Euro
zone factory activity grew slightly last month as companies kept
cutting prices, but a weakened currency did little to help drive new
orders from abroad.
Irish
manufacturing activity expanded at the slowest pace in eight months in
January, according to the Investec Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’
Index. Photo: Alan Betson/ The Irish Times 
“The
key reason for the upward revisions to our forecasts is Ireland’s
export performance,” says to a Davy report. Photograph: Bryan
O’Brien/The Irish Times
Raymond
Codd of Codd Mushrooms: the mushroom industry is worth more than €112
million and now employs more than 3,200 people in Ireland
A
shopping centre in Berlin. German consumer prices are forecast to
increase by an average 0.8 per cent this year, with gross wages rising
an average 3.2 per cent,
‘Colombia
has a long history of grave human rights violations. Five decades of
conflict have resulted in approximately 5.7 million internally displaced
people, involving the illegal seizure of approximately six million
hectares of land.’ Photograph: Getty Images 
People
line up at a currency exchange office in Geneva last Friday. ‘One of
the richest, most stable and economically successful countries in the
world was forced to abandon policies it deemed to be in its best
interests.’ Photograph: Martial Trezzini/AP Photo/Keystone
Russian
president Vladimir Putin: declared his ambition to forge the Eurasian
Union in 2011. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images
Simon
Coveney’s suggestion that the US market could take up to 20,000 tonnes
of Irish beef in 2015, worth up to €100 million, and “go way beyond
that”, is considered by many as too optimistic
