The world’s third biggest oil producer is also blessed with vast reserves of gas, fresh water and fish. Norway is Europe’s Saudi Arabia: a country so wealthy that despite having a population of just 4.5 million, it is a major player on the world stage. But as the frozen north melts and the competition for oil and gas intensifies, the country is keeping a watchful eye on neighbouring Russia. And at home, prosperity is creating its own worrying problems.

Ecuador used to be a loyal ally of the US, but now its new president Rafael Correa is cutting a very different course and even looking to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez for political guidance. Monocle travelled there to meet the old oligarchs and the new power players and discovered a country where, despite oil and banana wealth, the new government faces a perilous future.

Bremen has always been an independent, outward-looking city, but that didn’t help it when the port’s traditional shipbuilding trade went into decline. Now the city has reinvented itself as a hi-tech hub. With low rents, a convenient airport and great housing. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the former West Germany and is the ideal place to build your new headquarters.

India’s economic boom has taken flight. Air traffic volumes are increasing exponentially – as is the pressure to service five million new passengers a year. That’s why KS Kohli and his Frankfinn training schools are making a fortune training young men and women how to serve lunch at 33,000ft. But, warn analysts, the Indian airline industry could be heading for a nasty nosedive.

Downloadable novels, written to be read on mobile phones, are the most remarkable success story in Japanese publishing. The fledgling industry is already worth ¥9 billion (€57m) a year – while sales of traditional books are falling.

Swedes take aim at the wolf, Boyko wonder in the Balkans and feeling the heat in Germany. Plus, Letter from Samara, Russia's new boom city.

How Islam helped US capitalism in Somalia and why women in Saudi buy cars they can't drive.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark's wardrobe decoded. And adopt a sheep.

How to put the US back on the rails and why Canada has been on a military spending spree.

How New York became a space centre, making green products stylish and branding a nation.

The Nieuwe Waterweg in Rotterdam is Europe’s main port and the world’s fifth-largest, employing 58,000 people. The Europe Container Terminal (ECT), owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings Group, was built here in 1966 to accommodate container vessels. Some 378 million tonnes of containers passed through the port in 2006.

Hans Wegner's legacy, Locarno home style and Danish office style.

Banana Reublic heads to Europe, Ferragamo has bags of style and the man in the Vans.

Politician Albert Rivera believes that Catalan nationalism has gone too far and now threatens to isolate the miracle region fuelled by Barcelona. Crushed by Franco, Catalonia regained partial autonomy in 1979. Last year its government presented a new Statute for Autonomy to the Spanish parliament. It caused uproar by terming Catalonia a nation.

Tokyo is one of the world’s most competitive commercial property markets but the fierce competition means that projects are finished on time and it is considered vital to get every detail right. The latest offering is Midtown, developed by Mitsui Fudosan and Tetsuya Matsufuji is the man responsible for creating the ultimate retail environment.

Modern warfare is not simply divided between conventional and nuclear, guerrilla or acts of terrorism. It’s a complicated mix of all these and more. But what to buy to defend yourself? Every two years, defence firms gather at IDEX to display their latest products. Monocle travelled there to see what is on offer and who is buying.

Emmerys is the kind of food “chain” that we would like to see in every country. Run by Per Brun, each outlet is individual, each product high-quality. It is a unique Nordic mix of chic 7-11 meets Dean & Deluca. Yet its success in Denmark is against the odds. The country is hooked on discount food stores. There are 1,150 nationwide, a rise of 65 per cent on 10 years ago. Brun, however, has found success with a maverick, inspirational business plan.

Monocle assembles the perfect fitness regime and fills a kitbag with exercise essentials without s much as breaking into a sweat.

To counter dipping audience figures and falling advertising revenues, TV news increasingly offers a diet of soft stories, banal banter and Identikit blondes. Who is to blame, a public unwilling to engage with global affairs, or the networks trying to brand news as entertainment?

Newspaper readers love fantasy football, but what about fantasy broadcasting? If money were no object, what would a new, world-beating Scandinavian media organisation look like, who would work for it, what kind of equipment would they use? Monocle shows you how it should be done.

Pharmaceuticals giants Roche and Novartis are both based in Basel, where they turn in billion- euro profits every year. But now their hard-fought commercial struggle is being matched by an architectural rivalry that will result in the building of the tallest tower in Switzerland.

To mark the start of a seasonal series, Monocle visited three of its favourite retail outlets to talk to the men who buy their twice yearly line-up of labels for men and women. We start our tour at our editor-in-chief’s top haunt in the centre of Como, jump up to much trendier Park in Vienna and head over to Beams in Tokyo to talk colour, cut and creators.

Tünel newsstand in Istanbul and Pet Sounds in Stockholm.

The artists, animators and graphic designers Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas met in 1988. Although both are artists in their own right, they collaborate on almost all their projects. They formed their production company, Add A Dog, in 1999. Its most famous work has been the title sequence for Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. They are known for bringing classical skills into a modern design world.

Despite its 223-year history, and rural setting, there is nothing dyed in the wool about British knitwear business John Smedley. This is a company that has thrived on its ability to move with the times – and now it is preparing to launch a non-knitted fashion line.

The Austrian modernist architect Andrea Lenardin Madden might have seemed an odd choice as the design force behind the fast-expanding Sprinkles cupcake empire – not least to herself – but, like one of their sweetest products, she has risen to the challenge, as the projects on these pages show.

The Korean music box designed by Kenneth Grange and an exclusive look at BSA's new clothing range.

The Swedish company teaching Hollywood a ting or two with the A-Cam, the smallest 16mm cinema camera in the world.

La Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City offers foreign buyers a cosmopolitan spot in the sun at reasonable prices. We show you how to make the move.

Riccardo Illy is president of both Illy, his family’s coffee-making company, and the Assembly of European Regions, created in 1985 to give voice to the continent’s provinces and generate a forum for mutual cultural insight.

When it first started rolling into suburban garages and pulling up on gravel country driveways, the term SUV was unknown to fans of the G-Wagen. Twenty-eight years after its launch, the boxy, rugged classic from Austria is one of the most timeless vehicles still in production. Monocle headed to the production line in Graz to watch the craftsmen on the assembly line who hand build G-Wagens – each one to a customer’s precise specifications. This is the chronicle of a design classic’s creation.

When it first started rolling into suburban garages and pulling up on gravel country driveways, the term SUV was unknown to fans of the G-Wagen. Twenty-eight years after its launch, the boxy, rugged classic from Austria is one of the most timeless vehicles still in production. Monocle headed to the production line in Graz to watch the craftsmen on the assembly line who hand build G-Wagens – each one to a customer’s precise specifications. This is the chronicle of a design classic’s creation.

If you could uproot your business and personal life, where would you go? Have you already started renovating the flat you bought in Genoa (as suggested in issue one) and started looking for office space in Monaco? Does a healthy lifestyle on Vancouver Island appeal – complete with an organic beauty business? Or are you happy where you are?