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Studying the birth chart of the US shows planetary patterns coinciding with upheavals and depressions in the country's history – and in his new book, Robert Gover predicts a decade of depression ahead. Helen Avery looks at this alternative approach.

THE PARIS CLUB has gone through fundamental change over the past year. First it agreed to an enormous debt reduction for Iraq, then it started to allow debtor nations to buy back their debts. Most recently, it came to a long-awaited and ground-breaking agreement with Nigeria that involved elements of both debt reduction and buyback.

As Lebanese banks flush with liquidity devise regional expansion strategies, four of them have won licences to open affiliates in Syria's nascent privately owned banking sector.

There's a lot of money to be made from the beautiful game. Deloitte's football money league shows that the top 20 football clubs in the world are set to break the £2 billion ($3.6 billion) income mark in 2005, for example. Germany's GNP is set to grow by €8 billion as a result of hosting the 2006 World Cup, and about 500 advertisers are set to spend €7 billion to enhance the branding of their products. According to VAT reclaims company Lowendal UK, an estimated €15 million will be spent on sponsorship events during the World Cup.

The imminent liberalization of Gazprom share ownership rules will introduce the world's biggest energy company to the world's biggest investors. But is Gazprom ready for the world, or the world for Gazprom?

Differential guidelines by Japanese regulators might provide room for accounting arbitrage. Japanese accounting rules have required banks and non-life-insurance companies to mark to market their portfolios since April 2002. However, the prefecture/locally run pension funds (such as those of Hokkaido and Saitama), and life-insurance companies (such as Nippon and Dai-ichi, or the Policeman Retirement Fund, and the Fisheries Association Fund) are not yet subject to the mark-to-market requirement. Market sources indicate that had it not been for such accounting arbitrage, it would have remained inexplicable why the local municipality pension fund of Hokkaido held a sizable amount of defaulted Argentine yen paper.

Real estate has traditionally been a localized business. Now developers are considering the costs and benefits of moving out of the comfort zone and going international, as Helena Keers reports.

After a long dormancy, Kazakhstan's equity market might be about to wake up, thanks to some large IPOs.

Russia's domestic wealth management industry has a long way to go

CMBS Debate: Getting real estate financing right

Funding real estate development and portfolios is changing. For some the bank market still makes sense; for others the unsecured bond markets. But the burgeoning CMBS market is becoming the vehicle of choice for many. Here's why.

The Philippines has a robust consumer economy, fuelled by burgeoning remittances from overseas, so domestic banks have long offered one of the safest plays on the economy. Recent changes to banking regulations have further strengthened the case for the sector on fundamental grounds. Now fuelled increasingly by renewed takeover speculation as consolidation attempts gain traction, the sector looks set to outperform.