The Economist (US) back issues from February 2008:
Marching as to war; Mexico.(Mexico's mounting drug violence)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Drug gangs ratchet up the violence in Mexico as judicial reform begins OVER the past few weeks, gunfights between police and drug gangs along Mexico's border with the United States have left dozens dead. At the same time, two assassination attempts against a senior official in ...
Sun, sea and murder; The Caribbean.(Murder in the Caribbean)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Here, too, drug-trafficking is to blame ELEVEN people, including five children, were shot dead in Guyana last weekend when unidentified gunmen went on the rampage in the village of Lusignan. A couple clung to their 11-year-old grand-daughter as bullets were pumped into them; a ...
A cold coming; China's bleak mid-winter.(China's bleak winter)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Vicious weather disrupts one of the great annual migrations, as millions struggle to reach home for Chinese new year EVEN in the best of conditions, the period around China's lunar new year holiday poses immense logistical challenges. Tens of millions of people--students, ...
On edge; Pakistan.(Pakistan's edgy president)
Feb 02, 2008 ... If he rigs, he may have to rig big THE army is battling a Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas of the Afghan border, in which hundreds have been killed in recent weeks. In the cities, activists shouting "Go, Musharraf, Go!" are up in arms about alleged pre-election rigging of ...
Stolen birthrights; Australia's aborigines.(An apology to Australia's aborigines)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Sorry, kids An apology but no compensation SINCE he was elected Australia's prime minister in November, Kevin Rudd has moved swiftly to set his Labor government apart from the former conservative coalition's more controversial stands. In December, he went to Bali to ...
Grappling with success; Vietnam's economy.(Vietnam's overheating economy)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A struggle to keep the good times rolling WORRIES about the soaring cost of living are being felt across Asia, but in few places is there more concern than in Vietnam, where the government this week said the annual inflation rate had hit 14.1%, its highest since 1995. On January ...
In the dark; Afghanistan's tribal complexity.
Feb 02, 2008 ... Far more than two sides to the conflict BEARDED like an Old Testament prophet, an old man tugs nervously at the sleeve of the British commander, Major Tony Chattin of the Royal Marines. "The Taliban come from the north and fire from this treeline at your base," he murmurs. The ...
The legacy that got left on the shelf - Unilever and emerging markets.
Feb 02, 2008 ... Small but affordable luxury The world's second-biggest consumer-goods firm is finally beginning to make the most of the advantage it was handed in emerging economies WHEN a consumer-goods company casts around for the best growth prospects, rarely does anything look ...
Mirror games; Mathematics.(Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry)(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Trying to make sense of the world SYMMETRY has been a source of fascination since ancient times. In Plato's "Symposium", Aristophanes argues that the origins of love lie in the search forsymmetry, while Pythagoras and Theaetetus--who discovered the icosahedron, the geometric ...
Secret cinema; Sexual fantasies.(Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head?: The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies)(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... ASKING strangers to recount their most private thoughts about sex is unlikely to make a dull book, and Brett Kahr's compendious research into the psychology of sexual fantasy is gripping. It is also somewhat alarming. Leave it open on your desk at work, and prudish colleagues or ...
The blasted soul; Edgar Allan Poe.(Poe: A Life Cut Short)(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Brainstorms EDGAR ALLAN POE once said that a single "very little book" could "revolutionise ...human thought". Peter Ackroyd has written more than two dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, short and long (his "Dickens" is as good a doorstop as any). This very little book ...
Not just an eye for a bargain; Collecting art.(Great Collectors of Our Time: Art Collecting Since 1945)(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... ART addicts will gather in London next week to get their fix when Sotheby's and Christie's sell impressionists and contemporary pictures by the hundreds. Market analysts will also be watching closely. Last November, when both auction houses held the year's biggest impressionist and modern ...
How jihad went freelance; Al-Qaeda.(Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, The Five Front War: The Better Way to Fight Global Jihad and Global Political Islam)(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Al-Qaeda has evolved from a single group to an amorphous movement. Does that make it less dangerous or more so? TERRORISTS are a bit like you and me, or so Marc Sageman suggests. It might be comforting to think that angry youngIslamists are crazed psychopaths or sex-starved ...
