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Set Up for Failure: UK Prime-Minister Approaching Point of No Return
Be careful what you wish for. As UK Prime-Minister David Cameron bravely insists on pushing through far-reaching reforms of the EU labour market – doublespeak for introducing checks on the free movement of people across the union – his yet-to-be
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Elif Shafak: Exposing the Moralising Slappers
Born in 1971 to a diplomat mother and philosopher father, Elif Shafak was destined for intellectual greatness. She did not fail to heed the call and today is Turkey’s most widely read and celebrated female author with thirteen books to
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Forbidden Pleasures: France Flouting EU Budget Rules
“A budget proposal written by poets and alchemists.” That’s how a visibly annoyed EU diplomat in Brussels described the 60-page draft budget for 2015 France submitted last week to the European Commission. While the document speaks of “substantial efforts at
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Frans Timmermans: A Knowledgeable Pragmatist
He is rather unassuming and speaks softly without carrying a big stick. Dutch foreign affairs minister Frans Timmermans, however, has put his small country back on the world map after his predecessors beat a retreat to behind the dikes and
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World Investment Forum: Seeking Ways to Unlock the Idle Trillions
As the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, business and government leaders from across the world gathered this week in Geneva for the biennial World Investment Forum (WIF). The UNCTAD-sponsored four-day event brought together
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Sustainable Stock Exchanges: Urgent Need for Simple Metrics
The 4th biennial Global Dialogue on the Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) Initiative, concluded yesterday (10/14) at the United Nations Geneva headquarters, unveiled the urgent need for all stakeholders – stock exchanges, regulators, investors, and businesses – to adopt simple, yet
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Sustainable Stock Exchanges: The Relevance of Green Indices
At the fourth Global Dialogue of Sustainable Stock Exchange (SSE) Initiative, last Tuesday in Geneva, Nasdaq OMX vice-chairman Meyer “Sandy” Frucher livened up discussions by spelling out a few hard-hitting truths. Though delivered in way that elicited chuckles from the
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WIF: Start-Up Democracy Tunisia Steals the Show
Interim Prime-Minister Mehdi Jomâa of Tunisia has offered to host the next World Investment Forum (WIF), scheduled to take place two years from now. In Geneva for the 2014 WIF, an event organised by the United Nations Conference on Trade
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World Bank Group: Can Resource-Financed Infrastructure Fix the Natural Resource Curse?
By Håvard Halland, John Beardsworth, Bryan Land, and James Schmidt How can resource-rich countries ensure that a sufficiently large share of oil, gas, and mining revenues are used for productive investment rather than excessive or wasteful consumption? “Resource-financed infrastructure” (RFI)
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The Underrated Modesty of Executive Pay at the World Bank
There are moments in time when the proverbial storm in a teacup serves to underscore a point. The World Bank Group is living one such moment. The bank is in the midst of a possibly painful restructuring process that is
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