Pirates have been striking on an almost daily basis during the past ten years, says Cyrus Mody, analyst at the International Maritime Bureau, which is a division of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The European Commission is working on making the arms trade easier inside Europe. At the moment, the European Parliament is discussing a guideline formulated by the Commission at the end of last year.

Although the oil- and foodprices put a damper on the world economy, still there is no lack of optimism in Subsahara Africa.

The 185 members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to an agreement in April on the new partition of the power in the Fund. AQ small step towards a more equitable partition of power was taken.

The increasing food prices, the growing world population, the decline of soil fertility, the lack of water and global warming: all these bottlenecks give an idea of the gigantic challenges agriculture is confronted with.

Until the 30th of May, the ninth meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity takes places in Bonn, Germany. Since the convention has been called into being, after the Summit for Sustainable Development in 1992, the importance of biodiversity has only grown.

Some scornfully call them the ‘Achilles’ heel of capitalism’, while others admire them for being ‘the lubricant of the wheels of the international economy’. For years tax havens have been under fire because of their presumed role in providing a safe haven for money laundering criminal organizations and terrorists. Less known is the fact that they a ...

At the age of 52, Graça Machel for the second time in her life became First Lady. In 1986, her first husband, president Samora Machel of Mozambique, died in a suspicious plane crash. Today Graça is married to Nelson Mandela who has ninety candles on his birthday cake this year!

The large pharmaceutical companies – often referred to as Big Pharma – hold on to a policy of protecting their patents, the high prices and corresponding huge profits. This stubbornness collides with advertised commitment to fight Aids in Africa and hampers more extensive distribution for Aids treatment.

The price of grain broke absolute records worldwide. Good news for farmers: for one ton of wheat, corn or soybeans they get at least 25 percent more than last year. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange the price of wheat rose to three times the price of 1996, 80 percent more than last year.

Until recently all was relatively quiet in the Belgian media about the European activities of the Kurdish Labour Party PKK. Yet the secession movement is said to be pretty active in Western Europe. This was declared only last February on Turkish CNN by Frank Urbancic, assistant-co-ordinator for Antiterrorism at the American department of Foreign Af ...

Bioterror is one of the biggest concerns for the American intelligence, as stated by Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence in The New Yorker magazine early this year. The boss of spies was particularly weary of a pandemic disease like avian influenza (bird flu), especially when used as weapon. “You could turn it into a human virus, caus ...