Somalia-based piracy attacks have decreased significantly in the course of 2013. As international efforts to combat Somali-based piracy begin to deliver results, however, there is growing concern over the marked increase in piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, particularly targeted at the region’s oil and gas sector.
The creation of Free Trade Areas (FTAs) and the rapid growth of large emerging economies such as those of Brazil, India and China have changed the global market and shifted the basis of negotiations for concluding the Doha Development Round.
Go to any conference in the world and say ‘Doha Development Agenda’, and the room is likely to empty. But not in China. Recently I was impressed with the degree of interest amongst China’s trade policy elite in the future of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the global trading system of which it is a part.
Tata left us on 5 December 2013, a few months before we celebrate 20 years of South Africa’s democracy, and hold our fifth democratic elections. Since then my memories of a February, 24 years ago, in 1990 have flooded back to me.
India embraced the concept of green growth advocated at the G-20 forum primarily because it did not compromise on its pursuit of prosperity through economic growth.
Go to any conference in the world and say ‘Doha Development Agenda’, and the room is likely to empty. But not in China. Recently I was impressed with the degree of interest amongst China’s trade policy elite in the future of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the global trading system of which it is a part.
Before 16 August 2012, the platinum-mining South African town of Marikana was still largely unknown outside the mining sector. On that fateful day, everything changed. A toxic cocktail of a brutal police force and grievance-mobilised workers resulted in the death of 34 striking mineworkers.
Three years ago this author reflected on how the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ought to adapt and evolve in order to stay relevant. The focus was on the changes the multilateral trading system has faced over the years from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the WTO we know today.
Despite their well-researched and widely recognised socioeconomic and ecological value, mangroves are among the world’s most threatened vegetation types.
At the 33rd Summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held in Malawi in August Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax of Tanzania was appointed as the new Executive Secretary. SAIIA would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr Tax on her new role in the region. Dr Tax inherits an organisation with a chequered past and a challenging future.
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