Liu Xiao spends her weeks visiting sludge and organic waste treatment plants across China. The travel can be tiring but as a technical and policy adviser on waste management she must help implement President
CPC Corporation of Taiwan, the state-owned oil company, said yesterday it hoped to resume joint oil exploration soon with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in the Taiwan Strait, which divides the self-governing island from the Chinese mainland. The plan reflects hopes that a warmer political climate between Beijing and Taipei could revive the sensitive project, which has been held up for years by tensions between China's Communist government and the island's democratically elected government.
As the credit crunch intensifies, carmakers are turning to an unusual way of moving vehicles off dealership lots: offering to throw in the petrol. In the UK, Fiat offers a payment-free period of nine months plus
Historically, there have been tenuous links between farmers and food producers, with many companies having scant knowledge of how and where their ingredients are grown. But as the prices of raw materials soar - from the barley used to make beer or the cocoa used to make chocolate - leading brewers and food manufacturers from Cadbury Schweppes to Diageo are increasingly recognising their businesses will benefit from investment in agriculture.
Crude oil prices could surge to $200 a barrel in the next two years, according to theGoldman Sachs analyst who three years ago correctly predicted a price "super-spike" above $100 a barrel. The warning by Arjun Murti came as oil prices hit a fresh record high above $122 a barrel, boosted by supply disruptions in Nigeria, lower output in Russia and continued robust demand in China ahead of the Olympics. Mr Murti said the energy crisis could be coming to a head as a lack of adequate supply growth was becoming apparent.
Sir, Contrary to Martin Wolf's article "Food crisis is a chance to reform global agriculture' (April 30), the riots or disturbances that have, unfortunately, taken place in some parts of the world have not occurred in the Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her administration have been working diligently to address challenges arising from the slowdown in the global economy combined with the spike in high oil and food prices.
For Burma's normally reclusive military rulers, resented by their own citizens and mistrustful of the outside world's intentions, the devastation wrought by tropical cyclone Nargis has posed an uncomfortable dilemma at a sensitive political moment. With the numbers of dead and missing now exceeding 60,000, the generals
For years, food policy in the Middle East and North Africa was very simple: hydrocarbon exports paid for carbohydrate imports. Rising agricultural commodities prices and a large population increase mean that the traditional policy is now untenable even if crude oil trades at about $120 a barrel, forcing countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, to reconsider how it feeds its population. "The region has woken up to the new food market reality," says Abdolreza Abbassian, an expert at the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome.
Russia on Tuesday signed off on a series of steep price rises for domestic gas, power and railway services for the next four years on the eve of Dmitry Medvedev's inauguration as the country's new president.
President George W. Bush offered to send US naval forces to help cyclone-devastated Burma yesterday as the number of people dead and missing soared to 60,000. Mr Bush said the US, which has long-standing trade and investment sanctions against Burma, stood ready to "do a lot more to help", but that the ruling generals had first to open the door to the US. "We're prepared to help move navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing and to help stabilise the situation," said Mr Bush, who has been a fierce critic of the regime.
Seven years ago, the Jatias, a Mumbai hotelier family, bought land in the city's derelict former textile mills district that was partly occupied by slums and was faced by a large shanty town - hardly where most would site a five-star hotel. But this week, after years of navigating red tape, the 202-room Four Seasons Mumbai became the first luxury hotel of its size to launch in the city's south in about 20 years.
