TED Logo

Rose George: Inside the secret shipping industry

Curious journalist, Rose George looks deeply into topics that are unseen but fundamental, whether it’s sewers or latrines or massive container ships or pirate hostages or menstrual hygiene. In this revealing TED talk, we are reminded of how almost everything we own and use, travels to us by container ship. This happens through a vast…

The Economist Logo

A world of robber barons

According to the Economist, the relationship between business and the state bears some resemblance to the Rhine in the Middle Ages. Like those Rhine boatmen, the companies operating within national borders must pay something towards the cost of supporting commerce, but if the tolls are excessive, trade will suffer. In such a scenario, some of the world’s 200…

Bloomberg.com logo

Keystone Foes Struggle for Silver Lining in U.S. Report

Environmental activists have inflated a long balloon to mock a pipeline – protesting against the Keystone pipeline project during a demonstration in front of the White House. Activists fighting the Keystone XL pipeline are digging deep into a more than 7,000-page environmental analysis to marshal reasons President Barack Obama should reject the project. But finding a…

Insight: Merkel’s Europe – how her men run Brussels

Insight: Merkel’s Europe – how her men run Brussels

German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Angela Merkel falls under Reuters’ political spotlight this month. As Angela Merkel forms a new coalition government after a third successive election triumph, the conservative chancellor can build on efforts, in place since her first term in 2005, that have increased the number of Germans in…