The breakdown of international trade is key threat to the global economy in 2009, says Chris Mayer. Several countries have already taken action to protect domestic industries, including the US with its auto bailout. If this trend continues, Chris says the global downturn could become even deeper than imagined.This from The Daily Reckoning:

Where trade flourishes, business is good. But trade does not always flourish. The linked forces of globalization move in fits and starts.

The authors of Power and Plenty, a new book on trade over the last thousand years, tell us as much. “If anything,” they write, “history suggests that globalization is a fragile and easily reversible process.”

One of the looming threats in 2009 is the reversal in trade flows and increasing barriers to trade.

For the first time since 1982, The World Bank predicts global trade volumes will shrink in 2009. Undoubtedly, global trade

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Summary Modern Albania was forged in the crucible of communism. For over four decades after WWII it was a communist state. Since the “fall of the wall” in 1989 she has struggled through the violent break-up of Yugoslavia to carve slowly her own identity among western capitalist democracies. Earlier in 2008 she was invited to join NATO and aspires to EU membership in due course.

Albania’s natural resource base and a slow but purposeful programme of freemarket reforms now underway suggest opportunities for resource investors after decades of under-investment.

Key points:

Invitation to join NATO a sign of coming in from the cold Sufficient progress has been made in most areas for NATO, earlier this year, formally to invite Albania to begin accession talks. Albania is also an EUaspirant country with expectations of membership in the 20-teens. Moody’s granted its first ratings to Albanian sovereign debt in 2007. The Ba1 puts its foreign-currency denominated bonds in the same company as

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TODAY: Ingush opposition figure shot dead; EU summit to be held today; Medvedev reveals foreign policy plan to preserve nearby territories; South Ossetia to join Russia; Turkey and Russia heading for “trade war”; Putin “saves” television crew from tiger; textbooks whitewashing Stalin. The EU will hold its emergency summit today to decide on its next steps in relation to Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev has already warned that Russia will retaliate against any hostile moves, but what is the likelihood of economic sanctions? A German MP has called for Russia to be temporarily excluded from the G8. Magomed Yevloyev, the prominent owner of an Ingush opposition news website and Kremlin critic, has been shot dead after being detained by police. Medvedev has revealed a new five point foreign policy plan, ...

We occasionally receive contributions from Andrei Novikov, an opposition journalist and government critic who was once committed to involuntary psychiatric confinement by the authorities in response to some of his publications. Below Novikov shares his thoughts (and quite passionate opinons) on the war, and, as always, his article does not represent those of Robert Amsterdam, this blog, or its editors. His article was written before President Dmitry Medvedev extended official recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. RUSSIAN AGGRESSION IN THE TRANS-CAUCASUS Andrey Novikov, independent journalist The Russian armed forces (bolstered by reinforcements: with the participation of the 58th army and strategic aviation), not having any mandate of the UNO or other international European organizations, have entered INTO THE TERRITORY of Georgia and are implementing aggression against the country's sovereignty. International organizations of the European Union, NATO and the UNO must immediately ...

This article is quite different from my normal stories as it deals with a country rather than with a specific financial market or asset class. But please allow me the freedom to share this information with you as Slovenia is such a delightful country and also presents some unique investment opportunities for the international entrepreneur. Enjoy the read.