Worldcrunch
CIUDAD JUAREZ – A maquiladora, or maquila, is an offshoring factory or manufacturing plant operated under U.S.-Mexico free trade agreements to encourage the development of industry in Mexico. Mexico allows materials used in maquilas to enter duty-free, provided the finished product is then immediately exported out of Mexico. The U.S. in turn charges these products […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch HAMBURG – Train them young! Die Welt reports that a German consumer protection group has charged Pampers with systematically deceiving consumers by reducing the number of diapers in a pack, without changing the way they are presented in the packaging. “It’s a way of raising prices on the sly,” says Armin […]
PARIS – This year’s results just came in and all your executives are gathered together in one of those soulless convention centers. Everyone is listening to the top honchos giving a speech about how next year will be full of opportunities – but only if each employee rolls up their sleeves. After two weeks of […]
SONNTAGS ZEITUNG (Germany), LE MATIN (Switzerland), SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) Worldcrunch GENEVA – You might remember Australian actor Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee movie, the 1986 comedy about a crocodile hunter from the deep Aussie bush who falls in love with an American journalist and follows her to the urban jungles of New York City. […]
AMERICA ECONOMIA (Chile) 

 Worldcrunch SANTIAGO – The rapid expansion of large Latin American companies is pushing up demand for private airplanes and helicopters like never before. The reasons are simple – these companies want the speed, flexibility and autonomy that private air transport provides. The only problem: There are not enough pilots, America Economia […]
New programs in Germany share business and entrepreneurial know-how with the dreamer demographic.
BLOOMBERG, AP Worldcrunch TOKYO – The global auto industry faces another major recall crisis after defective airbags have forced Japanese carmakers Toyota, Honda, Mazda and Nissan Motor to call back more than 3 million vehicles. A spokesman for Japanese auto parts maker Takata Corp revealed the airbag malfunction on Thursday, blaming it on “human errors.” […]
Step inside the diamond market in Surat, where billions worth of the precious stone circulate every month. There are serious concerns about both security and origins.
Bono, Bowie, and the Rolling Stones, not to mention Apple, Google and Microsoft keep an address in the Netherlands, which doesn’t tax profits by foreigners. What do locals say?
CALAIS – Jacques Gounon is very happy. The CEO of the Eurotunnel Group has just announced the launch of a huge real-estate project in Sangatte, on France’s northern coast. If the name rings a bell to newspaper readers, it is because Sangatte is where up until 2002, there was a massive refugee center, housing asylum […]
MOSCOW – The past month has brought record-breaking snowfall and cold snaps throughout central Russia. But the bad weather has done much more than spoil people’s moods and clog roads — it has raised new alarms about global climate change. First the data: March was one of the coldest in the past 50 years in […]
In a recent interview, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill, whose pen gave birth to the concept of the BRICs —the constellation of emerging economic powers Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and now including South Africa) — said the countries’ combined growth had “exceeded all expectations.” Noted O’Neill, “in slightly over a decade the group’s GDP has […]
SANTIAGO – Venezuelan television network Globovision has announced it had accepted a purchase offer, and its sale would be finalized shortly after the presidential election on April 14. Globovision’s board of directors explained that they were selling the station because its operation had become both legally and financially impossible due to harassment from the government […]
In the private sector as in politics, a small group of influential dynasties still rule the country. Being on the outside, makes a play on power virtually impossible.
When a crooked system is allowed to fester, there are few who are free of blame — and little chance we will remained unscathed. A view from the European Union’s eastern front.
New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has big economic ambitions for his country — and it may require a slap to its largest regional trading partner.
