The Economist (US) back issues from May 2008:
Not on our roads; Canada.(Electric cars in Canada)
May 03, 2008 ... Bureaucrats against electric cars, and progress IN THESE times of high petrol prices and worries about climate change, you might think that any country would be proud to enjoy a lead in manufacturing electric cars. Not Canada, it seems. Two Canadian companies, ZENN Motor Company ...
Committee of elders; Cuba.(Cuba's new party machinery)
May 03, 2008 ... No political relaxation from Raul Raul institutionalises a gerontocracy WHEN Fidel Castro had an important announcement to make, it would typically come during an hours-long speech to a government-organised rally of hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Cubans. Raul ...
Waving, not drowning; Drug trafficking.(Drug trafficking trends)
May 03, 2008 ... Instead of torpedoes, coke Cocaine now moves by submarine THE history of the cocaine trade between Andean countries and the United States over the past 30 years shows that no sooner have police and customs officials become adept at spotting one smuggling method than ...
Cristina in the land of make-believe; Argentina.(Argentina's hapless president)(Cristina Fernandez )
May 03, 2008 ... Dashing hopes of change, Argentina's new president is leading her country into economic peril and social conflict SHE romped to an easy victory in last year's presidential election by promising to maintain Argentina's impressive economic performance while easing its social ...
A lot to be angry about; China.(A pollution scandal in China)
May 03, 2008 ... Polluted, poisonous and immune to popular efforts to enforce a clean-up: Tai Lake is a metaphor for the state of China's politics THE plain-clothes police are always there, watching Xu Jiehua. When she goes out, two of them follow by motorcycle. Sometimes an unmarked car joins ...
Fukuda's botched repairs; Japanese politics.(A by-election defeat for Japan's government)(Yasuo Fukuda)
May 03, 2008 ... Back from the brink, but still beleaguered WHENEVER Japan's next general election takes place, the odds of Yasuo Fukuda, the hapless prime minister, leading his party into it have dwindled. On April 27th, the 71-year-old was presented with a crushing by-election defeat for his ...
Death be not proud; Suicide in Japan.(An epidemic of suicide in Japan)
May 03, 2008 ... A rash of suicides horrifies Japan "DO NOT open! Gas being created!" Written in red felt-tip pen and affixed to a door, they are among the last words of a 14-year-old Japanese schoolgirl, who took her life on April 23rd. The warning followed the advice of a website that also ...
Fearful asymmetry; Afghanistan.(Afghanistan: a bombing in Kabul)
May 03, 2008 ... Panic on parade A shift in Taliban tactics THE Mujahideen Day parade in Kabul on April 27th was meant to show Afghanistan's new, Western-trained, armed forces coming of age. President Hamid Karzai, the country's political elite and a jumble of Western diplomats ...
Dangerous deals; Pakistan's tribal areas.(Peace deals in Pakistan's tribal areas)
May 03, 2008 ... Worth the paper they're not written on? AS THE snows melt in Afghanistan, the fighting season beckons; across the border in Pakistan, however, it is the season for making peace deals. After winning an election in February the coalition government, led by the Pakistan People's ...
The winds of change; Malaysia.(Malaysian politics in upheaval)
May 03, 2008 ... Prime minister in waiting again Could the opposition take power after 51 years? AS MALAYSIA'S new parliament opened this week, a mood of change was in the air not felt since the country's independence from Britain in 1957. The governing coalition, led since then by ...
Unsteady as she goes; Tonga.(Tonga votes for change)
May 03, 2008 ... The "commoners" elect some combative democratic leaders THE faltering transition in Tonga from monarchy to democracy took another step forward with an election on April 24th. This was the first poll in the islands, where 108,000 people live, since 2005, when popularly elected ...
Oceans apart; Mergers and dominant firms.
May 03, 2008 ... Europe still seems to have less faith than America in the ability of the free market to tame monopolies AMERICA fosters competition; Europe protects competitors. That jeer is tossed across the Atlantic pretty frequently. Watchdogs on both sides of the ocean play down the idea ...
Supermarket sweep - Competition policy; Investigating price-fixing.
May 03, 2008 ... A complicated investigation of Britain's supermarkets looks like the latest example of the use in Europe of American trustbusting techniques. However, as our second article explains, in other areas of competition policy deep differences remain A FIERCER business battle would be ...
