The Economist (US) back issues from September 2007:
A wannabe Chavez short of oil; Ecuador.(Ecuador's confrontational president)(Rafael Correa)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Rafael Correa (pictured left) tries his own version of "21st century socialism" NELSON ZAPATA has been shining shoes in the shadow of the Carondelet palace, the elegant colonial seat of Ecuador's presidency, for 25 years. In the past decade, he has seen no fewer than eight ...
Out of jail; Cuba's political prisoners.
Sep 01, 2007 ... The relatives hope for an end to darkness at noon But far from free IN AS many weeks, three political prisoners have been freed in Cuba, including the longest-serving of them, Francisco Chaviano, after 13 years in jail. He had been accused in 1994 of revealing state ...
Share gusher; Colombia.(Colombia's oil privatisation)
Sep 01, 2007 ... An unfashionable oil privatisation UNTIL a few years ago, news about Colombia's state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol, tended to appear on the newspaper pages chronicling the country's internal conflict, rather than in the business section. Its pipelines were a favourite target of ...
Worthy but dull; Canada.(Electoral reform in Canada)
Sep 01, 2007 ... No, not the country, electoral reform CANADIAN politics is a four-party affair, with a fifth party, the Greens, now trying to break into the club. Yet the country clings to a British-style first-past-the-post electoral system. Inevitably, that produces some big ...
Enter the judges; Corruption in Brazil.(Brazil's corruption scandals)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Criminal charges for Lula's aides BRAZILIANS are sadly used to corruption scandals, but even the most cynical might have paid attention this week. The Supreme Court indicted 40 people, including the former right-hand man of Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the ...
Maximum city blues; India's commercial capital.(rebuilding Mumbai)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Great plans are in place to resuscitate South Asia's biggest city. As ever, the difficulty lies in implementing them THERE is only one way to see Mumbai. That is by helicopter: whirring low over the rust-brown slums, godowns and Victorian Gothic monuments of India's city of ...
Strike one; China's Communist Party.(China drops its finance minister)(Jin Renqing)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The party is over for China's finance minister THE Chinese Communist Party likes to keep everyone guessing. Less than seven weeks before its convocation, it has at last deigned to announce a provisional date for its biggest formal gathering in five years. It has been less ...
Buying time; Cabinet shuffle in Japan.(Japan's forlorn cabinet shuffle)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Shinzo Abe brings in the heavies, but remains unbearably light FOR Japan's chattering classes, it is a triumph of experience over youth. In a last-ditch attempt to cling to power, Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, has gambled all on a cabinet shuffle. This follows a humiliating ...
The race back home; Pakistan.(Pakistan's politics)(return of Nawaz Sharif)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Their bonny lies over the ocean Pressure on General Pervez Musharraf from yet another front NAWAZ SHARIF, an exiled former Pakistani prime minister, makes an unconvincing white knight. Yet that is the role he is auditioning for. He has called last month's ruling by ...
Mad and Hyderabad; India.(Murder in Hyderabad)(Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Too much to mourn Nameless, ruthless and pointless IT IS a strange terrorist who prefers to remain anonymous. Yet this seems to be the signature of the bombers who, every few months for the past few years, have exploded crude bombs in India's cities. The latest ...
Inside the Googleplex - Google.
Sep 01, 2007 ... A yummy employer It is rare for a company to dominate its industry while claiming not to be motivated by money. Google does. But it has yet to face a crisis IN AMERICA a phenomenon might claim to have entered mainstream culture only after it has been satirised on ...
Pistols at dawn; Economic development.(Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism)(Book review)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Though the end is nigh for Hamilton, his ideas fight on . AMERICA'S greatest secretary of state, Alexander Hamilton, met an untimely death in a duel in 1804. But his economic ideas keep firing back. In his 1791 "Report on the Subject of Manufactures", he quarrelled ...
New World disorder; Renaissance explorers.(Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America)(Book review)
Sep 01, 2007 ... THANK goodness the New World is not called something like Christopheria, as some of the great explorer's partisans demanded. Christopher Columbus has such an ineluctable presence in history that a hemisphere named after him might never be free of certain associations. Every time that ...
