In late 2010, the Kan government proclaimed a very ambitious trade agenda, leaving no doubt as to its commitment to free trade. The Basic Policy on Comprehensive Economic Partnerships aimed to promote "high-level economic partnerships with major trading powers" and to "open up the country", including collecting information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and consulting with the parties to it. 

This paper looks into natural gas pricing in the post-financial crisis market and, in particular, examines the question whether the oil-linked gas pricing system has outlived its utility as global gas markets mature and converge more rapidly than expected and as large new resources of unconventional gas shift the gas terms-of-trade.

For a long time, the Turkish Republic created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was regarded by France's elites and political class as a sister republic: secular and Jacobin, the concrete embodiment of the universalism of the shared values of the French Revolution. However, the political change that has occurred since the AKP has come to office has questioned these classical republican convictions.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) could help to enhance the societal benefits of communication satellites. However, European public entities must avoid the mistakes made during the Galileo concession negotiations.

Oil prices are becoming an increasingly worrisome factor in today’s economies. They have risen dramatically over the past 6 or 7 months and are now driving inflation in many economies and acting as a drag on nearly all. They are not at these levels because markets are fundamentally out of balance.

The double disaster of Fukushima, a natural disaster comprising an earthquake and a tsunami and a large-scale industrial nuclear disaster, behoves all countries to consider the lessons which they can draw from it.