PARIS - President François Hollande of France has begun a major charm offensive to convince the world that France is open for business in a bid to lure back investments, which have slumped since he took office. In this article author talks about the measures taken by the president of France François Hollande. Recently he has gathered chiefs of the largest multinational companies and investment funds to speak about the needs of France in the investments. He has admitted that France may appear as a country with some complexity in the process of investment, however, France is ready to open itself up. Article also talks about some other aspects one of them is the measures taken by the government related to government spending and taxation.

This article talks about the relationship between the success of a country at the olympics and its Human Development Index. The countries that had a higher HDI won more medals than countries with low Human Development Index. Nevertheless, Ethiopia hasn't followed the trend. With HDI equal to 0.33, Ethiopia came 29th in the end of the games. It is not surprising that there is a relationship between HDI and number of medals. In developing countries sports are often not as popular as in developed countries. In the US students are encouraged to develop both educational and extra-curricular skills. While on the other hand, in lots of developing countries education is the only aspect that values.

This article talks about an international event that will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2017. Kazakhstan expects three to five millions of visitors. Such event will beneficially affect the economy of the country. It will not only result in an economic growth, but will possibly lead to a significant boost in economic development. The topic of the Expo 2017 is Future Energy. Such topic will lead to the development of the sustainable ways of using energy. Using sustainable ways in the first place for Kazakhstan would mean using approaches that will decrease the air pollution. Decrease in air pollution can be considered as an improvement of the quality of life and improvement of the welfare of country. In my opinion, Expo 2017 is a very important event for Kazakhstan as well as for the rest of the world. It will significantly impact the economy of Kazakhstan. Preparation part is one of the main stages of the Expo. It will create a lot of new jobs, due to constructions that will be held in Astana.

This article talks about the new monetary union between Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Leaders of the countries have recently signed an agreement with the expectation that it will to boost the economy through the change of currency. That change would not only encourage the trade between the countries, but also would attract more investors. Kitariko,chief executive officer at African Alliance Uganda, said, however, that achieving a successful monetary union would require convergence of the union's economies, hinting that some challenges lay ahead.

This article focuses on the trade deficit of Japan. Japan's trade deficit nearly doubled in October, as growth in imports outpaced robust increases in exports to the U.S. and China, the Finance Ministry reported Wednesday. There are several factors that led to trade deficit. Firstly, the weakening of the yen over the past year had its significant impact on imports and exports. After meltdown of the nuclear power plant in 2011, Japan has faced loss of the generation capacity, therefore forcing Japan to import natural gas and oil. Overall, weakening in the Japanese yen over the past year has helped exports, but it has also increased the cost of imports.However, the exports are not as stable as they could be. Slowdown in economic growth of China has led to decrease in demand for Japanese exports.Overall the article talks about the details of the trade deficit of Japan.

This article talks about the trade surplus of Germany. According to one German worker's statement, Germans work hard to make all their exports. However, the data shows that Germany makes as much exports as the US, but it imports much less. Therefore, Germany has faced a surplus, while the US has a trade deficit. It has been suggested that Germany should decrease their surplus, not through decrease of the exports, but through increase in imports. Increase in exports from other countries would lead to improvement of the economies of other countries like Spain, France, etc.

This article talks about the recent shutdown of the US government and its effect on the American currency. The author of the article questions whether the US dollar will save its supremacy and will stay an international currency as it used to be. The government shutdown has seriously affected the value of the US dollar. Therefore, affecting everybody who has held their money in that currency, "China, the largest foreign owner of US treasury bonds, would feel much of the pain." This serves as an example of the factors that affect the currency and what are the consequences of it.

The author of the article talks about Indonesia. It focuses on the attempts of central bank of Indonesia to defend the rupiah, "which has slid some 12 percent so far this year amid a global emerging markets rout." The currency has fallen to its weakest levels since April 2009, as worries about the country's current account deficit and high inflation rate have sparked a sell-off of Indonesian assets. Sudden declines in rupiah and local stocks over the last week, necessitated central bank to take part. Emergency fiscal and monetary policies that were announced last week, had done little to improve the current situation. Therefore, currently to protect its currency, Indonesian central bank attempts to raise the rates.

This article talks about the negotiations between China and the EU. The concern of the two countries is about the Chinese exports of solar panels to the EU. The representatives of the EU consider the Chinese exports of solar panels as dumping, because of the lowered costs.To prevent the uncompetitiveness of other producers, the EU had to set tariffs of nearly 50 percent on Chinese solar panel shipments. That caused a discontentment from Chinese side, because the exports of solar panels is one of the largest categories of Chinese exports and worth about $27 billion a year.

The leaders of the Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile recently announced that they are finishing up their negotiations about the removal of the trade tariffs. The tariffs will be removed from 92% of goods, with most of the remainder disappearing over the next few years. Such legislation is expected to encourage a free trade between the countries of Latin America and be an example for the rest of the world. Ministers are seeking to push free market policies to spur growth, attract more foreign investment and integrate their capital markets and energy networks. Overall, free trade between the listed above four countries will result in lower prices of goods and services, better allocation of the resources and close cooperation of the economies.

