GLOBAL ECONOMY: Financial Express (India): The International Monetary Fund will give China and other emerging economies a larger voice to match their increasing size, in an effort to win greater acceptance of the fund’s recommendations on currencies and government finances. Greater freedom to emerging economies could augur well for India. South Korea, Mexico and Turkey also would get more voting power under a proposal approved by the fund’s executive board in Washington, managing director Rodrigo de Rato said. Read more...

Comment: Part of the Post-Cold-War reordering of the global economy and the rise of Asia as an economic and political powerhouse.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Australian: The world's top climate scientists have cut their worst-case forecast for global warming over the next 100 years. A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body's forecasts five years ago. Read more...

Comment: This assertion is based on an average of climate models developed in recent years. I would like to know what “normal” climatic changes are happening around us, as part of the planet's normal pattern of climatic change, and I would like to know where the tipping point is. Still little research on these essential parts of the climatic equation, that does not appear to be addressed by any of these models.

URBANIZATION: Al Jazeera: Thousands of Polish workers at the ailing Gdansk shipyard,  where the Solidarity movement was formed that brought down communism, have pinned their hopes on a government plan aimed at saving their workplace. Read more...

Comment: More signs of trying times as the Second World adjusts to a market economy, a long and difficult process. Also an indicator of some of the difficult times facing the EU as it integrates with these former communist countries into an economic alliance capable of standing against Asia and North America.

COMMUNICATIONS TRENDS: Chief Marketer: For now, Gen Y uses its Web-enabled mobile phone more as a toy, or source of entertainment, than as an information or commerce tool. ... But it is the older generations, particularly seniors, who are most likely to access the Web via their phones to purchase event tickets, check financial accounts or stock quotes or send or research products for purchase. Read more...

Comment: Instant communications have changed the way we live, work, and play. The different ways that the youngest generation uses this technology is an indication of what is likely to be the norm in the next decade, in the same way that each current generation adapts their use of this technology to their existing lifestyle.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: Washington Post: With Washington lawmakers deadlocked on how best to curb global warming, state and local officials across the country are adopting ambitious policies and forming international alliances aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. But in the meantime, some businesses say the local and state actions are creating a patchwork of regulations that they must contend with. Read more...

Comment: This seems to be part of a concerted campaign across the US to create bottom-up national environmental policy where the Federal Government refuses to act in accordance with prevailing public opinion. This seems to be a conscious strategy by environmental groups, and reflects a shift in political awareness that is likely to be adopted by other activist and industrial groups across a wider variety of issues. Bottom-up policy creation to put pressure on a national government is now a part of the political how-to manual. Is your locality under similar pressure, and from whom for what reason?

THINKING BIG: LA Times: "Someday, they'll build it," he says, holding up an old promotional poster for his "Alaska-California Sub-Oceanic Fresh Water Transport System" — a $150-billion pipeline that would tap the glacier-fed wild rivers of the Last Frontier and deliver the water 2,000 miles to Los Angeles. Outlandish, perhaps, though so is another unrealized Hickel brainchild — a $30-billion, 55-mile rail and highway tunnel under the Bering Strait, connecting Alaska with Siberia. Read more...

Comment: Is thinking big a lost art? As the world's problems multiply in sheer size and number, our focus is becoming more local. I suspect it is visionaries that think big that will actually find the solutions.

HOUSING: International Herald Tribune: Real estate prices have risen as much as 100 percent in the eight former communist states that joined the EU in 2004, driven by buyers from Western Europe. Many local residents, with less than a quarter the buying power of their neighbors, have been locked out of the market, adding to frustration with EU membership and eroding support for budget cuts needed to adopt the euro. Read more...

Comment: Real estate prices are inflated through much of the developed world, and the expectation of perpetual capital gains coupled with re-mortgaging to take advantage of increased equity has lead to inflating residential prices in a number of developing countries like Thailand and Eastern Europe. The demand for property in attractive locations is reforming the global residential market as it has already done within the developed world. Many countries now have problems with a shortage of affordable housing to meet existing needs. However, perpetual capital gains from housing value is a fantasy. With residential prices up to double their true worth and interests rates due for a rise. The slightest sense of panic unloading in the residential market will see a major jump from the “lets buy an investment property” bandwagon to the “sell all your property now!” bandwagon. House prices WILL go back to their normal level, and a lot of people are likely to get burned when they do.

TRANSPORT: Asia Times: The monumental Asian Highway network, which will weave through 32 countries and link Asia with Europe, is making progress, with a section in Vietnam the latest to be finished. While many issues such as customs procedures remain to be addressed, the completed system could well become more important than its Silk Road ancestor. Read more...

Comment: A road link between Europe and Asia will do a lot more than facilitate trade between the two endpoints. It will also allow market access for all the points along these connecting routes, and it will impact on the seaports that have services Europe/Asia trade over the last 500 years.

WORLD ECONOMY: Asia Times: A global shift of capital from West to East is under way. While one of the main reasons - the "Chindia" growth story - is well known, less publicized has been a shift of private bank accounts from traditional havens such as Switzerland to the free ports of Singapore and Hong Kong. Read more...

Comment: Another sign of the times, and of the major realignment of the world that is occurring around us. London, New York and Tokyo have been the traditional capitals of capital during the 20^th Century, but it looks like the balance is definitely shifting east. Its time for western cities to realize this and plan their moves, and for eastern cities to find their place in this new economic order. Vietnam also seems to be attracting a lot of smart money at present.

HOUSING: CS Monitor: All four US regions have now seen existing-house sales drop since a year ago. A nationwide housing boom gave the current economic expansion its biggest boost. Read more...

Comment: Housing markets around the world have been booming over the last 10 years, and pushing local economies to new heights in the process. But what goes up will come down. Many countries, including the US seem to be poised near the top of this cycle, just waiting for the tipping point that will see prices tumble back to their real values. Once the US residential market starts to drop, the effect will do more than ripple across the world. Forewarned is fore-armed.