The islands in the Indian Ocean bearing the name are indeed 'scattered' around Madagascar, mainly in the Mozambique Channel. Formally under French sovereignty, their tiny size belies their growing strategic importance for the world's most powerful players
Mayotte, a French Département in the Comoros archipelago, is overpopulated, underemployed, and poorly educated - a potential target of unvarnished Chinese and Russian ambitions, and a basket case for a medium-sized ex-colonial power
Black zero has been the cornerstone of responsible German budgets but, with looming economic uncertainty, there are many reasons to reconsider
Problems can be addressed, one at a time because relevant solutions may be at hand. A geopolitical situation, with many adversarial issues in the mix, might be serene or explosive, tolerated either way, but never wholly satisfactory
Demography is an incontrovertible force, driving the underpinnings of Italy's aging society to breaking point. The creeping danger of a numerical decline of the workforce has become a brutal reality bearing down alarmingly on labor productivity
Italians, conflicted – likable and engaging and torn between hopes of yesteryear and today’s reality – tread a narrow path between a make-believe tantrum, irreversible commitments in the name of uncertain policies and actual structural reform
With the launch of a number of low volatility funds, the fact higher risk may not after all – and over time – be rewarded with higher performance, as the theory suggests, has been given publicity
