This paper explores from a regional perspective the distorted nature of trade in energy products within the CIS countries. The persistence of pricing distortions, barter arrangements, and discriminatory access to pipelines, as well as failure to honor contracts, has disrupted and distorted energy exports to non-CIS countries, undermined energy sector reforms, and distorted investment decisions. The paper focuses on cross-border issues as an integral component of the wider problem of inefficie...

Pan-African banks are expanding rapidly across the continent, creating cross-border networks, and having a systemic presence in the banking sectors of many Sub-Saharan African countries. These banking groups are fostering financial development and economic integration, stimulating competition and efficiency, introducing product innovation and modern management and information systems, and bringing higher skills and expertise to host countries. At the same time, the rise of pan-African bank...

Get ready to travel beyond the boundaries of the known world!In this new collection, 15 writers venture Out There and return to tell of their encounters with aliens and fairies ancient forest dwellers and interplanetary colonists. As their journeys take us through space and time, their tales find answers for what lives closest to our human hearts – love, loss and memory, and all the uncharted connections they trace.Stories by: Amanda M. Blake, Kit ...

Published in English and French under the co-direction of Hans-Helmut Kotz (Resident Fellow, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Jean-Paul Pollin (professor emeritus, University of Orléans), issue 153 of the Revue d'économie financière focuses on inflation.This issue features 28 authors and 19 articles and is divided into 4 chapters:- Histories of inflation- Inflation: differing across countries and income categori...

Diet has consistently been shown to be the dominant source of exposure to the majority of contaminants that pose a threat to human health. However, there is concern that current methods for detection, analysis and risk assessment of chemical residues in food may not accurately reflect the complex cocktail of contaminants to which different groups may be exposed.Chemical contaminants in foods: Understanding and managing risks provides a comprehensive overview of new approac...

Some years—1789, 1929, 1989—change the world suddenly. Or do they? In 2020, a pandemic converged with an economic collapse, inequalities exploded, and institutions weakened. Yet these crises sprang not from new risks but from known dangers. The world—like many patients—met 2020 with a host of preexisting conditions, which together tilted the odds toward disaster. Perhaps 2020 wasn’t the year the world changed; perhaps it was simply the moment the world finally understood its deadly diagnos...

New perspectives on digital scholarship that speak to today's computational realitiesScholars across the humanities, social sciences, and information sciences are grappling with how best to study virtual environments, use computational tools in their research, and engage audiences with their results. Classic work in science and technology studies (STS) has played a central role in how these fields analyze digital technologies, but many of its key examples do not sp...

Park, a 25-year-old Korean man, basks in the sweet tropical sun of a luxury residence in the company of various other people of diverse backgrounds. They're all waited on hand and foot by a team of servants and carers. He spends most of his time with a couple of fun young women. It's paradise. But lately his blissful existence is punctuated with strange hallucinations, like memories of another life. Might this change in his state of mind be because he's stopped drinking the delicious fruit...

The groundbreaking revelations that drew Camille and Miep together are yet to be fully brought to light. The two young women present an ultimatum to Urasawa and the billionaire Grynson. However, they fail to take into account the huge financial and logistical power at Urasawa's disposal, that is from now on inherently linked to Noah, son of the president of the United States, whether he likes it or not. Noah appears to have lost all reason, having become obsessed with the power and profit ...

How does a volunteer for a humanitarian aid program turn into a terrorist? While Fouad, a Belgian nurse, is working for a humanitarian mission to stamp out AIDS in deepest darkest Columbia, he is witness to a kidnapping. A bit of delving soon leads him to fear the worst. What if the WWOA (World War on Aids), the world renowned foundation he's employed by, were using this admirable campaign to eradicate AIDS as a facade for another, much more sinister project? What if they were actually usi...