End of an era; Smyrna, 1922.(Book review)
May 03, 2008 ... WHEN Smyrna--modern Izmir--fell to the Turkish army in 1922, and much of it was destroyed by fire, the city's role as a bastion of Greek and Christian culture, going back nearly 2,000 years, came to an abrupt end. Before that, the port had been home to a diverse and cosmopolitan ...
An invitation to the dance; English memoirs.
May 03, 2008 ... NOT everyone will approve of Ferdinand Mount's beautifully written, poignant and, at times, extremely funny memoir. Some will be irritated by the author's indefatigable name-dropping, others by his over-insistent self-deprecation. Both will be missing the point. Mr Mount ...
Memory and forgetting; New fiction.(The Sorrows of an American)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 03, 2008 ... . "EVEN the dearest that I love the best/Are strange--nay, stranger than the rest." This couplet by John Clare, a 19th-century English poet, runs through the agitated mind of Erik Davidsen, the lonely,introspective narrator of "The Sorrows of an American", just before he takes ...
Sex and sensibility; The business of AIDS.(HIV/AIDS: A Very Short Introduction; The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 03, 2008 ... MORE than 2m people die from AIDS every year and as many get infected with HIV. Despite grand programmes to roll out anti-retroviral drugs that keep the infected alive, and billions spent by foreign donors and the governments of the worst-affected countries, AIDS is likely to cause one in ...
Look behind you; New film.(Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? )(Brief article)
May 03, 2008 ... A comedian seeks Osama bin Laden ON THE the pretext of looking for the world's most wanted man, Morgan Spurlock, television producer, documentary-film maker and director in 2004 of the irreverent "Super Size Me" about living on an all-McDonald's diet, sets off around the Middle ...
True stories; Amazon worldwide bestsellers.(Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea)(Brief article)
May 03, 2008 ... Hope and inspiration fuel the most popular biographies and autobiographies WHEN Greg Mortenson, a six-foot-four night-nurse and mountaineer from Montana, first visited Pakistan in 1993 to climb K2, the world's second-highest peak, he failed in his mountain quest but ended up ...
Power points; Religion and secularism.(The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State; Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to Al Qaeda)(Book review)
May 03, 2008 ... The slogans of political Islam remain highly resonant, whether as a programme for peaceful governance or an inspiration to wage war. Two new books explain why WHEN the British and French empires were at their height, imperial service often provided an outlet for the talents of ...
The trust question; Conservative economic policy.(The Tories have more work to do)
May 03, 2008 ... The Tories must do more to convince voters that they could manage the economy better than Labour OVER the past decade, Labour has enjoyed a vote-winning premium as the party most trusted to look after the economy. That lead has now turned to lag. The Conservatives are beginning ...
Hopes of healing; Financial stability.(The gloom lifts?)
May 03, 2008 ... Is the gloom beginning to lift? WHEN the Bank of England produced its previous Financial Stability Report in October, it struck a gloomy note. In the event, it was not pessimistic enough; financial markets suffered a near-crippling loss of confidence in March. Since then, ...
In the dock, and on the web; The Old Bailey online.(Crime from the 17th to 19th centuries)(London, England criminal court records online)
May 03, 2008 ... Dickensian London comes alive "YES," admitted Giuseppe Farnara, through an interpreter, "I plead guilty; I had the intention to blow up the capitalists, and all the middle classes." Farnara and his accomplice, Francis Polti, were rumbled on the evidence of an engineer and a ...
The other mayors; Bagehot.(Bagehot: More mayors for England)
May 03, 2008 ... Why, as Londoners vote for a directly elected mayor, England needs more of them RAY MALLON might not be a man you'd want to meet in a dark alley, at least if you were a criminal. He earned his sobriquet--"Robocop"--by importing a version of "zero-tolerance" policing to ...
Grimy democracy, continued; Voting fraud.(Cleaning up the electoral system)(Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust)
May 03, 2008 ... Elections need cleaning up WHEN the integrity of British politicians is doubted--as it has been of late thanks to scandals involving political-party funding and MPS' expenses--voters have been able to console themselves that at least the vast majority are elected freely and ...
