The Economist (US) back issues from April 2009:
Fear of violence; The Mexico-US border.(drug war)
Apr 04, 2009 ... But still pretty safe--on the northern side IS MEXICO'S drug war moving north? In Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, officials are alarmed by a spike in kidnappings for ransom and "other Latin American-style violence". Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, wants the ...
Too trusting; White-collar crime in Canada.(Corruption in Canada)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Why does justice move so much more slowly north of the 49th parallel? OUTSIDERS tend to think of Canada as a wholesome, boy-scoutish kind of place. Many Canadians have the same view. Yet their country is as shockingly slow as many in Latin America when it comes to dealing with ...
Home truths; The progressives' Chile summit.(the "progressive governance" summit for economic recovery between leaders of Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Bachelet's lesson for Brown A global alliance of the centre-left is (scratchily) back in business THEY govern in very different continents, but there is a degree of ideological kinship between some of the centre-left governments in South America, Europe and now the ...
Taking on the narcos, and their American guns; Mexico and the United States.(narcotics control)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Senior American officials are trooping to Mexico with assurances of support in its drug war. Will warm words be backed up by action? ARIZONA'S attorney-general, Terry Goddard, says he started to worry about American guns ending up in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers two ...
More troops and money; Afghanistan and Pakistan.(America's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan faces the same old problems)
Apr 04, 2009 ... But the same old problems THE opening move of Barack Obama's campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda was as successful as he could have wished. Just days after he unveiled a new policy to deal with extremists on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, nearly 90 ...
Congress's great dynastic hope; India's election.(Rahul Gandhi and India's general election)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Rahul Gandhi, progeny of prime ministers, kicks off his campaign for India's general election TO THE buzz of an approaching helicopter, 30,000 people arise in Wardha, in the dead centre of India, and start waving at the sun-bleached sky. Rahul Gandhi--the 38-year-old heir to ...
The court on trial; The Khmers Rouges and justice.(The trial of the Khmer Rouge)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Accusations of corruption threaten to discredit the trial of the Khmers Rouges THE tribunal to try former Khmers Rouges began its real proceedings this week. The first in the dock is Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who ran the former regime's notorious S-21 torture prison and who is ...
Mad bullying disease; South Korea.(Attacks on the press in South Korea)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Press freedom under attack NORTH KOREA this week detained a South Korean man for criticising Kim Jong Il's regime and "trying to lure a female North Korean" south. No surprise there. More strikingly, across the border, South Korean prosecutors last week arrested a producer at ...
The war on Pakistan's Taliban.(Taliban terror attacks in Lahore)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The battlefield in Lahore Stalking Baitullah Mehsud IT WAS a rare success for Pakistan's police. At dawn on March 30th, a group of grenade-hurling, Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists, some in police uniform, stormed a police training centre in a rural suburb of Lahore, ...
No green light; Thailand.(Thai politics returns to the barricades)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Thaksin sounds the red alert Back to the barricades TRAFFIC lights go from red to yellow. Thai politics goes the other way. Last year it was the "yellow shirts" of the royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) who stormed the prime minister's compound, bringing ...
Under new management; The semiconductor industry.(Recession and other strains)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Precious pizza Precious pizza Chipmakers were suffering even before the global economic downturn. Recession is heightening the pain and highlighting changes in structure and ownership MOST tourists come to Dresden to view the city's architectural wonders ....
The poet's redoubt; William Shakespeare.(A new book explores the mind of the Bard)(Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... You can learn a lot about Shakespeare by studying the world he inhabited IN HIS 1997 book, "The Genius of Shakespeare", Jonathan Bate wrote about the man whom Ben Jonson, a rival playwright, poet and actor, described as "not of the age, but for all time". In his new book, which ...
Forgotten gem; Eugene Ionesco's "Exit the King".(Geoffrey Rush makes a memorable Broadway debut)(Theater review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A comedy that is timely and timeless IT IS tough to make a two-hour death-knell entertaining. Is there anything amusing about not wanting to die? Yes, if you are lucky enough to see "Exit the King", a largely forgotten work by Eugene Ionesco, a 20th-century French absurdist ...
The wisdom of Vince; Economics.(Vince Cable is Britain's favourite politician. A new book helps explain why)(The Storm: The World Economic Crisis & What it Means)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... VINCE CABLE is a phenomenon of our troubled times. By some measure, Mr Cable, the economics spokesman of the Liberal Democrats, the smallest of Britain's big three political parties, is the most popular politician in Britain. In any putative government of national unity, he would be the ...
