The Economist (US) back issues from February 1998:
Back to business. (brief reports on the balanced federal budget of the US, Pres Clinton's sex scandal, and other international news)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... President Clinton unveiled the first balanced budget plan in the United States for almost 30 years. He announced a rise of 4% in government spending, mostly on child care, education, scientific research and the expansion of federal health care for the elderly. He promised that the expected ...
Rifts to narrow. (brief reports on the international diplomatic effort to end the Iraqi conflict, relations between Germany and Iran, and other international news)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... Russian and French efforts to find a peaceful way out of the Iraqi crisis intensified as the Americans again gave warning that the time for diplomacy was running out and sought, with limited success, Arab support for their threatened air strikes against Iraq. These, they said, would be ...
Stimulation. (brief reports on Japan's approval of an extra budget, export trade of Australia threatened by strikes, and other international news)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... The Japanese parliament approved an extra budget for the current financial year of YEN 1.14 trillion ($9.1 billion). The government aims to stimulate domestic consumption and increase imports from Asian countries hit by the current financial crisis.Australia's export trade was ...
Danger point. (brief reports on record-high unemployment in Germany, France's Gaullist Rally for the Republic, and other international news)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... Germany's unemployment in January reached 4.83m, the highest number since the early 1930s, triggering protests by jobless workers.At a party conference, France's Gaullist Rally for the Republic espoused economic liberalism more warmly than before, but decided not to change its ...
Swapping partners. (the proposed merger between British drug companies SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome would be the biggest in history)(Business This Week)(includes other international business news briefs)
Feb 07, 1998 ... Just as American Home Products was preparing to tie the knot with SmithKline Beecham, a British drug company, Glaxo Wellcome, another British drug firm, beat it to the altar. If the new deal proceeds, it will be the world's biggest-ever merger, creating a giant worth well over K100 billion ...
Bank behemoths. (a merger in Belgium involving Kredietbank will create that country's biggest financial services company)(Business This Week)(includes other international business news briefs)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... A banking and insurance merger centred around Kredietbank, Belgium's second-biggest bank, will create the country's biggest financial-services group, with a market capitalisation of around BFr480 billion ($13 billion). Other partners will include CERA Bank, a co-operative, ABB, an insurer, ...
Legal headaches. (Microsoft's antitrust case against the US Justice Department intensifies)(Business This Week)(includes other international business news briefs)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... As Microsoft's antitrust battles with America's Justice Department continued, 11 states issued subpoenas demanding information from the software giant about its upcoming Windows 98 operating system and the extent to which it is "bundled" with the company's own Internet browser software. ...
Back to work. (improvement in Asian currencies and financial markets)(Business This Week)(includes other international business news briefs)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... The end of the Ramadan lull and a return to work after Chinese new year brought a surge of confidence to Asian markets and currencies-at least temporarily. The baht revived after Thailand removed most controls on the currency, but then fell back somewhat, dragging other currencies with it ....
A good deal? (Japan and the US reach agreement on the transpacific airline market)(Business This Week)(includes other international business news briefs)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... After four years of haggling, Japan and the United States reached an agreement on dividing up the $10 billion transpacific airline market. But European airlines are likely to challenge some of the details of the deal, which still ...
Mr. Blair goes to Washington. (British prime minister Tony Blair)(Cover Story)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... WHEN Franklin Roosevelt entered the bedroom Winston Churchill was using at the White House in 1941, he found the British prime minister stark naked, dictating a letter. "You see, Mr President, I have nothing to conceal from you," remarked Churchill. Given the current jitters at the White ...
Bloodhound or rottweiler? (the powers given to independent counsel Kenneth Starr under the 1978 statute are far too broad and have no political checks)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... PREDICTABLY, as the night the day, two weeks of frenzy in America have been followed by soul-searching. Although the fundamental questions about Bill Clinton's behaviour remain as pertinent as ever, the press and public have put them aside. This week's immoral-man-out-of control is not the ...
