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Seeds of domesticated squash found by scientists on the western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru are almost 10,000 years old, about twice the age of previously discovered cultivated crops in the region, new, more precise dating techniques have revealed.

The excavations also yielded peanut hulls and cotton fibers — about 8,500 and 6,000 years old, respectively

Their research also turned up traces of other domesticated plants, including a grain, manioc and unidentified fruits, and stone hoes, furrowed garden plots and small-scale irrigation canals from approximately the same period of time.

“Mexicans discovered vulcanization 3,500 years before Goodyear,” said Dorothy Hosler, an M.I.T. professor of archaeology and ancient technology. “The Spanish had never seen anything that bounced like the rubber balls of Mexico.”

Dr. Ochsendorf, a specialist in early architecture and engineering, said the colonial government tried many times to erect European arch bridges across the canyons, and each attempt ended in fiasco until iron and steel were applied to bridge building.

The Inca suspension bridges achieved clear spans of at least 150 feet, probably much greater. This was a longer span than any European masonry bridges at the time. The longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span between supports of 95 feet. And none of these European bridges had to stretch across deep canyons.

Africa’s Structural Transformation Challenge

As researchers at the African Center for Economic Transformation in Accra, Ghana, put it, the continent is “growing rapidly, transforming slowly.”

Fewer than 10% of African workers find jobs in manufacturing, and among those only a tiny fraction – as low as one-tenth – are employed in modern, formal firms with adequate technology. Distressingly, there has been very little improvement in this regard, despite high growth rates. In fact, Sub-Saharan Africa is less industrialized today than it was in the 1980’s. Private investment in modern industries, especially non-resource tradables, has not increased, and remains too low to sustain structural transformation.

China has also invested heavily in building infrastructure, undertaking huge hydroelectric projects like the Merowe Dam on the Nile in Sudan — the biggest Chinese engineering project in Africa — and Ecuador’s $2.3 billion Coca Codo Sinclair Dam. And China is currently involved in the building of more than 200 other dams across the planet, according to International Rivers, a nonprofit environmental organization.

China has become the world’s leading exporter; it also surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest trading nation in 2012.

annual investment from China to the European Union grew from less than $1 billion annually before 2008 to more than $10 billion in the past two years. And in the United States, investment surged from less than $1 billion in 2008 to a record high of $6.7 billion in 2012, according to the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm. Last year, Europe was the destination for 33 percent of China’s foreign direct investment.

The banks’ plight arises from mounting losses on their loans. Between the middle of 2012 and of 2013, the ratio of non-performing to total loans rose from 13.2% to 17.4%, which is the highest level in the euro zone after Greece and Ireland (see chart). The bad debts have been incurred predominantly through lending to businesses.

Only the state can provide the funds needed to recapitalise the banks. It wants them to transfer a big chunk of their bad loans to a state-run “bad bank”, for much less than their original value.

In this respect Slovenia is a textbook case of the problem that has plagued other parts of the euro zone: the link between weak banks, which governments end up recapitalising at great expense, and weak government finances.

Cross-border capital flows abruptly collapsed. Almost five years later, they remain 60% below their pre-crisis peak.

After expanding across national borders with the creation of the euro, eurozone banks have now reduced cross-border lending and other claims within the eurozone by $2.8 trillion since the end of 2007. Other types of cross-border investment in Europe have fallen by more than half. The rationale for the euro’s creation – the financial and economic integration of Europe – is now being undermined.

Current trends seem to be leading toward a more fragmented global financial system in which countries rely primarily on domestic capital formation. Sharper regional disparities in the availability and cost of capital could emerge, particularly for smaller businesses and consumers, constraining investment and growth in some countries. And, while a more balkanized financial system does reduce the likelihood of global shocks creating volatility in far-flung markets, it may also concentrate risks within local banking systems and increase the chance of domestic financial crises.

Lethal Malfeasance in Malawi

a $50 million corruption scandal

Government investigators believe $500 million in donor money was lost to graft during the eight-year reign of Ms. Banda’s predecessor.

Working with five local high schools and a career center in Aiken County, S.C. — and a curriculum nearly identical to the one at the company’s headquarters in Friedrichshafen — Tognum now has nine juniors and seniors enrolled in its apprenticeship program.

Since 2008, the number of apprentices has fallen by nearly 40 percent, according to the Center for American Progress study.

Some 330 types of apprenticeships are accredited by the government in Berlin, including such jobs as hairdresser, roofer and automobile electronics specialist. About 60 percent of German high school students go through some kind of apprenticeship program, which leads to a formal certificate in the chosen skill and often a permanent job at the company where the young person trained.

Lien Phat Ltd.'s factory,

Its supplies are imported. “I mainly take orders from international corporations, who give us materials and designs,” said Truong Thi Thuy Lien, the owner of Lien Phat. “Usually the clients will designate us to certain suppliers, most of them are in China.”

What will it take for the euro zone to cut Greece loose?

Where Apple Products Are Born: A Rare Glimpse Inside Foxconn’s Factory Gates

The 1.4 mile-square Longhua complex, with its 140,000 employees, speaks to Shenzhen’s identity as a global manufacturing hub. The city, once a fishing village in the Pearl River Delta region, was designated as a special economic zone in 1980. Its population swelled from 30,000 to more than 10 million as rural workers migrated to the fast-growing city in search of opportunity.

Though Woo notes, by way of context, that 12 suicides per one million employees is lower than the U.S. suicide rate of 13 per 100,000