We have what appears to be the biggest outbreak yet of the avian flu in Europe in Ukraine. More than 2,000 domestic birds have died of it in a remote region of the Crimean peninsula:

President Viktor Yushchenko declared a state of emergency in five villages on Saturday after the agriculture ministry said it had identified the H5 subtype of bird flu virus. Officials enforced a quarantine and began culling and burning the villages’ birds on Sunday.

But the government’s failure to notice the outbreak earlier is likely to heighten concerns across Europe about Ukraine’s ability to deal with the bird flu problem. Ukrainian villagers who keep birds in their gardens are at particular risk, because they regularly handle birds that may have come into contact with the migratory wild birds that spread the virus.

The European Commission’s has just published the latest set of EU trade trade figures. Among the surprising details are that overall EU textiles imports were little changed. China textile importas, of course, rose – by 40% – but this was offset by a decline in 54.4% (from Burma) and 41.4% from the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh also “saw significant falls, by 28.6 per cent, 15.1 per cent, 16.3 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively”. (all data in value terms and for the first first eight months of the year). As the FT notes the numbers:

“are likely to confirm fears that developing countries are among the main losers after last January’s worldwide removal of textiles quotas.They have struggled to keep up with China’s large and modern clothing production facilities in a liberalised trading environment

“.

While China seems to be badly in need of entering the ‘information society’, Russia seems to be going flat-out in the opposite direction:

Russia moved closer to an effective ban on many foreign non-governmental organisations as its parliament on Wednesday considered a bill that human rights groups have criticised as another step towards a “totally closed society”.

Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, a personal account of the challenges and benefits of globalisation, has just won the inaugural Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

But Stephen Roach, writing in yesterday’s Morgan Stanley GEF, doesn’t agree. For him the world is ‘hardly a flat one‘.

With all due respect to Tom Friedman, there’s nothing flat about this unbalanced global economy. The image of a “flat world” is most appropriate for the endgame of globalization. In my view, that ideal state is decades into the future — if that. In the meantime, the global economy is distinguished far more by its disparities and tensions — and how the resulting imbalances are likely to be vented in world financial markets

.

The Head Heeb: A murder in Cote d’Ivoire

“While unsuccessful attempts continue to break Cote d’Ivoire’s political deadlock, the latest scandal to arise concerns the murder of a local gang leader by French peacekeepers”

Jonathan’s conclusion:
“Absent a political solution in Cote d’Ivoire, however, it is unlikely that this will be the last or only such case. The French are being dragged, unwillingly but inexorably, toward the point where peacekeeping becomes occupation.”