The army has been sent into toilet paper factories, fights for basic foodstuffs have resulted in several deaths and new, multi-million dollar oil tankers are sitting idle in dock. And, despite sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela’s socialist government can’t quite manage to keep the lights on.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul received his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in the capital city of Ankara on Monday, expressing his hopes towards enhanced cooperation between the two countries. "Turkey and India have a big potential of cooperation in many fields. We believe this cooperation in the fields of business, investment, finance and commerce will step up in a short period of time," Gul told during a dinner with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in the capital city of Ankara.

The Gulf emirate of Dubai Announced Monday an ambitious plan to Establish itself as the main global center for Islam-compliant products and services within three years. The glitzy city-state, Which has alreadycreated Established itself as a global hub for air transport and transit trade, as well as a regional financial center, is hoping to be the pivot of the large and widespread Islamic economy.

Switzerland is first, Yemen last and Northern Europe the top region in a new evaluation of how nations foster their work forces. The Human Capital Report, released Tuesday by the World Economic Forum, measured 122 countries in four areas — education, health, employment and “enabling environment” — to establish the rankings. The fourth area encompasses subjects such as a country’s legal framework as well as transportation and communications infrastructure, which affect an individual’s ability to work.

Britons have had some good economic news to celebrate over the past few months. Unemployment is falling, house prices in England hit a record high in July and economic output appears to be growing at its fastest pace since 2010.

The flurry of speculation and polemic that has characterized U.S.-Chinese relations in the past decade or so reached a new intensity with the leadership turnover in China earlier this year. As Barack Obama started his second term in office and Xi Jinping assumed power in March, renewed debates emerged about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations, still perceived as the two greatest competitors for hegemonic status in international affairs. However, the reevaluation of this critical relationship has in fact known successive rounds.

With the international world’s increasing negative views of China, its rising economic power, and a history of ethnic unrest, how will changes in internet censorship in Shanghai’s free trade zone affect China’s economic growth and the Chinese people? As a way to stimulate economic growth, China will lift internet censorship in the Shanghai free trade zone of a number of foreign websites which includes Facebook and Twitter.

When Nitish Kumar became chief minister of the dirt-poor Indian state of Bihar in 2005, kidnapping was said to be the leading industry in the capital city of Patna. People searching for stolen cars were advised to check the driveway of a leading politician, who reportedly commandeered vehicles for “election duty.”