New version of Microsoft Train Simulator coming

On 19 January 2007 Microsoft (MS) announced that it is making a second attempt at developing a new, second version of Train Simulator, this time based on its recently released Flight Simulator X (FSX) software platform.

As happened with FSX, key members of the MS team, such as Tdragger (Mike Gilbert), Yard Limits (Rick Selby), Sim Elations and Mavyryk, are blogging on the development process.

I enjoyed the first version of Train Simulator (particularly the Marias Pass) and look forward to trying the latest product when it is released.

United States viewpoint on US-European Union air services negotiations

On 17 January 2007 the US State Department released a short article on the "open skies" negotiations. This may point to the possibility of "another way forward".

In signing the MALIAT, negotiated near the end of the second term of the Clinton Administration, the United States has already shown that it can be flexible with respect to foreign ownership of international airlines wishing to serve the US (see Articles 3 and 4). Note that the standard "substantial ownership" criterion traditionally found in bilateral air services agreements is not included.

European Commission proposes European Union-Canada air services negotiations

On 9 January 2007 the European Commission (EC) announced that it proposed that it should hold negotiations with Canada with a view to replacing all the air services agreements Canada has with European Union (EU) member states. The same day the Canadian Minister of Transport, Lawrence Cannon, welcomed the EC's announcement and indicated that Canadian officials would be holding preliminary discussions with the EC at the end of February. This follows the release of Canada's "Blue Sky" policy.

Before the EC can hold such negotiations of "vertical" air services agreements it must first secure the agreement of members states. This is decided at the Transport Council, a meeting of EU Transport Ministers. The agendas for these Transport Council meetings are set by the EU member state holding the Presidency, currently Germany.

To date the EC has received mandates to negotiate comprehensive air services agreements with the United States and some neighbouring states, most recently the Ukraine (announced on 12 December 2006). The EC also announced on 12 December 2006 that it had concluded such an agreement with Morocco.

In September 2005 the EC announced that it was seeking mandates to negotiate comprehensive agreements with Australia, Chile and New Zealand following the conclusion of "horizontal" agreements with these countries. At the same time the EC also proposed negotiations with India, having in March 2005 requested a mandate for negotiations with China. EU member states have yet to agree.

Virgin America files revised proposal with US DoT

On 17 January 2007 Virgin America filed with the US Department of Transportation (DoT) a revised proposal (5.74MB .pdf) with significant changes with respect to control of the airline "... to remove any doubt of US citizenship." The company media statement summarises the changes.

Virgin America has also set up a web site called Let VA Fly! as part of a public relations campaign in support of its application.

India-Singapore air services arrangements expanded

India and Singapore signed a new air services Memorandum of Understanding on 9 January 2007. A summary of the outcome is included in a 10 January 2007 press release from the Singapore Ministry of Transport.

The negotiations enhanced an earlier Memorandum of Understanding signed on 11 July 2006.

India-Qatar air services arrangements expanded

On 20 December 2006, in a new Memorandum of Understanding, India and Qatar agreed to an expansion of the routes and capacity available under their air services arrangements. On 21 December 2006 the Financial Express reported on what extra services Qatar Airways plans to provide to India. The subsequent announcement by the airline about its "huge" increase in services to India is available here.

Not only is there a significant market between India and the Gulf but also Qatar Airways is well placed to exercise sixth freedom rights to carry traffic between India and the European Union via Doha.

Swissair trial

Articles in the International Herald Tribune, the Guardian and on Swissinfo report on the background to and 16 January 2007 start of the trial near Zurich of 19 Swissair board members and senior executives.

Swissair was grounded on 2 October 2001 shortly after the 11 September 2001 tragedy in the United States and three years after one of its MD-11 aircraft crashed off Nova Scotia. The airline had tried to execute a strategy of purchasing shares in foreign international airlines (the "hunter strategy"), something that is in effect generally restricted to minority stakes by the terms of international air services arrangements.

Around the same time in Australasia there was also a major airline financial collapse. Ansett Australia, which had been taken over the year before by Air New Zealand, was placed in voluntary administration on 13 September 2001.