Agents of change; Social entrepreneurs.(The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World )(Book review)
Feb 02, 2008 ... GO TO any recent meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), including the one in Davos, Switzerland, last week, and you cannot fail to be struck by the yearning in the corporate world to be a good environmental citizen--provided that it does not cost the earth. Gloomy lectures onclimate ...
Friendly fire in Afghanistan; The British army.(British soldiers are under attack, not by the Taliban but by NATO allies)
Feb 02, 2008 ... British soldiers are under attack, not from the Taliban but from NATO allies THE British army has been fighting hard for the past two years up and down Afghanistan's Helmand river valley, but it still has little to show for the death of more than 80 soldiers. Many Taliban have ...
The hits just keep on coming; Sleaze in politics.(Financial shenanigans in Westminster)(Conservative Party politicians under fire for corruption)
Feb 02, 2008 ... How corrupt are Britain's politicians? THE Mother of Parliaments still cuts a lot of ice abroad. At home, however, its reputation for probity is waning as stories of financial misconduct multiply. The latest in a succession of revelations concerning money and ...
A twist in the tale; Trafficking children.(The "child slaves" of Slough)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Mistaken identity? The police claim to have uncovered a child-trafficking ring. Have they? THE suburbs of Slough, an unremarkable satellite town west of London, don't look much like the back alleys of Dickens's Oliver Twist. A Polish shop, a Hajj travel agent and a ...
Grieving and politics; Northern Ireland's victims.(Sectarian sympathies still run strong)(the Troubles)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Old wounds at La Mon Sectarian sympathies still hold back attempts to move on HEALING the wounds incurred during Northern Ireland's "Troubles" was bound to be slow, but the latest attempt to do so may actually have set things back a bit. On January 28th four ...
Kindergarten cabinet; Bagehot.(Gordon Brown and his cabinet)
Feb 02, 2008 ... In defence of (some of) Gordon Brown's cabinet ministers WITH its lurid food photos (never an encouraging sign) and an elusive apostrophe, Katies kebab shop in Peckham, south London, might not instantly appeal to all readers of The Economist. But with a little imagination it is ...
Failing the tests; Fiscal pathology.(Imprudence is catching up with Gordon Brown)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Gordon Brown's past imprudence is catching up with him BRITAIN'S public finances, once gratifyingly healthy, are regaining their more familiar sickly aspect. Recent official numbers suggested that fiscal malaise was setting in. An independent diagnosis this week confirms that it ...
Avoiding the next Northern Rock; Failed banks.(Expensive lessons have been learned)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The Treasury has learned some expensive lessons FLANKED by European leaders in the splendour of the Foreign Office's Locarno rooms on January 29th, Gordon Brown made much of the need for sweeping international co-operation to avoid future financial trouble. But the festering ...
Going to work; Welfare reform.(The politics of joblessness)(James Purnell's appointment as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Getting more feet under the desk Help, and a hard shove, for the jobless ONE week it's planning for the 2012 Olympics and having your photo taken with glitzy media types; the next, it's dole offices and talking about getting poorly skilled youngsters into jobs. James ...
The long run; Focus on Market.view.(US economy and UK's Northen Rock)(Brief article)
Feb 02, 2008 ... You may read the weekly column at:www.economist.com/marketview Each Sunday we publish our column on the markets. An extract from last week's offering is reproduced here OVER the past six months, we have seen authorities cut rates in response to a credit crunch and to ...
Hessen lesson; German state elections.(Germany after the votes in Hesse and Lower Saxony)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Only a middling result, Merkel scolds Koch and Wulff Angela Merkel ponders the right conclusion to draw from two state elections THE Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ruled Hesse and Lower Saxony before the state elections on January 27th. It remains the largest party ...
The pseudoelection; Russia's presidency.(Looking ahead to March 2nd)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The runners and riders in a mock race THE Russian presidential election on March 2nd was never going to be a thriller. Its outcome was clear from the moment Vladimir Putin announced his chosen successor: Dmitry Medvedev. Perhaps decorum might still have been observed by letting ...
Sleeping dogs that won't lie; Poland's past.(A debate about the treatment of Jews)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Holocaust survivors, not always welcome A book on Poland's anti-Semitic record triggers fierce controversy FOR many countries occupied by Germany in the second world war, one shameful feature was the collaboration of locals. In Poland, though, the war is usually ...