CAIXIN MEDIA (China), REUTERS Worldcrunch BEIJING – It wasn’t so long ago that its booming spending power and growth potential were calling all the world’s retail giants to set up shop in China. But according to Caixin media, a relative economic slowdown and the rapid rise of its e-commerce is prompting many of those foreign […]
AP (USA), BBC, THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Cyprus has no intention of leaving the euro zone, President Nicos Anastasiades said in a press conference on Friday. “In no way will we experiment with the future of our country,” declared President Anastasiades. He said the situation of the country had been “contained” following its […]
ADDIS ABABA – Initially, her idea was to provide work for her family in her native village of Zenabework, about 30 kilometers from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. When she announced that she was going to start her own company on a plot of land lent by her grandmother, everyone said: You are crazy! You […]
BBC, REUTERS, TWITTER Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Banks in Cyprus have reopened Thursday after a two-week closure as the government was forced to accept a strict European Union rescue package to avoid bankrupcy. As discussions between the EU and the International Monetary Fund took place, eventually culminating in Sunday night’s late bailout deal, the doors had […]
Vladimir Putin is genuinely convinced that protests against his rule are fomented abroad
NICOSIA – The festival atmosphere on this sunny morning in Nicosia doesn’t match the bad vibes coming out of Brussels. The Faneromeni church in the heart of Cyprus’s capital is decked out with garlands made of hundreds of blue and white Greek flags and Cypriot flags with the shape of the island nation depicted in […]
BLOOMBERG, REUTERS Worldcrunch BRUSSELS – European banks climbed after Cyprus reached an overnight, last-minute deal with its international creditors on a 10 billion-euro ($13 billion) bailout. European and Asian shares rallied on Monday at the news of the rescue bailout, with U.S. yields also rising, thus ending a week of financial panic worldwide. In Brussels, […]
LUXEMBOURG – For Wolfgang Schäuble, the world is sometimes a pretty simple place. Cyprus, for example, just had the wrong business model. Those were the words the German Finance Minister used to explain the problems that that European Union island nation is experiencing now. According to Schäuble, the Mediterranean state counted too much on its […]
NICOSIA – Cyprus is in a state of shock. The banks have been closed for days and somehow, the country has to raise 5.8 billion euros to qualify for the bailout package proposed by euro zone finance ministers. The initial rejection by the Cypriot parliament to the controversial bank account levy plan, has left this […]
NICOSIA – The Cyprus Parliament’s initial rejection of the terms of the European Union bailout plan is bad news for Russia. The opposition to the required taxes on bank deposits means the risk is rising of a long-term freezing of corporate assets in Cyprus. Meanwhile new proposals for taxes on depositors in the island could […]
BERLIN – With all its other problems, the euro is also getting unexpected — and “underground” — competition from a new virtual currency. It’s called the bitcoin, and in case you haven’t heard, it is the most ambitious (and to-date, successful) attempt to create a new online currency, generated by the calculations of thousands of […]
With his proposal to cut bonuses for European bankers, Belgian politician Philippe Lamberts has become public enemy No. 1 for Britain’s financial industry. Nothing could make him happier.
LIBERATION, LE PARISIEN, LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – French President Francois Hollande’s government faces its first confidence vote Wednesday over its handling of the country’s finances as a government heavyweight resigns over allegations of tax fraud. The confidence vote was called by the opposition Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP). While it is […]
It’s the failure of an entire business model, not just a few banks. Who might be next?
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Global markets tumbled Monday as new doubts spread about the solvency of the eurozone with the Cypriot government preparing to impose a new levy on bank deposits in order to qualify for bailout funds. Finance ministers in the eurozone Sunday had demanded that Cypriots pay up to 10% of their […]
SANTIAGO – On January 16th a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from All Nippon Airlines (ANA) was forced to perform an emergency landing in a regional airport after smoke was detected in the electric compartment. This was the fourth incident in less than a month for one of the world’s most state-of-the-art aircrafts. Dreamliner had represented a […]
The death of Hugo Chavez, who propped up Venezuela with oil profits, is another reminder that Latin America needs to look for economic development beyond natural resources.
PARIS – The future of the “Made in France” label doesn’t just hinge on Champagne, Airbus or luxury handbags. The Bic company’s annual report, released on Feb. 13, proves it – it’s possible to make a good living in the West with an alternative economic model based on mass-produced cheap products. The company still makes […]
OBAMA-PUTIN PHONE CALL, EU SANCTIONSDuring a one-hour phone conversation, President Barack Obama told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he had violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity by sending troops into Crimea, The Daily Telegraph reports. Putin in turn told Obama that the new Kiev government had imposed “absolutely illegitimate decisions on the eastern, southeastern […]
-Essay- WARSAW – Poland has always lacked capital for important investments. The roads have always been bad, muddy, full of ruts and potholes. We have great universities, but they are woefully underfunded. In Poland there have always been “islands of modernity in a sea of backwardness,” according to economic historian Witold Kula. In this sense, […]
Worldcrunch After 9/11, the list of items and products banned on US flights got much longer. But the news from the Transport Security Administration (TSA) is that folding knife blades –and sports equipment – are now permitted again, in order for security personnel to focus on explosive devices. The official report states the following: “TSA […]
AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, AAP (Australia) Worldcrunch SYDNEY – It’s not called the “Lucky Country” for nothing. Australia’s resource-rich economy continued to expand last quarter, extending the country’s run of 21 years of uninterrupted growth. Fourth-quarter GDP grew by 0.6% from the previous quarter, and 3.1% from a year earlier according to the […]
BARCELONA – Bas van Abel brought a novel idea to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The 35-year-old Dutch entrepreneur is currently at work, with ten others, on the first “FairTrade” smartphone – a phone that will contain no gold mined in war zones, will not be assembled in a soulless Chinese factory, and will […]