Send them to the colonies; Single women.(Book review)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Making her way, rather well THIS is an inspiring book, lovingly researched, well-written and humane. Virginia Nicholson has found one of those subjects which sits unregarded under our noses, and has discovered in it a rich seam of personal and historical interest. ...
Complicite's tricks; Theatre.(Theatre de Complicite)
Sep 01, 2007 ... How to be both established and experimental THEATRICAL experiments are plentiful but few last. Theatre companies that set off bristling with the desire for change often fall by the wayside. They start as a breath of fresh air but seldom stay fresh. Complicite is one of the rare ...
Beyond the Fringe; Art in Edinburgh.
Sep 01, 2007 ... Elinor Carucci's mum taking a bath "The Naked Portrait" and other delights outlive the annual hijinks BETTER co-ordination between Edinburgh's festival and its art galleries might give the 1m or so who visit the festival each August a better chance to see the city's ...
The playwright and the president; Nicolas Sarkozy.(Dawn evening or night)(Book review)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Personal trivia, it seems, tells us quite a lot about France's leader IT HAS become the bestselling sensation of this year's rentree litteraire: a book written by France's best-known contemporary playwright about its most intriguing political personality. In the summer of 2006, ...
Getting better; Health-care information.(Arming patients with knowledge)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Trust me, I'm good at this Doctor, am I going to die? And other important questions GONE are the days when patients of the National Health Service expected doctors to decide which treatment they would have, and where. Today's patients are meant to make up their own ...
The father of the man; Early education.(Spending on children, to no avail)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Ready to learn? Some more than others Is having more spent on him than ever, but to no apparent effect SOME will cry and clutch at their mothers' skirts, others will trot off without a backward glance. That is as it always has been. But over the past few years, the ...
Can Gordon fix the National Health Service? Health-care politics.(The NHS under Gordon Brown)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Mr Brown will find it hard to regain the commanding heights on health FOR a chancellor of the exchequer turned prime minister, the irony must be galling. The National Health Service has dominated voters' concerns during the decade that Labour has been in power. Responding to ...
To vote or not to vote; Brown's referendum dilemma.(Pressure for a plebiscite on Europe)(Gordon Brown)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Two into one won't go Pressure grows for a plebiscite on Europe IT WAS always assumed that Tony Blair's most troublesome bequest to his successor would be the war in Iraq. Serious competition, however, is coming from his promise in 2004 to hold a referendum on a ...
In from the cold; Illegal immigrants.(An amnesty for illegal residents?)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The Liberal Democrats propose a managed amnesty AFTER George Bush failed ignominiously in his attempt to grant amnesty to illegal residents in America, it is a bold politician who proposes a similar idea in Britain. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on home affairs, ...
An idle proposal; Public holidays.(The case for more time off)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The case for more time off THE public holiday on the last Monday of August marks, in most British minds, the unofficial end of summer. A vast migration takes place, as millions take advantage of the long weekend to visit seaside resorts or fly to Europe in a final spasm of ...
Shopped by their suppliers; Supermarket competition.(Farmers and food manufacturers squeezed)
Sep 01, 2007 ... A look at whether big grocers are abusing their market power takes a new turn IN SCENES that would not look out of place in a Mob investigation, or at least in television's "The Sopranos", Britain's 15-month-long probe of supermarkets' alleged anti-competitive behaviour has ...
Running fast, but where is he going? French foreign policy.(The French president is as hyperactive abroad as at home)(Nicolas Sarkozy)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Pro-American, inspired by morals but pragmatic too: Nicolas Sarkozy sets out his ideas for a new foreign policy THE French have grown used to Nicolas Sarkozy's hyperactivity at home. Now the rest of the world is getting a measure of it too. In just over 100 days in office, ...
A combustible mixture; Forest fires in Europe.(forest fires in southern Europe)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Let down by the politicians Government incompetence and corruption encourage the arsonists AS RECENTLY as two years ago, a forest fire came close to burning down the home of Costas Karamanlis. His seaside villa outside Athens was spared, but the conflagration prompted ...
Spooky business; The murder of Anna Politkovskaya.
