With the recent launch of the London based I-WeX.com internet site, European corporates accustomed to hedging against Financial risk should be able to manage another great uncertainty - weather - just as American corporates have been able to do since 1997 through weather derivatives.

Brazil looks set to meet fiscal targets agreed with the IMF and also seems to have inflation under control. But fiscal discipline has rested on increasing revenues rather than cutting expenditure, a course that will eventually restrain rather than promote growth. Reform of the tax and welfare system has barely been tackled and doubts persist about whether the government has enough political clout to see it through. A key gain is that the real economy is moving out of stagnation and into growth. Jonathan Wheatley reports

With broken china still littering the office of the World Bank’s chief economist, Nicolas Stern finally arrived this July to start picking up the pieces. Stern, a mild-mannered man with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, comes to Washington after six years as chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. His predecessor, the celebrated and unconventional Joseph Stiglitz, raised an unprecedented ruckus during his brief but stormy tenure in the job. His final controversy was the manner of Stern’s appointment to succeed him. So what is Stern’s agenda now, asks James Smalhout

After the fanfare of the meeting between chairman Kim Jong-Il and president Kim Dae-Jung in Pyongyang in mid-year, moves toward a closer relationship have been slow. North Korea’s Tokyo-based unofficial spokesman, Kim Myong-Chol, has predicted peaceful reunification of Korea within five years. It might happen. But the road to unity will be longer and harder than was the path to German unification, finds Kevin Rafferty

Few banks better illustrate how the market has shifted from cashflow to synthetic CLOs than Deutsche Bank. The bank has been one of the biggest issuers of conventional CLOs, securitizing several billion euros-worth of corporate loans through its Core series of transactions in 1998 and 1999.

Asia’s equity markets have seen their fair share of triumphs and disasters in the past 12 months, with technology stocks still baffling market watchers in some markets and seducing them in others.

The collapse of the Sogo department store, the largest bankruptcy of a non-financial corporation yet seen in Japan, is significant in two important ways. It shows the fragility of economic recovery. Persistently slow growth may leave many more Japanese companies at risk and the country’s banks may suffer more bad debts. Second, it shows the old conservative consensus breaking down. Shinsei Bank, the old LTCB under new American ownership, refused to play along with a bank-led bail-out. And when politicians attempted a public rescue, an angry populace shouted it down. Painful corporate restructuring is at hand, reports Kevin Rafferty

Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina

For years the secretive Paris Club of sovereign creditors has ruled over debt workouts without comment or criticism. It dictated terms to the private sector and resisted, where possible, the writing off of debts to poorer nations. But that was in the days when official flows were the majority and private debt was in the hands of the banks. Now bondholders are outraged that the Paris Club is refusing to adapt its approach to the new economic environment, one in which private finance calls the shots. With the Paris Club refusing to budge on any of the major issues, the stage is set for a protracted battle. Brian Caplen reports

A fear of foreign influence and a desire to escape the social costs of consolidation have slowed bank reform in Slovenia, but with likely EU membership looming change cannot be put off much longer. Christina White reports

Head of investment banking, Barclays Capital Americas

If a market is mature when its founders move on, the Czech Republic has Finally come of age. Richard Wood was one of the First expatriates to arrive in Prague after the fall of the Berlin Wall and built from scratch the internationally respected stockbroking Firm Wood&Co. But ever alert to the prospects for exciting times and doing business, Wood has recently moved to Istanbul.

Issuer: Dow Chemical Amount: $300 million Type of issue: Online domestic US corporate bond auction Launch date: August 15

Theirs is a modern fairytale romance that blossomed amid the spreadsheets. In these hard times, the Danish Prince Gustav zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg must work to support himself despite bearing a royal title. But in between working as a relationship manager for Citibank Private Banking and being a prince, Gustav has met his future wife, a venture capitalist, in London's Financial heartland.

Equity capital market bankers are in a state of shock. It’s not simply that their market has seen record volumes of issuance this year. It is rather that the international equities market has gone through an entire lifecycle of change in less than 12 months. Michael Peterson reports

Emerging markets may be back in favour but few investment markets are as exotic as Palestine.

Delegates at the IMF meeting in Prague this month will have a variety of cultural events to enjoy away from the main event.

