

A bird flu outbreak could spread from one farm to dozens of others within weeks unless a mass cull of infected and healthy poultry was carried out, new research has warned.An expert said that in areas where poultry farms are particularly close together, like Norfolk in the UK, it would be difficult to impose measures in time to stop one farm infecting at least one other, and that two or three others will be affected within a week. If widespread culling of infected birds and even "pre-emptive" culling of uninfected birds in surrounding farms is not carried out, the contagious disease would keep spreading at an increasing rate.And even with measures like culling imposed to stop spreading, two recent cases in Italy and Netherlands showed up to ten new farms infected within just two weeks of the initial outbreak.In a new study researchers from Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed recent cases of bird flu strains H7N3, H7N7 and H7N1 in Italy, the Netherlands and Canada to come up with a model to estimate a farm-to-farm reproductive number - a measure of how many other farms the virus is transmitted to from one affected farm.Ideally in an outbreak the number would be below one, meaning no spread had taken place.