Trade in Everything

From The Economist: GIKOMBA market, just north of Nairobi’s downtown, is a place to buy just about anything. At its entrance, where ragged minibuses push their way through rutted red mud, stalls sell piles of pillows, plastic toys, cutlery and soap. But the most common wares are second-hand clothing.

From the Washington Post a few weeks ago: They call it canned hunting. South African ranchers breed lions in captivity, from cubs to adults, then release them just after the arrival of a hunter who pays about $15,000 for a kill. Sometimes the animal is drugged to make it

Even though marijuana has been legalized here and there, it may be a while before it is traded internationally.  But what if there is a new kind of marijuana, one that relieves pain without the high?  This is from the Washington Post: In a greenhouse in the mountains of the

Apparently, there is not enough crime in the Netherlands to fill their prisons, so they are looking elsewhere for occupants.  At the same time, the Norwegians are facing a shortage of prison space due to "renovations." (Granite countertops in the kitchens?)  Luckily, international trade has come to the

From the Washington Post: There is no shortage of problems facing China these days: a terrorist attack that recently left 33 people dead and 143 injured, corruption in government, a worrisome slowdown in economic growth. So when the country’s two highest governing bodies met in Beijing this week, what

From the WSJ: Three years ago, International Paper Co. closed an enormous mill [in Franklin, Virginia] that for generations had churned out white office paper, putting 1,100 people out of work and dealing a major blow to this tidewater city of 8,500. Now, the world's largest

This Bloomberg article talks about the difficulties certain Pacific nations have had with taking measures to restrict imports of unhealthy food, without violating WTO rules.  The focus is on Samoa's accession committments related to imports of turkey tails: After a 13-year wait, the South Pacific island nation of

From the Daily Mail: An entire Boeing 747 has been hired at £330,000 per trip to fly pigs in more comfort on the 5,500-mile journey than humans often have in economy class. It is an extraordinary turn of events for a country of 1.3 billion once known

From the AP: Northern Maine is 7,000 miles and a world away from China, but that's not stopping a school superintendent from recruiting Chinese students to attend public high school in this remote mill town. Faced with declining enrollments and shrinking revenues, public school districts from Maine

Via the IPEZone, I came across this: At least 2,300 Filipino nurses have refused to be evacuated even after the United Nations approved military strikes against Libya. Acting [Filipino] Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the nurses, 2,000 of whom are based in capital Tripoli and 383