The last similar court trial in New Zealand following an airline collapse was that of Ewan Wilson, the founder of short-lived Kiwi Travel International Airlines, which provided trans-Tasman services pioneering international operations out of New Zealand provincial airports. The short history of Kiwi, which ceased services on 9 September 1996, is now used as a case study in university courses.

Other recent airline financial collapses in New Zealand have included:

• Tasman Pacific Airlines, which purchased Ansett New Zealand and traded as Qantas New Zealand in a franchise arrangement (went into receivership on 21 April 2001); and
• Origin Pacific Airways (ceased operating passenger services on 10 August 2006)

Note: I have linked to the Wikipedia articles on the airlines concerned but none yet provide entirely satisfactory historical accounts.

Airline Route Maps

If you are looking for the current route map for a particular airline but don't want to have to find and then search through the airline's web site then AirlineRouteMaps.com is the place to go.

If you wish to see a collection of route maps for many of the world's major airlines that show how they have developed over time, a very interesting collection of hand-drawn maps has been created by a young Canadian travel agent, Jim Liu. The maps go as far back as networks in the 1950s.

China-United States "open skies" negotiations?

Aviation Daily has an article reporting that US Department of Transportation (DoT) officials have persuaded their Chinese counterparts to resume "open skies" negotiations, possibly as soon as late this month.

This follows the 9 January 2007 tentative awarding of rights for a daily US-China service to United Airlines. The proposed service would be between Washington DC and Beijing.

European Union-United States Air Transport Negotiations

A scan of the short Record of Consultations signed in Brussels on 11 January 2007 is now available on the web.

For official information on this long-running negotiation there are a couple of useful web pages to look at:
Global Partners - United States from the Air Transport Portal of the European Commission web site
Open Skies & Aviation Services from the US Mission to the European Union web site

Also worth a read is a 2004 article by John Byerly's predecessor at the US State Department, Allan Mendelsohn, entitled The US and the EU - Aviation Relations: An Impasse or an Opportunity?

AltaVista Babel Fish added

For the convenience of some readers whose first language is not English I have added AltaVista's Babel Fish to the column on the right of this weblog. I appreciate that the machine translations may not be perfect!

I have also moved the Civil Aviation Swicki to the bottom of the page.

Civil Aviation and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

On 20 December 2006 the European Commission adopted a proposal for legislation that would include civil aviation in the European Union's emissions trading scheme starting in 2011. The announcement and background information are available here on the European Environment Directorate General's web pages.

There has been a range of reactions to the proposal, including from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the US Air Transport Association (ATA), the Association of European Airlines (AEA), the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) and the European Federation for Transport and Environment. An article in the Guardian reported on some other initial reactions. On 9 January 2007 the New York Times had an article reporting on the US Government position.

A particular issue of interest is disagreement over the legal basis of a move that would include all flights taking off from and landing at European Union (EU) airports.

Following work by the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), global solutions are due to be considered by the ICAO Assembly when it meets in Montreal in September 2007. The web page of ICAO's Environmental Unit has links to some relevant background information.

In announcing the proposal for legislation, the European Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, is reported by ATW to have said that "If we wait for ICAO to move on emissions trading we will be waiting forever."

Comment from Wolfgang Tiefensee, the Federal Minister of Transport in Germany, the current holder of the EU Presidency, is available here.

Hong Kong's Air Services Agreements available on the web

The Hong Kong SAR Department of Justice makes available the texts of Hong Kong's air services agreements here on its web site. Because Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony until the handover in July 1997, all of these agreements are relatively recent, often replacing provisions relating to Hong Kong that were included in the UK's air services agreements.

The leadership of the Hong Kong SAR delegation at air services negotiations comes from the Economic Development and Labour Bureau. Its site provides access to relevant press releases.

The relevant provisions of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration spelling out Hong Kong SAR's degree of autonomy with respect to air services agreements are available here UPDATED (see Chapter IX of the Annex of the Joint Declaration).

UAE News on new air services arrangements

With two United Arab Emirates-based international airlines, Emirates Airline (EK) and Etihad Airways (EY), both growing very rapidly and having made massive orders for Boeing (EK and EY orders and deliveries) and Airbus (orders and deliveries) aircraft, the issue of which routes these airlines will operate and whether the necessary air services arrangements have been or will be able to be secured is of major importance.

