Kate Whitehead

Speak to most business executives about operating in a developing country and political stability, banking, transport, telecommunications and infrastructure issues are usually top of the list. But Vietnam is different – here people talk about the need to understand the psyche of the Vietnamese.

Recently confirmed as the global birthplace of chocolate, Ecuador is also seeking to regain its laurels as the world’s finest producer.

North Korea has barely been out of the news since Kim Jong-un took control of the regime following the death of his father Kim Jong-il in December 2011. From nuclear threats, public executions, forced labour camps and, most recently, a damning united Nations report, the headlines make clear that the isolated state is extremely volatile.

When you come from a land where we politely refer to smog as fog and have to have our stomachs pumped if we fall in the harbour, the Galapagos Islands are quite simply a paradise

Former Hong Kong interior minister will plead guilty in New York, veteran criminal defence lawyer Robert Precht believes, and make serious allegations about Chinese companies paying bribes to foreign officials to win contracts

Artists featured in a new book by curator Barbara Pollack were all born after Mao Zedong’s death and see the world very differently to their forebears