Manhunt; Adolf Eichmann.(How a Nazi fugitive was captured, tried and hanged)(Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Not one to doff his cap BRINGING old Nazis to justice was not a priority in the immediate aftermath of 1945. The three Western powers wanted to turn their zones of Germany into the Federal Republic, a functioning cold-war ally. Justice was delayed, denied or tied up in ...
Mule steak and dressed rat; The American civil war.(The fall of Vicksburg was a turning point in the American civil war)(Vicksburg 1863)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... "NOT a dog barked at us, not a cat shied round a corner. Poor things, they had all been eaten in the straitness of the siege." The eyewitness was a Yankee chaplain with the Federal Army when on Independence Day, July 4th 1863, it entered Vicksburg, the previously impregnable town that ...
Between essence and descent; Java.(An anthropologist tries to demystify a mystifying nation)(A Shadow Falls: In the Heart of Java)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... EVERY year Indonesia enjoys a national holiday for nyepi, the Hindu day of silence, which this year fell on March 26th. It is not a holiday in India, Hinduism's homeland. Similarly, in Bayu, once part of one of the last Hindu kingdoms in East Java to be conquered and converted to Islam, ...
Boat people; New fiction.(Leaving Tangier)(Book review)
Apr 04, 2009 ... IN HIS latest work to be translated into English, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Morocco's best-known novelist, examines how much people are willing to sacrifice to start a new life in Europe, and the consequences of taking flight. Mr Ben Jelloun is no stranger to these issues, having left Morocco ...
Sinking assets; British tax havens.(Britain's tax havens under threat in the Turks and Caicos Islands)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Global reforms pose a threat to those nice little earners IN BENIGN times Britain could smile remotely on its far-flung territories, sending the odd royal to fly the Union Flag. But corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which might soon require direct rule again from ...
Dunlending; Building societies.(Scotland's biggest society collapses)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Mutuals are catching the banks' ills BUILDING societies, a Victorian invention to let modest folk save money to buy a home, once seemed as safe as the proverbial houses. No longer. Since the Dunfermline building society, Scotland's largest and in 2007 the country's 12th biggest, ...
Rumblings in quangoland; The equality industry.(The run-up to the equality bill)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A spat at the equality watchdog highlights wider divisions on policy THE earnest folk at the old Disability Rights Commission (DRC) might not be everyone's idea of wild party animals. But this week it was alleged that the National Audit Office, a public-spending watchdog, had ...
Greenstanding; Renewable energy.(Fiscal stimulus and the environment)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Gordon Brown's New Deal will do little to advance renewable energy ONE of the most impressive monuments to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal is the network of dams that stud the Tennessee River valley, built to provide work and to modernise a backward corner of America during ...
Glimmers of hope, forecasts of gloom; Economic outlook.(Britain's poor economic prospects)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Despite some encouraging signs, a robust recovery is a long way off WHEN the economy was last mired in recession, Norman Lamont notoriously spotted some "green shoots" of recovery. Mindful of the scorn heaped upon the Conservative chancellor of the exchequer for his premature ...
Today, Strasbourg; next, the world; Politics and the internet.(Lessons of a viral sensation)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The lessons of the latest viral sensation IF GORDON BROWN was embarrassed by his recent rhetorical skewering at the hands of Daniel Hannan, a Conservative member of the European Parliament (MEP), Britain's established media can sympathise. Journalists were tipped off about the ...
There's a recession on, you know; Jacqui Smith.(MPs are feeling no pinch)(members of parliament)
Apr 04, 2009 ... MPs continue to feather their nests, even as voters feel the pinch THE steady drip-drip of sleaze stories in recent years was not enough to make MPs clean up their lax expenses regime. The current deluge is forcing them to. On March 29th it was revealed that Jacqui Smith, the ...
A tearing sound; Bosnia's future.(A country in trouble)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Could fighting resume? A JOKE doing the rounds has it that nothing can succeed in Bosnia, not even a crisis. Pessimists note that Yugoslavs used to tell a similar joke in the 1980s. One diplomat believes that Bosnia's gridlock has got so bad, and the political atmosphere ...