In this article, the author talks about the Bank of England. Because of the recession, Bank of England tried to stabilize the state of the economy. So it has kept its stimulus programme of quantitative easing (QE) unchanged and also held interest rates at 0.5%. Quantitative easing is is an unconventional monetary policy used by central banks to stimulate the national economy when standard monetary policy has become ineffective. A central bank implements quantitative easing by buying financial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions, thus increasing the monetary base. The first quarter GDP figures, showing growth of 0.3%, were also felt to have reduced the need for more QE. Also, industrial output rose 0.7% in March from February, a bigger increase than forecast. Manufacturing output rose by 1.1%.

This article might not be as relevant to fiscal policies as the ones from my peers. But I think it is important how the government distributes the money received from the taxes. In the article the author talks about the money that the US government allocates for the aid projects in Afghanistan. Millions tax of dollars were ate up with no results. Those money ended up in the Talibans' hands. It is interesting to read and understand that not always the money received from taxes are effectively used.

The economic growth in the US has been slowed down in the past month. Overall in March, the rate of new orders dropped causing the fall of national factory activity to 51.3 from 54.2 that occurred in February. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector, and a number below 50 means contraction, thus despite the fact that the index fell, there is still expansion in factory activity but it had a lower rate in March. Altogether, new orders index, prices-paid gauge, inventories fell, while the employment improved.

In this article author describes the main news - new additional jobs and overall improving economic state of Australia: "Full-time employment jumped by 17,800 and part-time employment was up by 53,700." The total workforce has been increased, altogether, it served as a sign of the improvement in economic conditions of the country. To keep the growth at the same level, the monetary policy has been eased up. Previous rate cuts are beginning to have a positive effect on the economy. The housing market shows some improvement. But the strength of Australian dollar is the main source of concerns: "The Australian dollar jumped by more than half a cent to $1.036, as traders became less hopeful that another interest rate cut was on the way."

In this article the author talks about the slow down in the economic growth of 16 leading emerging markets. Earlier compare to the Eurozone countries, UK and the US, the economic growth of those 16 countries was far higher. After this short period of stagnation, the world economists ask whether the growth, which depends a lot on exports, will increase or not. It weather will "wobble along, buffeted by worries in the developed world"; or temporary stop and then "bring back the days of the strong growth". Right now, the world economy is in the state of the recovery, in the past it went through the recession that started in 2008 and the trough. The fall in indicators mostly stopped, and the economic health very slowly continues to recover from the past.

In this article author considers the food accident that happened in Europe. Because of the recession a lot of food companies try to keep their prices as low as possible to be able to compete with others. But prices for raw materials keep growing. Have low prices with expensive raw material is impossible, but not for Europe producers. Appearance of horsemeat saved producers from rising prices, but only for a while.

In the article author describes the world trade between the countries - exports. Exports are one of the four components of GDP. In comparison to the 2011, the exports in 12 largest countries declined in 2012. Only US, China and Canada had an insignificant growth last year. Declining incomes are the main reason for low consumption, consumers keep purchasing less imports. Author also considers difference between exports in 2008 and 2012. German exports fell by three percent, while Indian exports were 50 percent higher. It is a huge difference, but if one remembers the reasons for changes in net exports from the chapter 14, it is not that serious. The last reason was the difference in inflation, i.e. "if inflation in the US were relatively higher than in Canada then US goods would be less competitive in Canada and may reduce the export revenues which the US earns from its exports to Canada. " Thus, looking at India and Germany this difference in growth is justified.

According to the article economy finally passed the recession and now demand for houses rises again. Near record low mortgage rates, rising home prices and a drop in foreclosures have combined to bring buyers back to the market. Right now the supply of houses is very low, there is nothing to sell, while the demand keeps growing. That change won't lead only to increase in jobs in the housing sphere, but also in the furniture, appliances, and other manufactures. But despite that fact, economists still predict only a modest rise in the overall economy this year.

Barack Obama promised to his voters to shake up a medical care system, i.e. his new law will no longer let insurance companies to refuse to cover an individual because he is not healthy, or to charge him an exorbitant fee. That new policy will lead to a great change in the decision-making of the employers. Firstful, today it is more benificial for employers to not provide medical care, and just to increase wages. If during the days of the WW II it was easier to provide health care instead of incresing the wages, because of the lower prices for insurance, but during last decade it became totally oppostie. But, Mr. Obama definitely doesn't want staff of the companies be dumped on his healthcare exchanges, so there is a fine of $2000 for each employe if there is more than 50 employees.

Oceans are one of the Commons, and as any other commons, it becomes overconsumed. Fishers all around the world keep devastating populations of the fish. To prevent overfishing, pollution and other human impacts, leading international marine scientists are proposing radical changes in the governance of the world's oceans. They carried an experiment in Chilie, and based on it, scientists state that they would be able to help to reverse "the tragedy of the commons". Problems in Chilie made people be open to new arrangements, scientists and fishers began working together to improve the situation with fish. By working together for some years, scientists became able to reveal about fish stocks and and the surrounding marine ecosystem. The new laws gave exclusive ocean territories to local 'artisanal' fishers, and excluded the big industrial fishing fleets, which had their own exclusive fishing zone. Scientists and small fishers then worked together to understand and rebuild the shattered fish stocks in their zone, leading to a shared vision and voluntary agreements on how to manage them.