Costly stranglehold; The Grangemouth strike.(Small strike, huge consequences)
May 03, 2008 ... The far-reaching consequences of the refinery workers' strike MINISTERS and oil-industry bosses heaved sighs of relief when the owner of the Grangemouth refinery and its workers met for talks on April 29th. The strike over the previous two days had turned out to have more costly ...
Hard sell; Northern Ireland's economy.(Luring foreign investors)
May 03, 2008 ... A beauty parade for foreign investors turns the spotlight on blemishes too THE last big set-piece of Northern Ireland's new post-conflict dispensation takes place in Belfast from May 7th to 9th. Billed as a conference to encourage American investment, it will be launched by ...
Of budgets and black holes; Science funding.(Fancy toys must be shared)
May 03, 2008 ... Let there be Light More fancy toys, fewer physicists to play with them FROM outside, the huge silver doughnut looks like a flight of vain architectural fancy, or perhaps a racetrack for very superior greyhounds. Racetrack turns out to be nearer the truth--but it is ...
Masses of amassing; Spotlight on art.view.(Brief article)
May 03, 2008 ... Our column about art is found at:www.economist.com/artview Our weekly art column this Saturday considers the sale of treasures from Hadspen, a grand country house in England COUNTRY-HOUSE sales, however grand, almost always include some rubbish. That is the point; ...
Going Dutch; Charlemagne.(The Netherlands and the EU)(European Union)
May 03, 2008 ... How the Netherlands fell out of love with Europe REMEMBER the shock of May 29th 2005, when the French rejected the draft European Union constitution by 55% to 45%? Yet this was largely a vote against an unpopular president, Jacques Chirac, and against the forces of ...
Divide, rule or waffle; The European Union and Russia.(Internal squabbles over relations with Russia)
May 03, 2008 ... The European Union cannot agree over how to deal with Russia. That suits the Kremlin just fine SEEN from outside, one might imagine that the European Union (population 495m, GDP of $16.8 trillion) was a rather intimidating neighbour for Russia (population 142m, GDP of $1.3 ...
Right back; A new mayor of Rome.(The right wins in Rome)(Gianni Alemanno of Rome, Italy)
May 03, 2008 ... All hail to the new mayor A former neo-fascist will be the next mayor of Rome TWO years ago, a television presenter insisted that Gianni Alemanno, a politician, unbutton his shirt. Underneath, hanging from a chain, was a Celtic cross. An irritated Mr Alemanno insisted ...
When voters want a say; Direct democracy in Germany.(German referendums spread)
May 03, 2008 ... A Dakota, but not enough voters If you thought Germany did not do referendums, think again CAMPAIGNERS for Tempelhof airport lacked neither enthusiasm nor cash. Sky-blue posters urged Berliners to vote yes in a referendum to keep open the airport, a symbol of the ...
An ineffective opposition; Turkish politics.(Turkey's CHP party)(Republican People's Party)
May 03, 2008 ... The sad irrelevance of Turkey's main opposition leader DURING last July's election campaign, Turkey's mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pledged to resign as Justice and Development (AK) party leader if he did not do well enough to govern without coalition ...
The presidency as theatre - Sarkozy's France.(A year of Nicolas Sarkozy's French presidency)
May 03, 2008 ... Manifestly more fun than studying Nicolas Sarkozy's dramatic first year as president has brought only limited change to France. Even if he is now less distracted, he may find reform harder to achieve THE year since Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France, on ...
Riding high; Mexican banks.(Mexico's resilient banks)
May 03, 2008 ... Mexico's fast-growing banks appear unusually unaffected by the financial crisis north of the border AFTER the 1994 peso crash, the risk of Mexico's difficulties spilling over into America was considered so great that the Clinton administration helped bail out its southern ...
Seeing red; China's stockmarket.(A bit of meddling goes a long way)
May 03, 2008 ... How meddling has helped investors A USEFUL indicator of the febrile state of China's stockmarkets for much of last year was the crowd that often packed the Shenyin & Wanguo broker in Shanghai's People's Square watching an electronic bulletin board lit up by the flashes of ...
In a pickle; Bank of Japan.
May 03, 2008 ... Anyone seen the butter? A monetary-policy conundrum familiar elsewhere, new to Japan EVER since the deflationary era, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) has longed for the day when monetary policy could once again mirror that of the more "normal" economies in the rest of the ...
