The Doha Round of trade negotiations was suspended in July 2006. Soon thereafter leading trade negotiators hoped that talks could resume -even be completed- in early 2007. This timetable allowed for a short "cooling off" period but, more importantly, envisaged the resumption of negotiations after the U.S. Congressional elections. These elections were thought to be one factor stopping American negotiators from making further concessions on agricultural trade subsidies during 2006. Well, the elections have now come and gone but will we see the resumption and conclusion of the WTO's Doha Round negotiations?

The Iraq (mis)adventure was only the proximate cause of the defeat of the republican party in the November 7^th elections. Although mid-term elections usually depend on local conditions, the democrats managed to nationalize a sufficient number of political contests to carry the day. They were helped in this by George W. Bush's decision to make use again of the weapon that had worked so well in 2002 and 2004: the «war on terror,» which was rapidly conflated with the war in Iraq. But the election brought victory to the democrats only by default; the president's emphasis on Iraq focalized attention more broadly on the system of government that the republicans have imposed over the past six years.

Under President Vladimir Putin there has been a buildup of grievances about Russia's political development, but the economy has appeared to remain safely in the free market zone where his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, left it. Unfortunately, Putin's televised question-and-answer session with the nation on Oct. 25 marked a radical departure from his prior market economic rhetoric. Having lived in the Soviet Union, I experienced déjà vu while reading Putin's restoration of old-style Soviet economic language.

Just as it was in the old days, the patriarchic state has authority over everything but responsibility for nothing. The economic essence of Putin's three-hour exposition was that he favored ethnic discrimination, trade and price regulation, protectionism, state intervention, industrial policy, subsidies and, most of all, centralized micro-management. Conspicuously absent were ideas like deregulation, the rule of law and private property rights.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a former Professor of Economics, Muhammad Yunus, the inventor of group-lending microcredit in 1976. When the then Professor of Economics at Chittagong University, in Bangladesh, bet on the poor as being bankable individuals by creating the Grameen Bank, in the nearby village of Jobra, he extended tiny loans to poor individuals without collateral out of his own pocket. His motivation was to help such villagers to finance their investment projects, and, eventually, pull them out of poverty. His idea was a successful one, as Grameen replications mushroomed worldwide in the developing world and Eastern Europe, now reaching nearly seven million individuals living under the poverty line. What is exactly Yunus' innovative idea all about, and what made it replicable beyond Bangladeshi villages?

On Sept. 13, Andrei Kozlov, whom I had known since the early 1990s, was killed in what looked like a contract hit. He excelled as one of Russia's brightest, most honest and most fearless civil servants. At the age of 30, he became deputy chairman of the Central Bank on sheer merit. Professionally and morally, he was a giant. Throughout his many years at the Central Bank, he was the most principled fighter for a decent banking system. When Viktor Gerashchenko, once called history's worst central banker, returned to the Central Bank after the financial crash of 1998, Andrei quietly left. When Gerashchenko departed, he happily returned, because work made sense again. The murder of a major official is always shocking, but more so when the victim is one of the few officials whom nobody accuses of corruption. There are two main hypotheses as to the motive. One is that Kozlov, as the top bank regulator, had a list of banks that would lose their licenses.

Koizumi 's five and half years in office were marked by significant reforms. Japanese banks were purged of most of their bad loans, the post office savings bank will be privatised as will some other public entities. The reforms follow the liberalization of foreign investment and financial markets which had taken place in the years following Koizumi's election to the premiership.

There were two components of Koizumi's reform drive. One, symbolized by Takenaka Heizo, who served in several cabinet positions under Koizumi, was inspired by economic liberalism. The other one was more a function of the internal rivalries of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) than of the Prime Minister's attachment to a particular ideology. For example the postal savings corporation was part of the funding mechanisms of anti-Koizumi factions. By privatizing it, and by cutting funding for corrupt public works projects, Koizumi hoped to undermine his enemies within the LDP.

Democratization and globalization are the two most profoundly important developments of our age. Since 1975 there has a quadrupling in the number of democratic countries worldwide. Meanwhile, global trade as a share of global GDP has more than doubled from 8 to 20 per cent, while the share of countries fully open to international capital flows, as measured by the International Monetary Fund, has risen by half, from 25 to 38 per cent. There are exceptions; North Korea remains a hermit kingdom, resisting both democracy and globalization. But such exceptions are increasing few. It is hard to think of a part of the globe that is untouched by these powerful trends. And it is hard to think of an aspect of our lives that is unaffected.