Africa's free trade area was first tested with batteries and tea
The African Union launched the AfCFTA in 2018. It took effect in 2021, and its first pilot trades in 2022 showed how slowly a single market gets built.
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Economics.
Resources, incentives and the everyday choices behind larger systems.
Bangladesh's Grameen Bank grew from loans made in a famine
Muhammad Yunus lent his own money to villagers in the 1974 famine. By 2013 his borrowers owned 97 percent of the bank, the New York Times reported.
Eleven countries saved the Pacific trade deal the US abandoned
When the US quit the TPP in 2017, the other 11 signatories kept most of the text, parked 22 US-backed clauses and signed the CPTPP in Santiago in 2018.
In the UK's North Sea, 78p of each £1 of profit goes in tax
The UK Energy Profits Levy adds 38% to the tax on North Sea oil and gas profits, for a 78% total. It has raised about £12bn and runs until March 2030.
Britain sells its airwaves to the highest bidder, round by round
The UK sells mobile frequencies by auction. The 3G sale in 2000 ran 150 rounds and raised £22.5 billion. The 5G sale in 2018 raised £1.4 billion.
Leaning on credit ratings may have deepened the crisis
Bank of England economists say mechanical reliance on ratings lay beneath the financial crisis. Standard & Poor's calls a rating one input to a decision.
Bank of England rate rises squeeze debt before they cool prices
A rate rise makes debt dearer months before it slows prices, and the squeeze lands on borrowers and renters long before it reaches anyone else.
The US doesn't use the two-quarter rule to call a recession
A private committee at the NBER makes the call, weighing jobs, income and output. The UK's ONS calls the shorthand a technical recession.
Canada's and Britain's new wealth funds run on debt, not surplus
The Canada Strong Fund and Britain's National Wealth Fund run on borrowed money, where Norway's runs on oil. Critics call Canada's a costly bet.
Dollar reserve status is worth the US an estimated $18 trillion
A National Bureau of Economic Research paper says losing reserve status would cut the dollar's value 8.8% and lift US real interest rates 0.9 points.
US importers pay the tariff, then pass part of it to shoppers
A US tariff is paid by the importer at the border. Federal Reserve research found at least 30% of 2025's China tariffs reached shelf prices, slowly.
GATT ran world trade for 47 years, then became the WTO
The US Congress never ratified a planned trade organisation, so a 1947 treaty ran world trade until the WTO replaced it in 1995.