Official news of the UAE's new air services arrangements is published on the UAE Interact web site run on behalf of the UAE Ministry of Information and Culture. Unfortunately whoever is editing the site seems to have limited knowledge of these matters so the news items are scattered across three different news pages. See:
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT - AIR TRAFFIC AGREEMENTS as well as
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT - AVIATION AGREEMENTS and
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT - AVIATION & AIRLINES

US "Open Skies" Agreements available on the web

The US Department of State has now made available from the Open Skies Agreements page of its web site the full texts of most of the bilateral and multilateral "open skies" agreements that the United States of America is a party to.

The Multilateral Agreement on the Liberalization of Air Transportation (MALIAT)(sometimes known as the Kona Agreement), to which the US is a party, also has its own web site maintained by New Zealand in its role as depositary for the Agreement. The MALIAT has been in effect since 21 December 2001.

Recent UK Air Services Agreements available on the web

Air Services Agreements (ASAs) that the United Kingdom (UK) is party to are published as Command Papers. The full texts of ASAs published since January 1992 are available here on the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) web site.

As you might expect, the bilateral agreement that I am most interested in is that between New Zealand and the UK signed in Wellington on 26 July 2005. This "open skies" ASA is very rare (unique?) in that it includes the exchange of all nine freedoms of the air.

The full texts of other ASAs on the FCO web site at the time of writing include those that the UK has recently concluded with: the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Pakistan, the Slovak Republic, Syria, Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates.

The UK Department for Transport includes a web page detailing the UK's Bilateral Programme of Air Services Talks as part of its web site's information on international aviation services.

India's recent bilateral air service arrangements available on the web

On the web site of the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation the Directorate General of Civil Aviation publishes information on India's bilateral international air service arrangements, including the full texts of memoranda of understandings reached from 2005 onwards and summaries of all India's bilaterals.

Summary of Canada's bilateral air services arrangements available on the web

The Canadian Transportation Agency publishes a report summarising information on Canada's international air services arrangements.

Once they are published, full treaty texts concluded since January 1991 are included in an online catalogue available from the Government of Canada Publications website (search terms: air agreement).

Australia's Air Services Agreements available on the web

The Australian Treaties Database is available on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) web site. To find air services agreements (ASAs) one can do a subject search on TRANSPORT. However, it seems that each time a new ASA is presented to the Australian Parliament also included is a reference sheet listing all of Australia's current ASAs. Here is a recent example available from the Australian Treaties Library. One can then use the references to find ASAs that are of interest in the Database.

Remember that an ASA will not give the full story particularly when capacity is predetermined as is generally the case with Australia's air services arrangements.

A valuable summary of Australia's international air services arrangements, albeit now starting to get a little dated appeared in the 1999 Productivity Commission Final Report on International Air Services UPDATED (this is a 1.33MB .pdf file) - see Appendix E, pp281-300.

Also of interest are the International Air Services Commission web site and the Schedule of Unused Capacity for Australian International Airlines published by DoTaRS.

And as might be expected if there is a significant outcome from an air services negotiation there is likely to be a related ministerial media statement or two.

If others have better web sources for this information I would appreciate knowing.

Possible FIRB conditions on Qantas sale?

There has been some speculation as to what conditions the Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, advised by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), might impose on the Qantas sale. Reference was made in an article in The Australian yesterday to the Minister of Transport, Mark Vaile, expecting similar conditions to those imposed on Air New Zealand (NZ) when it purchased the final 50% of Ansett (AN). The article also reports Vaile's commitment to protect the proposed launch of services to the USA by Virgin Blue from competition from SQ.

The ministerial media statement detailing the conditions that were imposed on Air New Zealand in 1990 is available here.

UK Airport Slots Allocation

Those interested in the current situation with respect to slots and terminal capacity at LHR and other major UK airports will find the Airport Coordination Limited web site has relevant information. The company is responsible for airport slot allocation in the UK. The web site also has other information like charts of aircraft movements by aircraft type.