Wirtschaftsblunder. (Germany's unemployment rate reaches post-World War II highs while remedies from the government are sadly lacking)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... RECORDS are there to be broken, but Germany has recently been smashing rather too many of the wrong kind. In January, unemployment rose to yet another post-war high, of 4.8m, or 12% of the labour force-the highest since the 1930s. The total is certain to breach the 5m mark within the next ...
Pills, potions and promises. (the proposed merger between British drug companies Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham would be the biggest ever)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... USED to churning out blockbuster drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has just produced a blockbuster deal. If, as seems likely, the planned K100 billion ($165 billion) merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, two British drug firms, goes ahead, it will be the world's biggest ever ...
A republic for the lucky country. (Australia debates whether to become a republic at its Constitutional Convention, replacing the British monarch as head of state)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... "UNLESS republicanism is thoroughly progressive and democratic . . . we might as well remain exactly as we are," thundered the Brisbane Boomerang in 1890 as Australians debated how their country should be governed. The debate is back again and the Boomerang's advice is as relevant as ever ....
Cyprus seeks leader: the island's Greeks and Turks may yet be reconciled. (hopes that the politically divided island may be reunified after the next presidential election)(Editorial)
Feb 07, 1998 ... The island's Greeks and Turks may yet be reconciledTHIS weekend and next, when there will probably be a run-off between the two leading contenders, Greek-Cypriots will elect a president for their part of the divided island. It is a grim business. In any Cypriot political campaign, ...
Liberalism rediscovered: the roots of new Labour. (British Labour Party)
Feb 07, 1998; ... "DIVISION among radicals almost 100 years ago", Tony Blair told the Labour Party last year, "resulted in a 20th century dominated by Conservatives. I want the 21st century to be the century of the radicals." This statement demands careful consideration.What happened in 1899 was ...
A virtually fat-free budget. (Pres Clinton's budget includes numerous social spending initiatives made possible by budget windfall)
Feb 07, 1998 ... WASHINGTON, DCPRESIDENT CLINTON's budget advisers have much to be cocky about. The budget that Mr Clinton presented on February 2nd can be trumpeted as the first in a generation that is actually balanced. It has enough social initiatives (ie, spending on child care and education) ...
Man, woman, death and God: the death sentence. (debate over impending execution of Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker)
Feb 07, 1998 ... AUSTIN, TEXAS"I AM going to be face to face with Jesus now," Karla Faye Tucker said in her final words. " . . . I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you." Behind the glass partition separating the witness box from the execution chamber Richard Thornton, the ...
The exiles think of helping. (growing movement in the US to provide humanitarian aid to Cuba)
Feb 07, 1998 ... MIAMIWHILE the Pope was in Cuba last month, he denounced the American trade embargo as "ethically unacceptable". Supporters of American policy towards Cuba were unmoved; they had expected it. Yet, faced by the pictures of poverty and squalor coming out of Havana, both supporters ...
Ronnie in concrete. (renaming of Washington, DC, National Airport after Ronald Reagan)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... WASHINGTON, DCYOU can tell a revolution has rotted when its leaders abandon ambitious programmes and start renaming things instead. Long after East Europeans lost faith in communism, they were still naming parade grounds after Marx and Lenin; long after the idealism of Latin ...
Money for pencils: California. (gubernatorial candidates of 1998 are expected to make plight of public schools a key campaign issue)
Feb 07, 1998 ... LOS ANGELESDIANNE FEINSTEIN's decision not to stand for the governorship of California may have transformed the election's prospects, but it has not changed the issue on which it will chiefly be fought: the state's failing schools. All the remaining candidates agree not only that ...
A question of survival: sheep farming. (beleaguered sheep industry reaches all-time lows and needs radical restructuring)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BIG HORN, WYOMINGCATTLE-producers always moan about their lot until someone mentions the sheep business. A row of nodding Stetsons agree: wool and lamb farmers have it worse. Much worse, in fact. In 1996, American sheep numbers hit an all-time low. In the 1930s the United States ...
