Monday, October 29, 2001 Issue 19   VOLUME 1 ISSUE 19   WELCOME http://www.fita.org Here's your latest issue of Really Useful Sites for the International Trade Professional. This free bi-weekly newsletter reviews useful Web sites from the Web Resources database at FITA's International Trade/ Import-Export Portal at http://fita.org, an excellent source for trade leads, news, events, and a link library of 7,000+ sites related to international trade. Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to others. My name is John McDonnell, and for years I wrote a weekly e- newsletter that profiled business-oriented Web sites. Now I'm using my Web research skills to find sites that are useful for international trade, as well as some fun sites that you'll enjoy visiting. COUNTRY STUDIES http://www.academicinfo.net/subarea.html I don't know about you, but lately I have this desire to find out more about the Middle East, and I look for Web sites that can educate me about what's going on in this volatile part of the world. One particularly good one is The Academic Info Area and Country Studies Gateway at www.academicinfo.net/subarea.html. Here you'll find links to sites about countries and regions of the world, and they're all high-quality sites that will bring you up to speed on culture, business, politics, entertainment, news, sports and other topics about each region. I found some great starting points at the Indexes & General Directories page at www.academicinfo.net/mestmeta.html. For lots more links to Middle Eastern sites, go to FITA's International Trade Web Resources page at www.fita.org/webindex and click on "Regional Resources and Multi-Lateral Trading Areas" on the left navigation bar. AILEENA http://www.aileena.ch Whenever I want to get a different perspective on the latest news, I read an online newspaper from another country (well, the ones with English editions, anyway). One of the best indexes to online media is AILEENA at www.aileena.ch. This site has over 5,500 links to newspapers, radio and TV stations in 174 countries. You do a search, find something that looks interesting, click on it, and you're transported to the Web page for that media outlet. Are your prospects part of the international trade community? If so, here's an opportunity to showcase your service or product to 50,000 subscribers of Really Useful Sites for the International Trade Professional. FITA now offers limited sponsorship opportunities to selected organizations. For information, please contact Barney Lehrer, Director of eCommerce Development at webmaster@fita.org or 1-800-969-FITA extension 4. RECIPE SOURCE http://www.recipesource.com Here's a fun site. If you like cooking, you'll love RecipeSource at www.recipesource.com. This site is the source for SOAR: The Searchable Online Archive of Recipes, which has over 70,000 recipes in its database. You'll find a cornucopia of recipes here, from all over the world. You can browse ethnic cuisines by region, by type (Soups & Stuff, Baked Goods, Sweets & Desserts, etc.), or do a keyword search. I don't know if my family is ready for some of the recipes I saw at this site, but I'm game. I might shy away from the recipes in the Extraterrestial & Bizarre category, though. FAGAN FINDER http://www.fagan.f2s.com I'm always looking for new ways to search the Web, and this week I found a useful one in Fagan Finder at www.fagan.f2s.com. This is an all-purpose site that allows you to search in many different ways. All you do is type in your search terms and specify if you want Fagan Finder to use search engines, encyclopedias, biographies, maps, dictionaries, news sources, or a variety of other sources to find what you're looking for. What's good about this site is that it combines many search tools in one handy interface. Published by Federation of International Trade Associations Copyright © 2001 The Federation of International Trade Associations. All rights reserved. ================================================================= Are there topics you'd like to see covered in FITA'S Really Useful Sites? Send suggestions, ideas, or comments to editor John McDonnell at jaymack@fita.org. ================================================================= This newsletter is distributed by the Federation of International Trade Associations (FITA) for the benefit of the worldwide international trade community. If you have a question regarding this service, please contact FITA by email at newsletter@fita.org.