Sep 01, 2007 ... Intriguing arrests, but few answers WHEN Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead at the entrance to her Moscow flat last October, President Vladimir Putin quickly tried to dispel any notion that pro-Kremlin forces were behind the murder of an outspoken journalist who had exposed abuses ...
The next battle; Turkish politics.(Another struggle between Turkey's generals and the ruling party looms over a new constitution)(Justice and Development Party, Yasar Buyukanit)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Gul and minder Abdullah Gul has been elected president. But the ruling AK party faces more conflict with the generals over a new constitution "IT'S the final nail in the army's coffin." That is how one pro-secular government official summed up the elevation of ...
Czechs with few mates; Charlemagne.(The Czech Republic has made few friends in Europe by supporting dissidents abroad)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The heirs of Vaclav Havel deserve more respect in Europe for supporting democrats abroad THERE are two quick ways to become a misfit in a club you have just joined. The first is to flout its rules and values; the second is to take them too seriously. Take the European Union and ...
Revenge begins to seem less sweet - Capital punishment in America.(Americans start to jib at executions)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Not all Texans back Texecutions Americans are losing their appetite for the death penalty. Texas is the exception JOSEPH NICHOLS did not fight the guards at his execution, but he did not co-operate, either. He had to be lifted onto the trolley on which he was to die, ...
When nobody's looking; Financial litigation.(Sentinel Management Co. fraud case during market turmoil)
Sep 01, 2007 ... He's got his beady eye on you Expect more accusations as the markets wobble WHEN America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped civil fraud charges on Sentinel Management in August, its action was unusually swift. Though Sentinel, which manages cash for ...
The long and the short of it; Buttonwood.(illiquidity)
Sep 01, 2007 ... A complex system, but a simple problem ILLIQUIDITY--the difficulty of selling assets at a reasonable price--is at the heart of all financial crises. The market turmoil of the past few weeks is proving that maxim, albeit in novel and interesting ways. The financial ...
On a gambling expedition; Chinese banks.
Sep 01, 2007 ... Constraints at home push China's banks into risky foreign assets SOME people had long suspected there were booby traps waiting to be sprung inside the Chinese banking system. But few thought they would be tripped by problems far away from China. So it caused ...
Stir-fry capitalism; Chinese companies.(Three of the world's biggest companies are now Chinese)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Three of the world's biggest companies are now Chinese CHINA'S stockmarket continues to hit record highs. Last week the benchmark Shanghai Composite index topped 5,000, a rise of 90% since the start of the year; and China's total stockmarket capitalisation now exceeds its GDP ...
Oh! What a lovely crunch; The revival of research.(financial analysts)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Rumours of the death of research have been exaggerated THE past few years have not been kind to Wall Street's equity analysts. Accused of helping to inflate the internet bubble, new regulations were imposed upon them after it popped. Research budgets subsequently tumbled. Fund ...
A book-keeping error; Economics focus.(fair value accounting)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The accounting principle that is meant to capture fair value might end up distorting it AS THE old joke goes, there are three types of accountant: those who can count and those who cannot. What and how they count is often contentious. A long-fermenting issue is how far ...
Shots in the dark; American investment banks.(Opacity comes back to haunt Wall Street)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Wall Street pays for its opacity STOCKMARKET investors come in all shapes and sizes, but in the current turmoil they agree on one thing: if in doubt about a financial firm, shoot first and ask questions later. State Street, a big money manager, is the latest to stumble into the ...
Rocky terrain ahead; The world economy.
Sep 01, 2007 ... How much will the credit crunch hurt the world economy? THE Teton mountains jut suddenly and majestically out of the Wyoming plains near Jackson Hole. The central bankers and economists gathering there this week for the symposium of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, an ...
In the land of the blind; Primary health care.(In the poorest places, unpaid volunteers may be better at medical promotion than professionals)(Africa)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Just tell us how to help ourselves The commonsense case for "amateur" medicine SELF-SUFFICIENCY is a way of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo's rural expanses. It has to be. Even the most accessible of the many villages that dot the dense rainforest--the ones ...
Constructing conflict; The politics of mosque-building.(Nothing excites a local politician more than a plan to build a mosque)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Nearly ready: Boston's hard-won house of prayer In many Western cities, plans to erect mosques often stir more passion than any other local issue--and politicians are leaping into the fray NOT since Cologne was rebuilt half a century ago, out of the rubble of war, ...