The unchased president. (political leadership professes moral outrage towards Pres Clinton for his alleged sexual affair while the provincial masses are surprisingly tolerant)(Lexington)(Column)
Feb 07, 1998 ... THE court of Charles I was full of fops and sexual licence, which was one reason why provincial puritans cut off King Charles's head. The court of Louis XVI was full of cake-eating decadence, which offended the sturdy mores of the French bourgeoisie. In muted ways, America has experienced ...
Drugs, Latin America and the United States. (certification of countries in the war against drugs)
Feb 07, 1998 ... THERE must be a better way. This is drug certification month in Washington. Before March 1st, President Clinton has to decide which foreign countries he labels as reliable allies in the war against drugs and which not. Under American law, he has the right-as with the Helms-Burton law-to ...
Trees and the law: Brazil. (proposed law in Brazil designed to slow deforestation of the Amazon Region, but its effectiveness is questioned due to limited government enforcement resources)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... SAO PAULOTHERE are laws that catch on, Brazilians are wont to say, and laws that don't. The result is a country that grapples with simultaneous excesses of legalism and of lawlessness. Yet Brazilian legislators do not give up easily. Last month, a new law came into effect aimed, ...
Goodbye: the British empire. (UK reviewing relationships with dependent territories to make them more equitable)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... IT'S official: the British empire is over. Well, almost. Britain's Labour government, elected last May, has since been reviewing relations with what vulgar folk still call its colonies. This week its foreign secretary, Robin Cook-a Scot, like so many who kept the empire running-declared that ...
The Maple Leafs are falling. (Canadian Maple Leafs and other hockey teams face declining fan base and lack of quality play)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... VANCOUVERICE hockey is a fast, violent and often dishonest sport: hardly suitable, one might think, to be Canada's national game. But so it is. Invented, or at least formalised (the Dutch raise prior claims) on Canada's frozen ponds over a century ago, it is now deep-rooted in the ...
Sri Lanka's unhappy birthday: it is hard to find hope for peace amid the terrifying violence of Sri Lanka's ethnic war. But there is a glimmer. (conflict between Sinhalese and Tamils mars 50th anniversary of independence; small election turnout in Jaffna signals hope)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... COLOMBOIT WAS not much of a birthday. As Sri Lanka turned 50 this week, it looked back on decades of conflict between the Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, who want to split the country. In the past 14 years, the war that has raged with particular ferocity in the north-east of the ...
Aground in the docks: Australia. (dispute between unionized dockers and independent farmers may affect international trade as farmers try to set up own dock with non-union dock workers to improve working conditions and trade)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... SYDNEYON ONE side are the dockers, whose union dominates Australia's ports. On the other are the farmers, apparently in a determined bid to break the union's power. Unless the dispute is settled quickly, it could bring to a stop much of the country's overseas trade.The ...
The Great Wall wired: China and the Internet. (efforts by Chinese government to regulate use of the Internet before the number of users increases)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BEIJINGAS MORE and more Chinese find their way on to the Internet, China's bureaucrats, commissars and secret policemen find themselves with a digital dilemma. As they see it, the global information network has both good and bad bits.The bad threatens to facilitate ...
Chinese tunnel through the Net. (articles for electronic magazine Tunnel are written in China, published in the US and made available on the Internet; articles focus on issues central to China as well as those discussed by dissidents)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BEIJINGNEARLY 50 provocative issues of Tunnel magazine have been published since its launch last summer, and yet the most outspoken challenge to Communist Party rule yet seen in the Chinese media has not been shut down by the authorities. This week they seemed more worried by four ...
A little safer: India. (policies of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party include building nuclear weapons without testing them and encouraging creation of Indian businesses over foreign businesses)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... DELHIGO NUCLEAR, and give priority to Indian businessmen over foreigners. These are the central planks of the manifesto of the front-runner in India's general election campaign, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Foreign diplomats and investors are uneasy but not ...