In his first months as president Vladimir Putin has been gathering together the threads of power. Oligarchs have been curbed, regional governors put in their place and former KGB colleagues given influential positions. How Putin will use his authority remains uncertain. He seems intent on reforming the tax code and the customs administration and is committed to helping small and medium-size enterprises. But a start has barely been made on economic liberalization and the reduction of state intervention. Ben Aris reports

The "Turn Prague into Seattle" slogan has been pinned to thousands of protesters' T-shirts, websites have been set up, and accommodation organized months ago. The protesting community has prepared well for the 55th annual IMF/World Bank meetings from September 19 to 28.

Membership of the World Trade Organization has taken China 14 years of campaigning. It's almost there.

High-yield bonds and loans are the business every bank wants to be in. But when bond markets turn nasty, junk debt is the first to suffer. Michael Peterson reports

The ebb and Flow of the Asian debt and equity markets in the past three years has inevitably brought upheavals in investment banking in the region, and it looks as if there are more to come. Avinder Bindra, Citibank's outgoing head of global loan products of Asia, Japan and Australia, foresees continued consolidation among banks, with the number of loan arrangers already diminishing because of mergers involving Chase and Chemical, Deutsche Bank and Citibank. Twenty years ago there were 20 loan arrangers on the scene, now there are eight or 10 globally. There are tentative signs of the Japanese banks coming back into the Asian market and rebuilding assets. "Competition is there for banking lending that would not have been the case a year ago," says David Russell, executive director for debt capital markets at Nomura International in Hong Kong.

“Banks will need stronger cost discipline and controls to preserve margins”

The boom in yen-denominated bond issuance looks likely to be sustained. Foreign corporates are coming to the samurai market because they need yen funds, not because they intend to swap into dollars. There’s also strong demand for emerging market sovereign bonds from Japanese investors starved of yield by low domestic interest rates. Anja Helk reports

China’s economy continues its fast growth and its leaders appear firmly committed to continuing reform, as the country prepares for entry into WTO which may attract further substantial foreign direct investment. But the past 20 years of reform have been comparatively easy, having been imposed by an all-powerful central government on a closed economy. Now China must begin to compete globally and to cope with political tension at home arising from the uneven distribution of the benefits of reform. Phillip Moore reports

As Asia's markets emerge battered and bruised from three years of crisis and recovery, the region’s shell-shocked bankers and issuers are starting to pick up the pieces and look towards a brighter future. Bond and loan markets are showing signs of tentative recovery, equity markets are alternating between bewilderment and elation, and the samurai bond market remains intent on defying conventional economics. Gill Baker reports

Ever on the look-out for new and lucrative corners of the capital markets, many firms have identified what is often called capital management as a promising niche. At its most respectable, this business consists of advising banks and other companies on how to measure and manage the true economic risks of their activities. More often than not, however, it is about cold-calling bank treasurers and trying to sell them ideas for complex deals. Michael Peterson reports

There's a lot of hot air in Khartoum, and according to one lawyer working for Talisman Energy, the Canadian oil explorer, not all of it is blowing in from the Sahara. "Well, if you include planting date trees along the roads adjacent to the Nile - well yes, I suppose the infrastructure is improving." He pauses: "Oh wait, they died. Nobody watered them." The taxi driver swerves to miss a huge pothole in the main road and then quickly veers back into the street in an attempt to avoid those sleeping on the footpaths.

As delegates file into this year’s World Bank/IMF meetings in Prague, the mood with regard to Latin America will be much more positive than in previous years. In 1998, Brazil was about to devalue, and panic was in the air. In September 1999, Ecuador became the first country ever to default on its Brady bonds, right in the middle of the annual meetings. Come 2000, and Ecuador has successfully restructured its debt, Mexico has had its first ever truly democratic election, ending more than 70 years of one-party rule in the process, and the Brazilian success story continues. Moody’s has upgraded Mexico to investment-grade status, and upgrades from Standard & Poor’s in both Mexico and Brazil are seen as inevitable. But challenges remain, Felix Salmon reports

By most economic and development measures, China would seem to have taken a firm lead over India in the great race between these two Asian contenders to become regional and global economic superpowers. Yet India, despite its slower economic growth, its poorer yet faster-increasing population and its confused politics, now has thriving new-economy sectors.