Keeping the lights on; The Bush presidency.(George W. Bush)(Alberto Gonzales)
Sep 01, 2007 ... What should--but probably won't--happen after the welcome departure of Alberto Gonzales THE Sun, a feisty tabloid, once ran a headline asking sarcastically whether the last person to leave Britain would turn out the lights. A similar taunt could be made about the White House ....
Islam, the American way; Mosques in the West.(America's legal system offers a fair approach to Muslims and mosques)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Why the United States is fairer to Muslims than "Eurabia" is IN PITTSBURGH, a Turkish group, pious but peaceful, decides to rethink its plans for an Islamic centre after an angry public hearing. In Clitheroe, a town in northern England, a plan to turn an ex-church into a mosque ...
Tall buildings, narrow minds; Malaysia at 50.(Malaysia's official racism)
Sep 01, 2007 ... After 50 years, Malaysia should stop treating a third of its people as not-quite-citizens THE government of Malaysia has laid on all sorts of grand pageantry this weekend, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Malay peninsula's independence from Britain. There is much to ...
Who's afraid of Google? - Who's afraid of Google? The internet.(concerns on the growth of Google Inc.)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The world's internet superpower faces testing times RARELY if ever has a company risen so fast in so many ways as Google, the world's most popular search engine. This is true by just about any measure: the growth in its market value and revenues; the number of people clicking in ...
The world according to Sarkozy; France's hyperactive president.(Sarkozy, Nicolas)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Some modest suggestions for an immodest but promising new president BOUNDLESS energy and vaulting ambition carried Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency of France. Now that he has had just over 100 days in office (including a hyperactive busman's holiday in New Hampshire), it is a ...
Bashing the Muslim Brothers; Egypt.(Egypt's government versus the Muslim Brothers)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Egypt's rulers are giving their Islamist compatriots an even worse time than usual THERE are understandable reasons not to love the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist group did eschew violence in the 1970s, and now proclaims a belief in freedom, democracy ...
President Kikwete's hard road ahead; Tanzania.(Tanzania under President Jakaya Kikwete)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Jakaya pops out of his box to listen to his people Is Tanzania, once a symbol of heroic but failed socialist idealism, gradually heading towards prosperity under its peripatetic new leader? TWO years into his presidency, Jakaya Kikwete is being heralded as one of ...
Fish versus AIDS; Malawi.(Malawi's hopeful anti-AIDS scheme)(WorldFish Centre and Acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Fish ponds are helping in the fight against AIDS LIFE for Agnes Kanyema is looking up. The retired teacher and her husband are caring for four of their grandchildren, whose parents have all died of AIDS. Their meagre pension is not enough, so they rely on farming to eat and make ...
Still campaigning for co-existence; Israel and Palestine.(Israeli and Palestinian co-existence movements)
Sep 01, 2007 ... There is still no shortage of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence projects, but serious activists are more sceptical of them than they used to be PEACE between Palestinians and Israelis is not a problem; anyone can make it. This summer alone, a group called the June 5th Initiative ...
Tikhon Khrennikov.(Tikhon Khrennikov, Stalin's music master)(Obituary)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Tikhon Khrennikov, Stalin's music master, died on August 14th, aged 94 HAD he been born in Iowa, Tikhon Khrennikov might have enjoyed a modest fame. Early discovery as a talented pianist; studies in composition, perhaps at the Juilliard School; schmoozing with Hollywood actors ...
Magnetic personalities; Neuroscience.(Magnetic signs of brain disease)
Sep 01, 2007 ... How brain disease might be diagnosed quickly and easily MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY is a big word for a technique that measures tiny changes. It detects magnetic signals that are produced by the electrical activity of brain cells--and which have about a billionth of the strength of ...
The oldest Ethiopian.(The oldest Ethiopian visits America)(skeleton of Lucy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science)(Brief article)
Sep 01, 2007 ... THERE is nothing like taking the fight to the heart of the enemy. That is one interpretation of the decision to start Lucy's tour of the United States in Texas, a state in which the biblical account of creation is widely believed to be true. Lucy is a partial skeleton, about 40% complete, ...
