As many Australians grapple with how to save their Great Barrier Reef from global warming, others are preoccupied with building one of the world's biggest coal mines nearby.

Hospitals around the country are scrambling to stockpile vials of a critical drug - even postponing operations or putting off chemotherapy treatments - because the country's only two suppliers have run out. The medicine? Sodium bicarbonate solution. Yes, baking soda.

Three years ago if a customer walked onto Dan Reel's used car lot seeking a late-model off-lease Ford Escape, his answer was short: tough luck.

In 2000, a company called Pegasus Apparel Group was founded with private equity money and a big idea: Buy a group of fashion brands based in the United States and create a homegrown version of the major European luxury conglomerates.

A confluence of political and economic forces has prompted Europe's largest airplane manufacturer to place a factory in Alabama - and to create one of the world's most gargantuan supply chains.