The methane gets converted to electricity and a family in an emerging nation can charge a phone, or other device, for free.

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Despite the trappings of Westernization in major cities, a literacy rate of just 61 percent and high infant mortality rates betray the reality of India's status as an emerging nation.

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While this is understandable considering that there is a wide disparity of income per capita between the two nations, as more consumers in China, or for that matter any emerging nation, see an increase in buying power as the country develops, the demand for smartphones will increase exponentially.

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As such, those who believe the IMF must look beyond Europe after the DSK scandal have a valid point, as they do when they argue that a managing director from an emerging nation will have a most salutary impact by underscoring the message the IMF sent in 2008 when it reformed its system of quota shares to better represent smaller countries.

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Having a national brand matters, because it makes products emerging from that nation more meaningful.

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Meanwhile this group, led by Paul Krugman, a columnist with The New York Times, conveniently overlooks the travails of another emerging-market nation that's also a U.S. ally: Turkey, which has no currency board.

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His plan, announced in July, could have provided a blueprint for other Myanmar businesses that want to raise money to fend off foreign companies seeking a foothold in the Southeast Asian nation, which is emerging from decades of military rule and isolation.

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It is the sixth most literate nation among the top 24 emerging markets in the world today.

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The recent carnage coincides with an emerging political crisis in the war-torn Middle Eastern nation, which faces an increasingly fractious legislature as Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs increasingly seem at odds.

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China stands at the head of a very short list, and that nation's long-held reputation as Asia's emerging economic giant and new-found gloss as an island of stability both tempt investor attention.

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