"Empty Core" Theory and the Airline Industry

A comment made to me at the Civil Aviation Authority Christmas function in December has had me hunting down academic work on something called "empty core" theory as a possible insight into competition in the airline and shipping industries. Given the appalling record of profitability of the global airline industry over the years and the importance of finding the optimal form of government economic regulation/intervention, this would seem to be a particularly important area of economic theory to get right.

For lay readers an article Why Air Travel Doesn't Work by Timothy Smith that appeared in FORTUNE magazine back in 1995 provides a non-technical introduction to the theory and its application.

Work in this area, which has its basis in game theory, seems to owe much to University of Chicago economist Lester Telser.

With respect to the airline industry, transport economist Kenneth Button of the George Mason School of Public Policy and the Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics Center has shown an active interest in this area.

With respect to shipping, and in particular the conference system, William Sjostrom from the Centre for Policy Studies at the National University of Ireland, Cork, has taken an active interest. He write AtlanticBlog.

In terms of material available free on the web the following is of interest:

Application of Core Theory to the U.S. Airline Industry (2005) by Vidapuri Raghavan and Jayathi Raghavan
Ocean Shipping Cartels: A Survey (2004) by William Sjostrom
Empty Cores in Airline Markets (2002) by Kenneth Button

I have added links to these papers to the Transport section of my Home Page.

I am very interested to find out more about any criticisms of this theory and thoughts as to the practical application of this thinking for transport policy makers and competition regulators.

Web 2.0 - How much of it is hype?

The "summer" holidays - the weather has been unseasonably cold and wet in Wellington, New Zealand, a good excuse to stay inside - have given me a chance to revamp my Home Page, which now links to around 930 sites on the web, and explore some of the new web sites that are part of so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon. Much of this seems to be about getting individuals to generate and select web content, but having had my own home page on the web since 1998 (or was it 1997?), the concept of making "amateur" contributions to creating new content on the web is not exactly new to me. As noted in a previous posting, I started the New Zealand Aviation Yahoo! Group back in 1998. I have also been posting some of my photographs to Flickr since 2005 while more recently have made some very small contributions to Wikipedia in areas where I have some expertise.

Looking at some of the notable new web sites gives me the impression that, while there is much hype, there is now some useful development occurring and it is helping one to find particularly interesting nuggets of material amongst the mass of information now available on the web. For example, I found the 2007 Web Trend Map from Information Architects Japan to be a brilliant way of summarising the key web sites that are part of Web 2.0. The number of private individuals making a solid contribution to this phenomenon actually seems relatively small but this is clearly changing.

My recent exploration of Web 2.0 has included starting this weblog, contributing factual comments to a small number of other "blogs" that cover some of my interests, revisiting digg, and joining Newsvine and reddit. Newsvine, in particular, impresses me. I have joined its small but active Aviation group and started setting up a Column. As for reddit I have yet to see evidence of any great skill in filtering the stories that would be of particular interest to me, something that Amazon.co.uk does relatively well in terms of making book recommendations if one enters and rates previous book purchases.

In the right-hand side column of this weblog I have also been experimenting with the Eurekster swiki software by creating a search engine for Civil Aviation. My initial impression is that this software needs quite a bit more work but please feel free to contribute to improving my particular swiki.

New Zealand Aviation Yahoo! Group

Back in 1998 I founded a Yahoo! Group covering New Zealand Aviation. It now has 121 members from around the world and has had some 447 messages posted on it but of late activity has dropped off. I have taken a particular interest in ensuring that the Links page has a wide coverage of New Zealand aviation web sites. If you are interested in the New Zealand aviation scene please join and take an active role in livening the Group up again.

Israeli Parliament considering removing Airline Antitrust Exemption

On 24 December 2006 Haaretz reported that a committee of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, was considering removing a blanket exemption that airlines enjoy from antitrust scrutiny.

In the United States international airlines seek approval from the Department of Transportation for such practices as code sharing and schedule coordination. New Zealand has similar legislation (Part 9 of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 - available www.legislation.govt.nz - gives the decision making power to the Minister of Transport, and this power can be delegated to Ministry of Transport officials) to the United States with respect to international air services, while in Australia the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has jurisdiction over such matters.