A religious revival; Turkey, the Kurds and Islam.(How to win over Kurdish support)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The AK government uses Islam to win over Kurdish support A SIGN adorned with Ataturk's favourite adage, "Happy is he who calls himself a Turk", hangs in Diyarbakir, south-east Turkey, as a reminder of Turkey's decades-old policy of forcibly assimilating the region's Kurds. The ...
The return of the scarves; A new silk road.(Bringing back silk-making)(Brief article)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Follow the yellow silk road Rural Kurds revive an old Armenian tradition FOR centuries Armenians in the village of Agacli, in south-east Turkey, cultivated silk. With it they wove fine carpets and flowing scarves that were traded all along the silk road from China to ...
Toy story; Charlemagne.(Understanding Playmobil and Lego)
Feb 02, 2008 ... What European toys say about European views LEADERS of the European project spend much time searching for icons of a single European identity. They name "Europeans of the Year" and give awards to books--and even to journalists. There is a Charlemagne prize, a German bauble for ...
Berlusconi redux? Italy.(After the fall of the Prodi government)(Silvio Berlusconi)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Italy's president suggests an interim government, but he may be forced to call an early general election ITALIAN heads of state have only limited powers. But one of them is the enviable ability to drive would-be prime ministers into an agony of frustrated expectations. ...
As the enrichment machines spin on - Iran's nuclear programme.(The nuclear confrontation with Iran)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Ahmadinejad is less than loved How America's own intelligence services have brought international policy on Iran to the edge of collapse IF YOU are locked eyeball to eyeball with an adversary as wily as Iran, it does not make much sense to do something that emboldens ...
Odd numbers; Economic statistics.(Recession-watch in America)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Why America's advance GDP figures do not paint the whole picture AS THE old joke goes, statistics are like a bikini--what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. America's advance GDP figures tend to be more of a bathing suit than a bikini: they are a bit ...
Biting the hand that feeds it; French capitalism.(Why such contempt in France for markets?)
Feb 02, 2008 ... France has a paradoxical attitude to financial risk "THE Che Guevara of finance"; the "James Bond of SocGen". It did not take long for French pundits to elevate the Societe Generale trader to the status of anti-capitalist folk hero. By humiliating a leading bank, as Nouvel ...
A cash machine; Banking in Japan.(One of Japan's better banks)(Seven Bank plans to list shares)(Brief article)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Maybe someone's lucky number A tempting share offer is available at 7-Eleven stores in Japan STOCKMARKETS are slumping and banking is troubled, but a Japanese firm hopes to buck both trends. Seven Bank, a subsidiary of Seven & i Holdings, plans to list shares on ...
The in-betweeners; Economics focus.(middle class)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A lot is expected of the middle class in emerging economies. But they just want a quiet life TWO jars of chickpeas, 20 bars of soap, three packs of cigarettes and six sachets of shampoo--all these items and more are in stock at a village store five hours away from the Indian ...
Gross exaggeration; Credit derivatives.(How much danger do credit-default swaps pose?)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A public spat has broken out in the private market for credit-default swaps HOW much damage could unstable credit derivatives do to the financial system? An enormous amount, reckons Bill Gross, a well-known American fund manager, who puts the potential losses from such contracts ...
Gulp, swallow, gulp; Exchanges.(A mammoth exchange merger)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Another tasty mouthful for Chicago's futures giant CRAIG DONOHUE cuts an incongruously mild-mannered figure in a business known for sharp elbows and even the occasional punch. But the CME Group's lawyer-turned-boss is no pushover. Not content merely to run the world's biggest ...
Aggressive activism; American interest rates.(The Fed cuts again)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The Fed writes a new economic script NO ONE could accuse America's policymakers of standing pat as the economy flirts with recession. Congress is close to passing a fiscal-stimulus package worth just over 1% of GDP (the House of Representatives passed its version at $146 billion ...
No Defense; Societe Generale.(Holes in its accounts, holes in its story)(Societe Generale S.A.)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The humiliated French bank has plenty more explaining to do before putting its rogue-trader scandal behind it AN OLD line of Hank Paulson's has been dusted off since news broke of a euro4.9 billion ($7.2 billion) trading loss at Societe Generale, France's second-largest bank ....
Heart of Glass; Buttonwood.