Downhill all the way: the Winter Olympics. (costs for Japan to host the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano estimated at $10.5 billion; area not experiencing the tourist traffic it expected to help set off costs)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... NAGANO CITYA MONTH ago, Keita Asari was praying for snow. Lots of it. This week, as the executive producer in charge of the Nagano Olympics' opening ceremony on February 7th, he has been going to the famous Zenkoji shrine to pray for no more snow. As it is, some 20 centimetres ...
With a swoon, Imelda's back. (Imelda Marcos may still avoid prison in the Philippines despite conviction for corruption; public support for her is still evident)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... MANILA"IF THE government will not allow my human heart to beat with love, I have no more reason to live," so wept Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, in front of a sympathetic throng of loyalists and strategically positioned cameramen.For once, the high ...
As Iraq's clock ticks on.(world waits to see how the Iraqi weapons crisis will be resolved)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BAHRAIN AND BAGHDADWaiting for bombs or a diplomatic miracleCAN Saddam Hussein be persuaded that blinking is in his own best interest? Concerned outsiders, who know it to be in the interest of the Iraqi people-and possibly, since the consequences of the devastating ...
Mystery of the vanishing oil money. (despite income from oil sales Libya is in state of disrepair)
Feb 07, 1998 ... TRIPOLILIKE Iraq, Libya has a battered look. But with infinitely less reason, since the country is awash with petrodollars. It earns $9 billion each year from oil exports and the government claims that GDP per head is almost $8,000, the highest in Africa. Yet buildings in Tripoli ...
In a Trojan horse.(coup to topple government of Nigeria)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... LAGOSTHE conspirators, led by the deputy head of state, Major-General Oladipo Diya, were going to infiltrate the presidential palace by way of a Canadian-built motor-home that they were presenting to General Sani Abacha, the head of state. Or so goes this Trojan-horse tale, one of ...
Political cleansing.(ethnic killings in the Rift Valley of Kenya)
Feb 07, 1998 ... NAIROBIPARLIAMENT opened on February 3rd to songs, heckling and placards that accused Kenya's government of sins approaching genocide. This unruly protest by opposition MPs was against recent killings in the Rift Valley, the home province of Daniel arap Moi who, in December, won ...
Serial killer at large.(AIDS rampant in Kenya)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... NAIROBI"DON'T worry about the elections, all the voters will be dead." So read a placard carried by a striking nurse during Kenya's recent election campaign. The country's long-neglected AIDS epidemic means that her prediction will be on the way to becoming true by the time of the ...
Back to the bottle.(AIDS transmission from mother to child through breast feeding)
Feb 07, 1998 ... NAIROBIMULTINATIONAL food companies have long been under attack for pushing milk powder at mothers who do not need it and cannot afford it. But the anti-bottlefeeding lobby is now in a quandary. Evidence is growing that around half the 3.8m children infected with HIV contracted the ...
The rally of the French right: can the durable Philippe Seguin lead a fight-back from last year's defeat?(politics of the French right wing)
Feb 07, 1998 ... PARISCan the durable Philippe S@eguin lead a fight-back from last year's defeat?"EVERYONE is a free-marketeer nowadays," says Philippe Seguin, "even Castro." Was that a confession by the boss of France's Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic (RPR), of his own ...
Is there a breaking point?(German unemployment nears five million)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BONN"THE pudding will not explode," a senior German government official forecast stoically. He meant that the nation's unemployed would not turn violent, as some of them have in France, although the German jobless total is edging inexorably up. On February 5th it was announced ...
Poland's devolutionary battleground.
Feb 07, 1998 ... WARSAWTHANKS to the communist love of bureaucrats, Poland has almost as many "voivodships" as the United States has states-49 in all. Thanks to the communist love of centralised power, these regions have none of their own; "voivods" (governors) serve at the whim of the central ...