A new Moscow show trial; The Khodorkovsky case.(Mikhail Khodorkovsky's second trial on his tax fraud case opens on March 31st)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A fresh trial of Russia's jailed oligarch is a critical test for President Medvedev BIG changes in Russian political life are often ushered in by trials. The first show trial of the Shakhty engineers in 1928 paved the way for Stalin's consolidation of power in 1929. The 1935-36 ...
The name game; Troubled Macedonia.(Facing a presidential election)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Annoy Greece, put up more statues of Alexander THE winner of the second round of Macedonia's presidential election on April 5th will almost certainly be Georgi Ivanov, the candidate of the ruling nationalist party led by the prime minister, Nikola Gruevski. But that does not ...
A wake-up call from the voters; Turkish politics.(After the local elections)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Flags down for Erdogan Turkey's ruling party did unexpectedly badly in local elections DEFEAT is an unfamiliar concept for Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Yet his Justice and Development (AK) Party felt it for the first time in local elections on March ...
Basel brush; Regulating banks.(The Financial Stability Forum overhauls banking rules)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Regulators' new blueprint for bank supervision avoids the trickiest bits IT HASN'T got to the stage of taxi drivers demanding a crackdown on tier-one capital, but in general terms the world agrees that banks need to be regulated until they weep. The detail is best left to the ...
Minsky's moment; Buttonwood.(The cost of capitalism)(Hyman Minsky)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A new appraisal of an economist's theories challenges the blind faith in free markets STABLE economies sow the seeds of their own destruction. That sounds like Karl Marx but it is the basic insight of Hyman Minsky, an economist of the mid-20th century whose reputation is being ...
Correction.
Apr 04, 2009 ... In last week's article on globalisation and trade ("The nuts and bolts come apart") we ...
Bullish on bullion; Gold.(Demand for gold coins and bars is picking up)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Golden era Some investors want savings that they can caress AROUND the corner from The Economist's offices in Mayfair, a shop dealing in old coins has a faded notice in the window. It advertises what were once daily prices for Krugerrands--gold coins from South ...
No strings attached; Mexico and the IMF.(Mexico secures an IMF credit line)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Calderon and the queen: no stigma there The IMF hopes a credit line for Mexico may set a trend RUMOURS that a country is in talks with the IMF are often met with loud denials. That is because the fund's loans usually come with so many unpopular strings attached, such ...
The incredible shrinking economy; Japan.(Japan has stagnated for 16 years)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Japan is in danger of suffering not one but two lost decades TO LOSE one decade may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Japan's economy stagnated in the 1990s after its stockmarket and property bubbles burst, but its more recent economic performance ...
Notes from the underground; The black market.(How to measure the black market)
Apr 04, 2009 ... What credit crunch? At least one part of the economy is growing. Sadly it is the wrong part "WE USED to be recession-proof. No more. You can't blame it all on the Justice Department," laments Uncle Junior in "The Sopranos". Life may be hard for fictitious television ...
The mess in La Mancha; Spanish banks.(The bail-out of Caja Castilla La Mancha)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Part of Spain's bad-debt problem is hidden within its savings banks PESSIMISTS about Spain's economy are as oversupplied as flats in the concrete ghost towns on the edge of Madrid. Unemployment could hit 20% next year and common sense suggests a bad-debt problem will eventually ...
Women in parliaments.(Brief article)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Women make up more than half of Rwanda's 80 MPs, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international association of lawmakers. Women are also relatively well represented in Sweden, where they hold 47% of the seats in the country's parliament. The proportion in New Zealand, which ...
Sovereign bond ratings.(Brief article)
Apr 04, 2009 ... At the end of 2008 61% of sovereign bond issuers were classed as investment grade by Moody's, a rating agency. That share was a little lower than a year or two before. Over a longer period, it has fallen markedly, mainly because emerging economies' governments, which tend to be riskier, ...
Overview.(economic conditions)(Brief article)
Apr 04, 2009 ... There was mixed news from Japan. The Bank of Japan's quarterly Tankan index of sentiment among large manufacturers fell to -58, the lowest in the history of the survey, which dates back to 1974. The country's domestic production of vehicles was 56% lower in February than a year earlier ....
Correction.
Apr 04, 2009 ... In an article "The toxins trickle downwards" (March 14th) we wrongly said Malawi is losing a large ...
