Drewry's latest Dry Bulk Forecaster reports that coal has been the recent saviour of the dry bulk market. Global GDP grew by 3.2 percent in 2012, following growth of 5.2 percent and 4.0 percent in the post-recession years of 2010 and 2011. This slowdown blighted dry bulk cargo volumes and in turn tonnage demand. Global steel production, reflecting industrial and growth activity around the world, grew by only 1.3 percent in 2012, with a subsequent impact on iron ore and coking coal trade.

Export regulations were - and are - anything but straight-forward. One reason is that they reflect political pressures and interests. And these pressures and interests change with the wind.

DHL Express said it has trained 4000 of its employees in 51 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa using an in-house Certified International Specialists learning and development program.

Software AG has launched Software AG Live, a cloud-based, "platform-as-a-service" suite of business applications.

The fog is beginning to clear. High-tech and other types of manufacturers are getting a better idea of what they must do in order to conform to new requirements for disclosing the presence in their products of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring states. Still, a number of questions remain unanswered.