Wednesday-Night

More on Biofuels and clean energy
Race for biofuels heats up in Africa
The drive to produce crops such as sugar cane and palm oil that can be converted into biofuels is spurring land grabs across Africa that may contribute to food shortages and deforestation, Friends of the Earth says in a new report. […]

Japan as number three: Watching China whizz by
Japan is now the world’s third-largest economy. Can its firms cope?
(The Economist) FIVE years ago China’s economy was half as big as Japan’s. This year it will probably be bigger (see chart 1). Quarterly figures announced this week showed that China had overtaken its ancient rival. It had […]

A lighter look at the European debt situation

Greece on Wednesday-Night.com ; Europe & EU
Europa Gateway to the European Union; EU Observer ; Special: European Union ;
What to Read on the European Union
Q&A: The Lisbon Treaty
The Lisbon Treaty could finally come into effect in 2009, eight years after European leaders launched a process to […]

Almost every rule of Wednesday Night was broken on this occasion, but there was much jollity and mirth at the beginning of the evening.
Unusually, we started off with a word quiz. Gerald Ratzer stumped the assembly with the words parging and crazing. It appears that several Wednesday Nighters have recently indulged in these exotic behaviors […]

BP Spill Seeps Into Norway’s Arctic Drilling Debate
(Planet Ark/Reuters) Norway’s decades-old political consensus on offshore drilling is under attack in the wake of the BP oil spill, just as it covets new riches in the Arctic.
The powerful oil industry says it needs to tap resources off the Arctic archipelagoes of Lofoten and Vesteraalen and in […]

Kosovo readies bid for UN membership
Kosovo’s foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, will meet with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and address the Security Council next week as part of Kosovo’s bid to obtain UN membership. Hyseni predicts a wave of official recognitions of statehood from other countries, following an International Court […]

Wednesday-Night.com for photos and more
Ron Meisels was warmly congratulated on the recent announcement of the Caldwell Meisels Canada Fund (formerly the Caldwell Canada Fund), reflecting “the recent hiring of prominent technical analyst, Ron Meisels, President of Phases & Cycles Inc., as a consultant to the Fund”.
The Census Brouhaha (more on Canada 2010: The census debate)
Prior […]

Musings on the media and the sale of the Montreal Gazette
Update: No surprise — Gazette to go Web only on Sundays
Montreal has, in some ways, developed into a microcosm, its Anglophone population, a relatively small population within an important multicultural community. Until recently CanWest owned the one Montreal based English language daily, […]

Europe and European Council ; Greece on Wednesday-Night.com
Israel loses Turkey, gains Greece as strategic partner
(DEBKA) Greece, a NATO member like Turkey with plenty of Middle East interests, has shown interest in stepping into Turkey’s shoes and investing in stronger military and intelligence ties.
27 June
Greece to test markets with July T-bill auctions
(Reuters) - Greece said on […]

Komorowski wins Polish presidential election
Bronislaw Komorowski, the candidate of Poland’s ruling pro-business Civic Platform (PO), won Sunday’s presidential election run-off, exit polls showed, in an outcome that will be applauded by investors.
Financial markets will welcome the result because Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk are close allies from the same party, and the new president […]