DoT tentative No to Virgin America

On 27 December 2006 Virgin America was advised that a tentative decision had been reached not to grant it a licence to operate domestic services within the United States on the basis that it was not considered to be under the actual control of US citizens. The company, which recently obtained the necessary US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety certification and has been planning an SFO hub, has issued a media statement responding to the US Department of Transportation (DoT) "show cause" announcement (see also the Order and related documents).

Back in 1990 when the Virgin Group was looking to setup Virgin Blue in Australia and operate international air services to New Zealand similar issues about foreign ownership and control arose and the then Minister of Transport, Hon Mark Gosche, issued a media statement. Subsequently after it became Australian owned and controlled, Virgin Blue set up a 100% owned New Zealand company, Pacific Blue (NZ) Ltd, that qualifies as a SAM airline to operate trans-Tasman services. Christchurch-based Pacific Blue (NZ) does not, however, qualify to be designated as a New Zealand international airline so can only operate within the Australasian Single Aviation Market (SAM) under the Australia - New Zealand open skies air services agreement. Pacific Blue (NZ) therefore wet leases its New Zealand registered aircraft for services by Pacific Blue (Aust) Pty Ltd beyond New Zealand to its South Pacific destinations. Such services must orginate in Australia because Australia has not agreed to exchange seventh freedom passenger rights with New Zealand. Samoan airline Polynesian Blue (49% owned by Virgin Blue) also wet leases its aircraft from Pacific Blue (NZ).

In New Zealand, however, since 1986 as a matter of foreign investment policy - no reciprocity is required - it has be possible for foreign nationals to have 100% ownership and control of a purely domestic airline. Australia also subsequently changed its policy.

In the jargon what is permissable in New Zealand and Australia, but not in the United States, is called ninth freedom cabotage.

DoT approval for United Airlines alliance with Star partners including Air Canada

On 19 December 2006 the US Department of Transportation announced tentative approval of alliance arrangements between Star Alliance airlines, including expanded cooperation between Air Canada and United Airlines. Should this decision be confirmed it will clear the way for the signing of a comprehensive "open skies" agreement between Canada and the United States. This follows the conclusion by Canada of an "open skies" agreement with the United Kingdom announced on 21 April 2006.

The Canada-United States agreement, which was initialled on 10 November 2005, includes a full exchange of fifth freedom rights. At the time separate official media statements were made in the United States and Canada.

Air Canada announced back on 25 January 2006 that it is seeking to operated from Toronto beyond LAX non-stop to SYD but this would also require the necessary traffic rights to have been agreed between Canada and Australia. Los Angeles was not included as an intermediate point for Canadian airlines in the 1988 Australia-Canada air services agreement. The Canadian Transportation Agency summary of the bilateral arrangements indicates that Australian Government agreement would be required. Australian-based Virgin Blue's trans-Pacific plans which apparently require amendment to the Australia-United States air services arrangements, reported on 14 December 2006, may complicate matters.

Finding deleted web pages using the Internet Archive

Today I was trying to track down a published academic journal article that I had linked to from my Transport page. The article, which contained a significant error, was available free on the web site of the University where the academic concerned had been based. He has recently moved however and the paper has disappeared from that web site.

This is where the Internet Archive and specifically the Wayback Machine is brilliant. This site now holds over 85 billion web pages (including of my home page back on 3 December 1998)! If you know the old URL just enter it in the Wayback Machine and with any luck the old page will still be available. Almost understandably, the Internet Archive's search function does not seem to work so well though.

FAI World Air Sports Challenge coming to New Zealand

Last month I attended the launch at Parliament of the FAI World Air Sports Challenge to be held at Omarama and Wanaka in the South Island of New Zealand during December 2007. One of the potentially most exciting proposed features is the use of Virtual Eye computer technology from Animation Research Ltd to cover the gliding competitions. This technology is based on that used for Americas Cup coverage and, with the added dimension of altitude, should make for some exciting viewing.

Google Analytics

As well as this weblog and my Home Page, I also act as webmaster for the Wellington Aero Club and the Titahi Bay Canine Obedience Club. I have now signed all four up for the free Google Analytics service and will be interested to see the reported results.