This old man; Evolutionary biology.(How mating patterns affect human lifespan)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Age shall not weary her Younger women plus older men leads to older women and more children AFTER the nagging question of why we are here at all, the one about why we age and die comes a pretty close second. The former is still largely the province of philosophy. For ...
Humane league; Animal testing.(A better deal for laboratory animals)(World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences)
Sep 01, 2007 ... How to do fewer, better animal experiments FOR a nation of pet lovers, Britain conducts a surprising number of experiments on animals: some 3m a year. America appears to use fewer animals--just 1.1m a year, according to official statistics--but that is an illusion. Unlike ...
A Coney Island of the mind; At the beach.(Redeveloping Coney Island)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Dangerous and delightful Perhaps one last summer of quaint seediness by the sea IT LIES at the end of several subway lines, at the southern tip of Brooklyn, filled with the sordid charms of a place that has inspired more than its fair share of fast-talking fantasists ....
The Fred factor; Lexington.(Fred Thompson's presidential bid)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has got off to a shaky start WHEN Michael Moore challenged Fred Thompson to a debate on health care, back in May, Mr Thompson declined the invitation but decided to have a bit of fun on YouTube instead. Sitting in a leather armchair and ...
A bit richer, but a bit sicker; The latest census figures.(Latest census figures on incomes and poverty)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Health care is a bigger problem than poverty in America WITH an election looming, even the driest documents can spark fury. Hillary Clinton expressed "outrage" at the news contained in the Census Bureau's latest report on income, poverty and health insurance in the United ...
Unhappy Larry; Political scandal.(Another Washington sex scandal)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The Craigs meet the press A strange way to stop terrorism WHEN a man denies three times that he is gay, the obvious response is "Who cares?" But when the man in question is a United States senator, the television cameras circle. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, ...
Up in arms; Gun control in Pennsylvania.
Sep 01, 2007 ... Why tighten the rules right in hunting season? THE American constitution declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Nor, it seems, should it be suspended, even for a computer upgrade. At least, that's what many Pennsylvania ...
Going, going, Gonzales; The Bush administration.(Alberto Gonzales resigns)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The resignation of George Bush's attorney-general leaves the administration in a pretty ruinous state BETTER late than never. On August 27th, with his reputation in ruins and the Justice Department in chaos, Alberto Gonzales finally resigned as attorney-general. The immediate ...
Reality bites; Municipal Wi-Fi.(Plans for city-wide networks run into trouble)
Sep 01, 2007 ... American cities' plans for ubiquitous internet access are running into trouble IT WAS supposed to democratise the internet and turn America's city-dwellers into citizen-surfers. In 2004 the mayors of Philadelphia and San Francisco unveiled ambitious plans to provide free ...
There's life in the old dog yet; Personal computers.(The surprisingly lively PC industry)
Sep 01, 2007 ... The PC industry is proving to be surprisingly lively WHEN the personal computer (PC) turned 25 last year, many anniversary articles read like obituaries. There was general agreement that the PC had become a commodity product, its makers mere box-shifters, and that growth ...
Macau wow; Chinese gambling.(The world's largest casino opens its doors)(Venetian Macau)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Your table awaits The world's largest casino attracts thousands of eager Chinese punters ITS construction involved filling in the sea between two of Macau's islands to recreate the Las Vegas strip, and then carefully cutting out tiny canals to provide at least a hint ...
The transcendental crusader; Face value.(Teddy Blecher, a South African social entrepreneur)
Sep 01, 2007 ... Can Teddy Blecher's combination of cheap business education and meditation transform South Africa? IN HIS early years there was little to suggest that Taddy Blecher would end up in Johannesburg's inner city, surrounded by youngsters from poor backgrounds. An actuary turned ...
Beauty on the block; Jaguar and Land Rover.(The sale of Jaguar and Land Rover)
Sep 01, 2007 ... But who will buy it? A new car and six potential buyers signal hope for Jaguar EMOTION is said to play a part in many car purchases, but it is less likely to be a factor when buying a car company. Even so, the reaction this week to the first pictures of Jaguar's new ...