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.

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

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.

Some emerging markets have found the route to salvation, others are a whisker from damnation. By Michael Peterson

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

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

Financial talent is hard to come by these days, as any headhunter will confirm. And it can be even more difficult to keep. Case in point: Ricardo Hausmann, until recently the Inter-American Development Bank’s chief economist. Hausmann joins the Harvard faculty this month. But don’t expect him to be saying many good-byes. The international financial community seems bound to hear quite a bit more from this dynamic player. Hausmann shared some of his characteristic all-or-nothing views with Euromoney’s James Smalhout as he was packing his bags for Cambridge

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

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

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

The economic boom of recent years has created a large class of wealthy individuals with money to spare. These high-net-worth individuals now form the most enticing target market for fund managers. Meanwhile the internet is democratizing financial services, in the process opening the markets up to a swathe of new private investors. The pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap supermarket philosophy which has already swept through the US is now set to engulf the rest of the world. What does this mean for the markets? Julian Marshall reports

The increasing pace of developments in both the syndicated loan and the debt capital markets

We are not quite at the end of the current equity market correction. The next few months may be volatile or downright violent. But I'd start buying into any downturn in US and European stocks right now - particularly in traditional economy sectors where smart management can apply cyber-magic to the benefit of shareholders.

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

At some point the government plans to privatize the Hong Kong Airports Authority, and is expected to give it more attention once it has sold off the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC).

Securitizing whole companies may be seen as the future of securitization in Europe, but so far only a few examples of this technique have taken place – and most of them have been in the UK pub industry. What is it about UK drinking dens that makes them so suitable for securitization?

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.

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.

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

Brazilian soccer legend Pele turned up at the New York Stock Exchange on August 10 to close the First day's trading of Petrobrás, Brazil's leading oil producer and its largest company.

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

Independent market regulation and a more relaxed approach to foreign investment are among new policies setting Arab states on the road to more dynamic markets. Not before time – accession to the World Trade Organization means the doors will have to open to foreign competition.

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.

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.

Having so far failed to set European investment management alight, Morgan Stanley's asset-management business is making a new push in the institutional market.

Head of investment banking, Barclays Capital Americas

Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina

As bankers, policymakers and pundits packed their bags in readiness to travel to Prague for the IMF/World Bank conference, the Czech Republic's most (in)famous Financier was making no such arrangements. Viktor Kozeny, aka the pirate of Prague or the bouncing Czech, will be 5,000 miles away, sitting out proceedings in the comfort of his Bahamas home.

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

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