Presidents come.... (Feb 1998 presidential elections may bring change in leadership)(Europe: Cyprus)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... ATHENSTHE patience, ingenuity and willpower for glueing the Greek and Turkish bits of Cyprus back together have eluded local politicans and a string of western envoys for nearly 24 years. Rather than make the concessions needed to reunify the island, Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots ...
...and presidents go. (Presidents Come....)(Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosian)(Europe: Armenia)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... THE downfall of Armenia's president, Levon Ter-Petrosian, was swift, dramatic and bloodless, but it leaves a big gap in what was arguably-and in a thin field-the steadiest country in the Caucasus. And it is unlikely to further the cause of a lasting peace with Armenia's rival, Azerbaijan. ...
Not yet calm: Albania.(the initial relief in Albania, after the election of Fatos Nano as prime minister, is beginning to fade as economic difficulties continue and a harsh winter is made worse by power and water failures)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... SARANDASO FAR, Fatos Nano, Albania's new prime minister, has proved a splendid ambassador. Affable, articulate in English, seemingly well shed of his communist past, he gives a civilised face to his anarchic, impoverished country. Towards the end of last year he raised $600m-more ...
A Meciar coup? Slovakia.(Slovakian prime minister Vladimir Meciar hopes to take over the office of president after Michal Kovac leaves on March 2, 1998)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... PRAGUEVLADIMIR MECIAR, Slovakia's prime minister, has won all three general elections since communism collapsed in 1989, the best record in Eastern Europe. On February 6th he again looked likely to get the result he wanted. By abstaining in a parliamentary vote for a new president, ...
The Baltic bobsleigh.(presidents Lennart Meri of Estonia, Guntis Ulmanis of Latvia, and Algirdas Brazauskas of Lithuania seem appropriate leaders to reform their countries and to bring them in line with European Union standards)(Charlemagne)(Brief Article)(Column)
Feb 07, 1998 ... NATIONAL pride was at stake. A furious president hustled the waiting television crews out of the airport arrivals hall into its notoriously filthy lavatories. "It's a disgrace," he snorted through the stench. "What will foreign visitors think of us? This must be cleaned up." And it was ....
New skool rules, OK?(new orthodoxy in British schools is traditional rather than progressive)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... A new orthodoxy is being imposed on schools, replacing the "progressive" ideas in force since the 1960s. So has Britain got it right this time?THE year of flower power and Sergeant Pepper was also the year that Lady Plowden taught the schools to teach. According to legend in the ...
Hold on to your hats.(strength of the British currency harms U.K. exporters)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BIRMINGHAM AND LEICESTERAT ONE end of the machine is a roll of gossamer-light fabric. At the other, out pop mob-caps to keep food workers' hair out of your lunch. "We make about 1m of these a week," says Richard Brucciani, "and 250,000 chefs' hats." From a factory on the outskirts ...
The cult of Diana.(intellectuals analyze public reaction to the death of Princess Diana)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... WAS Diana, Princess of Wales, a "living simulacrum" and her life a re-working of "Tristan und Isolde"? Did the masses who turned out to mourn on the streets of Britain identify with Diana because she represented the "constituency of the rejected"? Or was all the public emotion really just ...
Lotto nonsense.(controversy over profit in management of United Kingdom lottery)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... IN A pantomime, when Prince Charming wins the day and the baddies get their just deserts, the audience cheers. It was a bit like that this week when Richard Branson won a libel case against Guy Snowden, a director of Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery. Mr Branson is a local hero-a ...
Jack Straw's chequered career.(United Kingdom home secretary)(Column)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... THIRTY years ago, as the sixties swung to their climax, Jim Callaghan was Britain's home secretary. Mr Callaghan, Labour but a social conservative, was persuaded by Shirley Williams, his Labour but liberal junior minister, that he should find out what young people were thinking; and for this ...
