Following the international financial crisis which has forced Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Iceland and Ukraine to receive full-scale bailouts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this year, Ireland has become the latest European nation to feel the full impact of the collapse in its financial system. The economic crisis is now threatening to undermine the political…
The landslide victory of the Democratic Party of Japan in the recent general election has swept the Liberal Democratic Party into opposition, in the most significant change in government in Japan since the LDP was formed in the early 1950s. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had effectively ruled Japan for almost 55 years. However, the…
Comparatively little attention has been given to the problem of Australia’s increasing dependence on imported fuel, which is expected to increase over the years ahead, and will be adversely affected by an emissions trading scheme (ETS). As a result of the low population density of Australian cities and the vast distances between them, Australia is…
The ambitious target to generate 20 per cent of Australia’s domestic electricity from renewable energy by 2020 raises the question as to why the renewable fuel industry, and particularly ethanol, is not being treated in the same way. The technology already exists for the extraction of ethanol from sugar cane; but like the renewable electricity…