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Many friends ask me why, as a businessman and investor controlling pioneering projects, why I am concerned with politics? I always answer that my experience has taught me that the key to progress lies in politics, and this is especially true in Arab countries, where, frankly, politics is everything. …

Hubris comes in many forms, but surely the rushed exit of American forces from Afghanistan to meet an artificial political deadline of the 20^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the USA is a breathtaking example.

Rather than strengthening the agents of reform in Afghanistan, upon which the US and its allies have inefficiently spent trillions of dollars, this helter-skelter exit has undermined them, leaving at the mercy of a resurgent Taliban.…

INTRODUCTION

While debates continue over whether Aristotle actually said ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, the concept that a system can deliver more impact than each element of its technology acting alone is well established in the textile sector.…

African students have been benefiting from an informal innovative online initiative helping them find jobs after they graduate. The iDEASlab (1) has in particular enabled higher education students to launch business ideas after graduation.

The network’s academics are Angolans based in the USA, Russia and Angola, who, inspired by their time at university, decided to work together informally to create development in their places of birth.…

The European Union (EU) is currently considering reforming its excise duty rules for tobacco products, with the tobacco industry and commentators seeing the negotiation on the integration of e-cigarettes being one of the hottest topics. Today, e-cigarettes in the EU are treated just like any other product, falling under EU VAT rules, and are not subject to EU-excise laws that apply for conventional tobacco products or spirits for instance.…

THE RULING council of the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) is preparing to agree major reforms to the International Cocoa Agreement, which should see the agreement increase its commitment to boost sustainability in the chocolate sector.

Council members are considering final changes committing the ICCO to ensuring that cocoa production, processing and manufacture is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.…

Eastern Europe is often a region of diversity when it comes to paint and coatings sector trends, but in the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted most sectors in a similar way. They experienced booms in DIY decorative sales, weaker industrial coating sales and are mow struggling with increased input costs.…

STUDENTS in Tunisia are playing a moderating role in the country’s ongoing political crisis which has seen the seizure of power and dismissal of parliament by the country’s President Kais Saied. A planned demonstration by student and other supporters of the move scheduled for Sunday was cancelled amidst concern about political violence and now moderate democratic Moslem-oriented union UGTE (Union Générale Tunisienne des Etudiants) and the left-leaning UGET (Union Generale Étudiantes Tunisien) are calling for calm.…

INTRODUCTION

In a global textile and clothing market that is increasingly integrating design with functionality, the potential of luminescent yarns is becoming ever more apparent. The focus of groundbreaking research and development, there is widening diversity in this segment from luminescent coatings on yarns to those that integrate LEDs (light-emitting diodes).…

Last November (2020), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that cannabidiol (CBD) liquids for e-cigarettes that were lawfully produced in a European Union (EU) member state are not narcotics and can be sold in any other EU country. The ruling was welcomed by the EU CBD sector, which has said it helps open-up the European market to products that often fall into a legal grey zone due to their origins in hemp, or cannabis with little or no intoxication effects.…