Morgan is now a Good Citizen Dog

At the end of the "school" term at the Titahi Bay Canine Obedience Club this month Morgan, our Standard Poodle dog, qualified with me at the Basic level as a Canine Good Citizen Dog. This is a New Zealand Kennel Club qualification.

Bree, our Standard Poodle bitch, qualified with Wendy at both the Basic and Bronze levels back in October 2006. They are now training towards the Silver qualification. Bree is almost a year older than her brother, Morgan.

Linking up with Technorati

Technorati Profile

An easy way to exercise the dogs

If your dog likes fetching a tennis ball, I would throughly recommend using a Chuckit! ball launcher. It is a great way to get considerable distance with your throw and you don't have to pick up the slobbered on ball each time you want to throw it. Our two Standard Poodles, Bree and Morgan, love it when we take them down to the enclosed grounds at the Titahi Bay Canine Obedience Club in Mana for a game of fetch.

Takeover bid for Qantas

Qantas is currently the subject of an A$5.60 per share (A$11.1bn) takeover bid from Airline Partners Australia made on 13 December 2006 that, if successful, would see the company delisted from the stock exchange.

Because of the way air services agreements work, international airlines generally need to take care that they remain "substantially owned and effectively controlled" by nationals of the country designating the airline, in this case Australia. With Qantas the protection to ensure that this remains the case can be found in the Qantas Sale Act 1992 (see in particular section 7), which inter alia requires that two thirds of the airline's board of directors is made up of Australian nationals. Two thirds of the Airline Partners Australia board will also be Australian nationals.

The bidders note that foreign ownership of Qantas would actually decline from 46% to 40% if their bid is successful.

Kiwis in the United Kingdom

The BBC has produced a cartogram of where the 57,916 New Zealanders that were living in the UK at the time of the 2001 census were located. It is no great surprise that almost half the Kiwis ended up in London.

This compares with around 215,000 Britons resident in New Zealand.

Fedex flight pattern over the USA

An interesting clip on YouTube shows the daily pattern of Fedex aviation operations complete with music. Note the focus on the Fedex hub at Memphis International Airport. Logistics in action!

Canada releases "Blue Sky" international air policy

On 27 November 2006 the Canadian Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Honourable Lawrence Cannon, released Blue Sky: Canada's New International Air Policy. This followed the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport undertaking a study on Air Liberalization and the Canadian airports system. In October 2006 the Canadian Minister of Transport had released a consultation document UPDATED on a New International Air Policy.

Canada now joins a small but growing list of countries proactively seeking to negotiate "open skies" type air services agreements - at least in some circumstances. Earlier this year Canada had announced new open air services agreements with the United Kingdom and Portugal.

It is interesting to compare this new Canadian statement with the media statement on Australian international air services policy made Australia's Minister of Transport, Honourable Warren Truss, on 21 February 2006.

New Zealand's International Air Transport Policy was last comprehensively updated in a restatement in 1998. It also receives brief mentions, particularly on page 17, in the December 2002 New Zealand Transport Strategy.

New Growth Theory

I am currently enjoying reading "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery" by David Warsh who writes the online newsletter Economic Principals. The book is about endogenous growth theory, an important breakthrough in economic theory. It backgrounds the work of Paul Romer to internalise technological change in how economists explain economic growth.

Those who follow the development of the airline industry will appreciate how technological change has lead to a massive reduction in the cost and price of air travel over the years.

Nordic Views on Competition Regulation and the Airline Industry

Having just emerged from spending the last few months focussed on the application from Air New Zealand and Qantas to form a joint venture for trans-Tasman flights, I have been hunting down recent academic articles on competition regulation and the airline industry. In the process I came across an interesting 120 page long 2002 report from the Nordic competition authorities entitled "Competitive Airlines - Towards a more vigorous competition policy in relation to the air travel market".

Updated Economics page

I spent part of yesterday updating the Economics page of my web pages. Amongst other changes I added to the page links to Worldmapper, which has a growing collection of cartograms on a wide range of topics including transport, and RTable.NET from the USA, which picks up on some of the best in blogging on economics.