Feb 02, 2008 ... Existing regulation seems to encourage banks to get into trouble REMEMBER when a bank manager was the epitome of prudence? For the past six months, almost all the news from banking has been bad, even though this is an industry monitored by vast teams of regulators. By contrast, ...
Net benefits; Malaria.(How to control malaria)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Giving bed nets and drugs away free may be the way to deal with malaria "FREE goods are worth what you pay for them" is the cynic's approach to the world, shared by hard-headed poverty-busters. Charging even a nominal price for things such as mosquito nets and condoms makes ...
Coming up trumps; UN law.(The UN's murky blacklist)(United Nation's terrorist watchlist )
Feb 02, 2008 ... The UN's little-known terrorist watchlist is alarmingly arbitrary and seductive. It faces a legal challenge in Europe GUANTANAMO has become a byword for the sacrifice of civil liberties in America's "war on terror". But there is another, rarely talked-about way in which ...
Fair game; Scientology.(Cyberwarfare against a cult)(Anonymous)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Watch out, there's an alien about An online onslaught against Scientology A VICIOUS cult run by cynical fraudsters, or a sincerely held religious belief persecuted by zealots? That is the long-standing row about Scientology, founded by the late science-fiction writer, ...
A faint ping; Telex.(The odd survival of telex)(use of telegraphs)
Feb 02, 2008 ... An ancestor of e-mail lives on LIKE slide-rules, steam engines and carbon paper, the telex machine, once ubiquitous and indispensable, has vanished from sight. But not, quite, from existence. As younger readers may need reminding, or informing, the telex was what would nowadays ...
Has Iran won? - Has Iran won? Nuclear proliferation.(to come)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The ayatollahs have wriggled off the nuclear hook, but there is a way to put them on again WHO would have thought that a friendless theocracy with a Holocaust-denying president, which hangs teenagers in public and stones women to death, could run diplomatic circles around ...
Epitaph on a crook and a tyrant; The death of Suharto.(After Suharto)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Free to mourn or cheer, Indonesians have moved on since Suharto stepped down in 1998 HE WAS a despot, a cold-war monster cosseted by the West because his most plausible opponents were Communists. Behind his pudgily smooth, benign-looking face lay ruthless cruelty. The slaughter ...
Once again, the greatest show on earth; America's election.
Feb 02, 2008 ... Especially if you happen to be a Republican THE first act of the extended drama that is this year's American election ended this week in Florida, with the last of the early primaries that have taken the presidential hopefuls from the plains of Iowa to the mountains of New ...
Unsteady as she goes; Italy's government.(A fresh election looms in Italy)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Italy has enough problems already: does it really need Silvio Berlusconi once again? ITALY is notorious for its perpetually changing governments. Between 1981 and 2007, it had 16 prime ministers, including some repeats, compared with Britain's four. Yet lately Italian politics ...
Repairs begin at home; Financial regulation.
Feb 02, 2008 ... Reforming global rules is an appealing idea. But cleaning up domestic regulation is as important GEORGE SOROS, a billionaire investor, wants a "new sheriff" for global finance, an international regulator to heal the "worst financial crisis in 60 years". Politicians are not far ...
Hamas won't go away; The Gaza Strip.(What to do about Gaza and Hamas)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Palestine's Islamists can't be defeated or ignored, but embracing them won't be easy AT FIRST it looked possible that the break-out by tens of thousands of Palestinians bottled up in the Gaza Strip would be a joyful but brief blip. Once Egypt had resealed the border, the ...
A Hamas hardliner; Gaza.(A conversation with Hamas's foreign minister)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The prickly defiance of Mahmoud Zahhar A FLORID pink and green mural on the front of Mahmoud Zahhar's house "congratulates" the family on the hasty passage of his son Hussam to "paradise", courtesy of an Israeli missile on January 15th, felling the second of two sons to die for ...
The shifting balance of power; Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.(The consequence of pulling down Gaza's border fence)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Can the Egyptians keep them in again? Hamas's breach of Gaza's border with Egypt has changed all calculations ABSORBED by speculation about their government's future after an inquiry commission this week released its final report on the 2006 Lebanon war, Israelis ...
Sliding back to civil war? Lebanon.(The latest crisis in Lebanon)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The cost of investigating assassination Three strikes against peace IT IS not a return to civil war--yet. But the pace of the slide towards chaos that began with the assassination in early 2005 of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's most prominent leader since the civil war of ...
