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Thomas Mathew writes: Here I am, in France, witnessing the disruption to train services that is causing a great deal of anger among those who use the trains to go to and from work. Shortly after Nicolas Sarkozy became President, he stated that it was no longer acceptable that the trade unions could hold the public to ransom and passed a law forcing the unions to run a minimum of at least two trains per main route per day during [...]

Martin McCauley writes: The Communist Party of China (CPC) is proud of its handling of the economy. The ‘China Model’ consists of a monopoly of political power for the Party and a freewheeling market economy for the masses. It has been remarkably successful. The model began to take shape in the 1980s and since then has delivered high growth rates. It has lifted over 300 million people out of poverty. The downside of the model is that the gulf in [...]

Thomas Mathew writes: The more we, at StirringTroubleInternationally, hear about the scandal surrounding the four Labour peers, who have been accused of accepting money in return for introducing changes to legislation on behalf of ‘overseas clients’, the more we suspect that there is something fishy about this whole affair. Just to remind everyone what has happened: undercover reporters from The Sunday Times, posing as ‘lobbyists’ working for foreign businessmen, had approached a number of members of the House of Lords [...]

Sometimes I wonder: what actually drives the financial markets? Are all of these investors and brokers and traders and analysts for real or are they just greedy money grabbing speculators, with no understanding of how things work in the real world? On Monday you could have been forgiven for thinking that collective idiocy had descended on the London Stock Exchange: banking shares rallied when the markets opened and finished the day on a high. Barclays shares went up on Monday [...]

 Martin McCauley writes: January 23rd 2009 was a red letter day for the Russian energy giants, Gazprom and Lukoil. In Tashkent, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia signed a bilateral agreement on gas exports. It confirms Russia’s monopoly of the export of Uzbek gas. In return, Gazprom and Lukoil will now pay $305 per thousand cubic metres, almost double the present price. President Karimov stated that Uzbekistan was selling gas only to Russia. ‘It is [...]

Martin McCauley writes: Russia is failing to meet China’s demands for energy and military hardware. Beijing is desperate to ensure long term supplies of oil and gas to feed its industries in the next ten years. Despite this, China and Russia cannot agree any deals. The main reason is price. China will simply not pay European prices for hydrocarbons. At present oil is transported by rail to China. Pipelines have to be built but Moscow does not have the money [...]

You would not believe what is happening in Putin’s Russia. Strange things are happening there and it appears that the Russian leadership has entered a period when it has lost all touch with reality. We do we start? OK, let’s start with the call by the First Deputy Head of The Kremlin Administration (that would be like deputy chief of staff in the White House in the US) Vladislav Surkov to members of the ruling United Russia party to stage [...]

Thomas Mathew writes: there is something really odd about the scandal surrounding the four Labour peers who have been accused by The Sunday Times of agreeing to take cash to help change the laws in favour of some ‘overseas clients’. Reporters from the newspaper posing as ‘lobbyists’ approached the four members of the House of Lords and supposedly offered them money to help introduce amendments to bills going through parliament. The four allegedly agreed to do it. We, at StirringTroubleInternationally, [...]

Martin McCauley writes: The richest province in China is Guandong, formerly Canton. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year was 3.4 trillion yuan ($496 billion). The second richest was Shandong province with its GDP growing last year by 13 per cent to overshoot 3 trillion yuan. The next most prosperous was Jiangsu which managed 2.5 trillion yuan in 2007. Now 13 of the 31 provinces and municipalities have GDPs which exceed 1 trillion yuan. In 2001 Guandong was the first [...]

Thomas Mathew writes: It is official now: Britain is in the grips of a recession. Finally, after months of pretending that things were not as bad as they seemed, the government has conceded that yes, the British economy is in recession, and yes, things are really bad, just as everyone thought hey were. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confessed publicly that he did not see the crisis coming. He did not actually take the responsibility for sleepwalking into the biggest [...]