Ben's bind; Global monetary policy.(The Fed, the falling dollar, and the commodities boom)(Ben Bernanke)
May 03, 2008 ... Disentangling the links between the Fed, the falling dollar and the soaring price of the world's commodities THE spirit of St Augustine hovered over the Federal Reserve this week. "Oh Lord, let us stop cutting interest rates, but not yet," is pretty much what America's central ...
The fragility of perfection; Buttonwood.(Essay)
May 03, 2008 ... When supply chains go wrong ONLY connect. The words of the novelist E. M. Forster sum up globalisation. An international company may buy its software from California, send its data to India, purchase its electronic equipment from China and staff its canteen with workers from ...
When the safety net fails; Deposit insurance.(Europe's deposit-insurance mess)
May 03, 2008 ... What if the queue stretched to Germany? Getty Images How would Europe cope if a big bank collapsed in its midst? WHEN Northern Rock ran into disaster last September, it was not only panicky British depositors who queued up to withdraw their savings from ...
An aberrant abacus; Economics focus.(China's untrustworthy economic statistics)
May 03, 2008 ... Coming to terms with China's untrustworthy economic numbers AS CHINA'S importance in the global economy increases, investors are paying more attention to its economic numbers. Yet the country's official statistics are notoriously ropy. Some commentators accuse China's government ...
Rank injustice; Investment banking.(Why the obsession with league tables?)
May 03, 2008 ... Are league tables to blame for the industry's ills? EVEN Cluedo does not have this many suspects. The list of culprits for the woes afflicting banks includes bankers' pay, credit ratings, ill-prepared boards, sleepy supervisors, accounting regimes, flawed risk models and Alan ...
Streams of blood, or streams of peace; Rivers and conflict.(Water won't necessarily cause wars between countries but drought can hasten state collapse)
May 03, 2008 ... Talk of thirsty armies marching to battle is surely overdone, but violence and drought can easily go together WHEN Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the world before an audience of powerful businessmen and politicians, at a meeting in ...
Oh what a tangled web they weave; North Korea and Syria.(Behind the Syria-North Korea connection)
May 03, 2008 ... A grainy snap The shadowy half-life of Syria's supposedly non-existent nuclear reactor "TOTALLY undocumented and untrue", thundered Syria this week at a meeting in Geneva of the signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "A fantasy", fumed Syria's ...
The American way of trust-busting; Competition law.
May 03, 2008 ... Rooting out price-fixing benefits sound businesses as well as consumers IN 1970s America five executives convicted of fixing the price of sticky labels ended up having to give lectures about their misdeeds in after-dinner speeches--cruel and unusual punishment for the audience, ...
Sarkozy's difficult year - Sarkozy's difficult year; France.(Nicolas Sarkozy's gloomy anniversary)(Nicolas Sarkozy)
May 03, 2008 ... The French are right to be disappointed in their president A YEAR is a short time to achieve much in politics, but Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected president of France 12 months ago, led the world to expect quick results. He set ambitious goals for how fast he would put France ...
The right time to chop; Farm subsidies.(The case for slashing subsidies)
May 03, 2008 ... Rich-country governments must ignore special pleading to restrict farm trade WHO says farmers are inflexible? In rich countries, they have long justified farm hand-outs by pointing to low world prices for food (never mind that low prices were partly caused by their own ...
Too soon to relax; Credit crunch.
May 03, 2008 ... Sentiment has improved, but lots of financial problems remain IS IT really over? In the middle of March investors were worried that the financial system was going to hell in a handcart. Analysts competed to produce the highest possible forecast for losses from the credit crunch ....
Angry China - Angry China.(The dangers of an angry China)
May 03, 2008 ... The recent glimpses of a snarling China should scare the country's government as much as the world CHINA is in a frightening mood. The sight of thousands of Chinese people waving xenophobic fists suggests that a country on its way to becoming a superpower may turn out to be a ...
Can it feed itself? Malawi.(Farm reform in Malawi)
May 03, 2008 ... An expensive fertiliser subsidy delivers a bumper harvest--but at what cost? WORRIES about food shortages are easily aroused in Malawi. In 2002 unripe cobs rotted in waterlogged fields while the national grain reserves were empty, prompting famine. A dry spell during three ...