A prime minister gets away with it; Israel's war in Lebanon.(Israel's Winograd report on the war in Lebanon)
Feb 02, 2008 ... An inquiry commission blasts the army but lets the prime minister off the hook "A PARAMILITARY organisation of a few thousand men resisted, for a few weeks, the strongest army in the Middle East, which enjoyed full air superiority and size and technology advantages." In one ...
Young, alive but not very heaven; Gaza and Kenya.(Frustrated youth bedevil both Gaza and Kenya)(Brief article)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Quick tempers come with quick population growth GAZA and Kenya have more in common than short names ending in "a" and violent squabbles apparently not ending at all. Both have too many people, or, to be more exact, too many young men without either jobs or prospects. The ...
Peace at last? Congo.(A peace agreement in eastern Congo)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Hope for an end to one of Africa's bloodiest conflicts IT WAS not the most auspicious of starts. When eastern Congo's peace conference finally opened on January 6th in the town of Goma after several delays due to logistics, it had no mandate to negotiate a settlement or any ...
More mayhem than mediation; Kenya.(Kenya's bloody political stalemate)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Kenya's warring politicians are only just beginning to talk to each other as ethnic violence threatens to slip out of control THE small propeller-driven plane piloted by Peter Szapary, an Austrian count turned Kenyan flower farmer, banked and flew low over the Rift Valley town ...
Suharto.(Suharto, dictator of Indonesia)(Obituary)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Suharto, a former dictator of Indonesia, died on January 27th, aged 86 IN THE summer of 1998, just after the fall of President Suharto, the United States Treasury detected some odd movements of large sums of money, allegedly $9 billion, to a bank in Austria. The money was his ....
Received pronunciation; Linguistic evolution.(How languages evolve)
Feb 02, 2008 ... The 20% solution Mary Evans Picture Library Languages and species evolve in surprisingly similar ways ONE of the unresolved--and rather bitter--disputes in evolutionary biology is between the creeps and the jerks. The creeps (so dubbed by the jerks) think ...
The invisible man; Drug testing.(The Virtual Physiological Human)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A new way of using computers to test drugs gets its first outing NINE years ago a group of enthusiasts who were looking for signs of alien life in the universe had a bright idea. They would farm the task out to thousands of owners of personal computers by sending them chunks of ...
Eat it up and be a good boy; Diet and behaviour.(Better behaved convicts)
Feb 02, 2008 ... Now behave properly Prisoners benefit from dietary supplements; prisons might benefit, too SUPPLEMENTS are all the rage: evening primrose oil; St John's wort; fish oils; glucosamine; selenium; zinc; iron; molybdenum; probiotics. And don't forget those old standbys, ...
Ne plus ultra; Electricity storage.(Better than batteries)(XH-150)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A new version of an old idea is threatening the battery industry PUT the pedal to the metal in the XH-150--a souped-up Saturn Vue--and watch the instruments. Sure enough, the speedometer shoots up in a satisfactory way. But an adjacent dial shows something else: the amount of ...
Where will the wind blow? The Democrats.(The Democratic race)(Barack Obama )
Feb 02, 2008 ... Mrs Clinton not campaigning in Florida Barack Obama has the momentum. But he faces big obstacles "WE LEAVE this great state with a new wind at our back", Barack Obama told a huge crowd of supporters at the Columbia Convention Centre on January 26th. A new wind indeed ....
The ground war; Barack Obama's organisation.(Barack Obama's war machine)
Feb 02, 2008 ... With a little help from my 13,000 friends SHORTLY after the television networks declared Hillary Clinton the winner of New Hampshire's Democratic primary on January 8th, Jermaine Spradley called his friend Aaron Ampaw. "You down for a trip to South Carolina?" asked Mr Spradley, ...
A-twitter; Campaign tools.(Twitter on the campaign trail)
Feb 02, 2008 ... A hip version of cablese jazzes up campaign coverage "ORLANDO, FL: ...Speaking of Rudy: Scuttle is that on the bus there is open talk coming loss. 12:27 PM January 28, 2008 from web." So reads a "tweet" from Ana Marie Cox, typed on her mobile phone and automatically published by ...