The mother of all mergers.(merger of Glaxo Wellcome PLC and SmithKline Beecham Group PLC)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... IF BIGGER is better, then the proposed merger between Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham (SB) threatens to exhaust the supply of superlatives. On its own, Glaxo is, by a whisker, the world's largest drug-seller, shifting $11.6 billion in prescription pills and other remedies in the year ...
Slot machine.(aviation deal between Japan and the U.S.)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... TOKYOTHE deal struck last week in Washington over air travel between America and Japan puts an end to a lengthy trade row between the two countries. Aviation is one market where America has always had the edge over Japan, thanks to an unbalanced bilateral deal signed in the early ...
Glittering gadfly.(Fairlines offers luxury airline service for business travelers)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... PARISSINCE Europe opened its skies to competition last spring, new little airlines have been taking wing. Most are cheap carriers, such as EasyJet and Debonair, based in Britain. These firms have followed the pattern set by Southwest Airlines in America, cutting in-flight service ...
Panned.(new gold companies emerge in depressed South African gold industry)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... JOHANNESBURGSOUTH AFRICA'S gold industry is being transformed. On January 28th Mzi Khumalo resigned as chairman of JCI, South Africa's first black-owned mining house, which had consistently disappointed investors. Barely five days later Gold Fields, a giant new gold company formed ...
Mail chauvinist.(British mail order company Great Universal Stores buys SG2 and bids for Argos)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... WITHIN as many days Great Universal Stores (GUS), Britain's largest mail-order company, announced two takeovers. The attention-grabber was a K1.6 billion ($2.6 billion) hostile bid for Argos, a British catalogue-retailer, on February 3rd. But the deal that hints at GUS's real future came a ...
Bargains galore: investing in South Korea. (fallout from Asian financial crises)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... SEOULAFTER emergency financial surgery, South Korea's condition is now stable, though still serious. The good news, at least for the foreign multinationals who have been pacing the corridors during its recent troubles, is that Korea Inc can now receive visitors, even suitors ....
What's in a name? (reform of Internet' Domain Name System)(Brief Article)
Feb 07, 1998 ... SAN FRANCISCOWHO should allocate addresses on the Internet? The future of the domain-name system (DNS) has become the most fiercely argued aspect of Internet governance. On January 30th America's Commerce Department put forward proposals that have infuriated some of the old hands ...
Wrung out. (Deutsche Telekom's struggles for customers, profitability)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BERLINIT HAS been a dreadful start of the year for Deutsche Telekom, and worse is to come. In competitive markets the former monopolist is losing customers because of high prices and poor service, while many of the businesses where it is most entrenched are under attack. The ...
Small print, big profits. (Rolls-Royce chairman Sir Ralph Roberts)
Feb 07, 1998 ... THERE is something of the ambassador about the chairman of Rolls-Royce, with his white hair and hands hooked in the pockets of his dark-blue pin-striped suit. Yet beware Sir Ralph Robins's suave charm. For he can also behave with the determined cunning-his enemies might call it perfidy-that ...
Too soon to celebrate. (cautious approach to Asian economic recovery)
Feb 07, 1998 ... BANGKOK AND SEOULIN RECENT months panic buying in South-East Asia has largely been confined to food shops. This week it hit the stockmarkets. Returning from the Chinese New Year and the end-of-Ramadan holiday, investors were anxious not to miss the start of a recovery from last ...
How big is Asia? (gross domestic product in Asian economies)
Feb 07, 1998 ... ASIA's troubled tigers appear to be wasting away. Indonesia's GDP was $226 billion in 1996; this year it will shrink to only $50 billion, if its dollar exchange rate remains near current levels. That would leave the country's income in dollar terms no higher than its level in the late 1970s ....
Final helpings. (privatization of Spanish banks)
Feb 07, 1998 ... MADRIDSPANIARDS have become passionate about stocks. Lured by buoyant share prices and a series of successful privatisations, more than a quarter of Spain's 13m-odd households now own shares. The final stage of the privatisation of Argentaria, Spain's fourth-largest bank, reveals ...