A president at last? Lebanon.(How Lebanon survives without a president)
May 03, 2008 ... Sabah for president? Just kidding THE bold headline on flyers that appeared last month in the capital, Beirut, declared all of Lebanon's problems resolved. The country's myriad bickering sects, parties and warlords had called a truce, agreeing unanimously to elect a ...
Atrocities beyond words; Congo.(A campaign of rape in eastern Congo)
May 03, 2008 ... But the men with guns don't listen A barbarous campaign of rape EVERYTHING in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country almost the size of western Europe, is on a scarcely imaginable scale--including the violence. Among the beautiful mountain vistas, terraced ...
The continent's true history; African rock art.(Africa's rock-art history)
May 03, 2008 ... Africa, arise! Protecting cave paintings can restore Africa's pride in its history SO LATE to be "discovered" by the rest of the world--Henry Stanley made the continent's first crossing only in 1877--Africa, it can be forgotten, is probably the cradle of humanity. ...
The pressure on Robert Mugabe steadily mounts; Zimbabwe.(Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe hangs on as the pressure mounts)
May 03, 2008 ... There is no sign of an early end to the crisis, but the beleaguered president is looking a bit more isolated MORE than a month after the elections on March 29th, Zimbabwe remains in an agonising limbo. In the past week, however, international pressure on President Robert Mugabe ...
Seeing is believing; Gene therapy.(Is gene therapy turning a corner?)
May 03, 2008 ... The prospects for using genes as a therapy may be improving FOR around 40 years scientists have understood how genes work. They have known the structure of genes, how they replicate, how they are controlled and expressed and, crucially, how to manipulate them. Such knowledge has ...
Inside a deal; Psychology.
May 03, 2008 ... It pays to get inside your opponents' heads rather than their hearts JUDGED by the number of times that negotiations are said to have ended in a "win-win situation", striking a successful deal might seem easy. There are, after all, shelves full of books offering advice about ...
Home invention; Innovation.
May 03, 2008 ... Now, if you plug this into that and ... An increasing number of tinkerers are building their own gadgets THE standard sort of science fair can be a little bit stuffy. Precocious youngsters with a taste for laboratory notebooks spend years building experiments to ...
Gnashers at work; Palaeontology.
May 03, 2008 ... A jaw-dropping discovery The jaws and teeth of fossils may not reliably predict diets FEW fossils command as much respect as Tyrannosaurus rex. With a head the size of a refrigerator and teeth as big as bananas, it was an immensely powerful predator. Or was it? One of ...
Primary colour; On the campaign trail.(Brief article)
May 03, 2008 ... Lonesome tonight "Senator McCain's not here. He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he's not alone. Jenna's moving out, too." President Bush makes fun of the presidential candidates at the White House Correspondents' Association ...
Priming the pump; Campaign promises.(Petrol prices and the campaign)
May 03, 2008 ... All three candidates promise to lower petrol prices ACCORDING to a new poll by Public Agenda and Foreign Affairs, six out of ten Americans think reducing energy dependence will help national security "a great deal". They worry about global warming, too. But most of all they care ...
Wright's wrongs; Lexington.(The Jeremiah Wright problem)
May 03, 2008 ... Will no one rid the airwaves of this turbulent priest? AFTER he became notorious as the man who urged God to damn America, Jeremiah Wright claims he wrestled with two impulses. The first was to heed the proverb: "It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your ...
Hands off, maybe; Genetics and privacy.(New rules on the use of genetic information)
May 03, 2008 ... Congress bans certain abuses of genetic information LOUISE SLAUGHTER is a woman ahead of her time. Informed by her university studies in microbiology decades ago, this congresswoman from New York decided early on that the much-trumpeted genetics revolution would also bring ...
More workaday than thou; The Indiana primary.
May 03, 2008 ... Gimme a beer! A battle to appeal in the make-or-break state IN 1840 William Henry Harrison, the former governor of the Indiana Territory, won the presidency by boasting of his fondness for hard cider and log cabins. His opponent (his backers said) preferred to sip ...
Speedy decline; Illegal drugs.(One success in the drug wars)
May 03, 2008 ... Success in the war against methamphetamines--at a certain price A FEW years ago Pierce county, in Washington state, was in the grip of a methamphetamine epidemic. Toothless addicts roamed quiet rural roads, stealing everything that was not nailed down, as well as a few things ...