A Chinese ghost in the machine? Cyberwarfare.(Chinese cyberwarfare uncovered)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Identifying the perpetrator of cyber-attacks can be impossible CYBERSPACE is ideal for spies. Digitally disguised and undeterred by borders or passports, they can pick locks anywhere in the world, pilfer secrets without trace and even leave toxic traps for the unwary. ...
The Obama effect; The G20 summit.(international community's opinion on President Barack Obama)
Apr 04, 2009 ... London hails the chief London hails the chief If atmospherics were all that mattered, the American president would be well on the way to curing the world's ills BARACK OBAMA had difficulty pronouncing the name of his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, ...
Diplomacy, faith and freedom; Religion and human rights.(The United States changes tack on human-rights promotion)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A blasphemy trial in Pakistan: just whose rights are at stake? America rejoins the argument over which human rights are sacred BACK in February there were groans of dismay among civil-liberties activists when Hillary Clinton, in one of her early pronouncements as ...
Change your tune; Israel's new government.(Israel's hawkish new government)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Or the prospect of peace with the Palestinians will grow dimmer than ever THE outlook for peace between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land has rarely looked bleaker, at least if you take the pronouncements of the protagonists at face value. This week the Israelis got a new ...
The meaning of freedom; Religion and human rights.(Free speech and religious sensitivity)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Why freedom of speech must include the right to "defame" religions AT FIRST glance, the resolution on "religious defamation" adopted by the UN's Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned ...
The Trial, round two; Russia and the rule of law.(Mikhail Khodorkovsky's new trial)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, like the first, will help determine Russia's future IT HAS been a big week for Russia. That is not because of the first summit meeting between the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and America's Barack Obama in London. More significant ...
Unity of a kind; The Arab League summit.(Another fairly pointless Arab summit)
Apr 04, 2009 ... No agreement, except to express Arab solidarity for an indicted war criminal SINCE its founding in 1945, the Arab League, now embracing 22 countries (including Palestine), has sought to forge unity. Yet its annual summits have tended to produce either quarrels or platitudes. The ...
Bad blood again; Iraq's former insurgents.(Sectarian strife in Iraq breaks out again)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Let more Sons join the army too The government must act quickly to keep former rebels on its side SOME of the heaviest fighting in Baghdad since 2007 erupted on March 28th after former Sunni insurgents, who were supposed to have come "on side", clashed with Iraqi ...
Make it better; Israel's electoral system.(Reforming Israel's electoral system)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Too many parties, too many ministers AS THEY set about building a government coalition in mid-February, many of Israel's politicians proclaimed a need for electoral reform. The latest election, they said, amply proved their point, with 12 parties winning seats in the 120-strong ...
A rising but enigmatic prince; Saudi Arabia's Prince Nayef.(A new twist to the saga of the Saudi succession)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Could a tough interior minister be a reforming king? THE many palaces of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's desert capital, are not as colourful as the Kremlin. But it can be as hard to unravel the politics played out behind their walls as it was for interpreters of Soviet Russia. Amid the ...
A battle between two long arms; A mysterious air raid on Sudan.(An Israeli attack on an arms convoy in Sudan to prevent arms in coming to the hands of the Hamas)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The shadow-boxing between Israel and Iran moves from Gaza to Sudan GIVEN the ferocity of Israel's onslaught on the Islamist militants of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the first three weeks of January, it stands to reason that Israel would also be doing everything in its power to ...
John Hope Franklin.(John Hope Franklin, historian of America's blacks)(Obituary)
Apr 04, 2009 ... John Hope Franklin, historian of race in America, died on March 25th, aged 94 HIS chief pleasures were contemplative and patient. With watering can and clippers, he would potter in his greenhouse among hundreds of varieties of orchids. Or, standing in a river, he would wait for ...
Acknowledgments.
Apr 04, 2009 ... Apart from the people quoted in this report, the author would also like to thank the following for their help: Walter Berchthold, Olivier de Givenchy, Marten ...
Bling on a budget.(Bling on a budget)(luxury goods sales drop and the rich people's spending)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Designer belts are being tightened A WEALTHY Mexican walked into an exclusive shop in Vail, Colorado, late last year and picked out $11,000-worth of clothes to lay on the counter. He perused them for a minute, then offered the sales assistant $6,000 for the lot. The shop ...
A thing of beauty.(A thing of beauty)(art auction)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The best works of art still command fancy prices IN CHRISTIE'S Paris auction room on the evening of February 23rd it was as though the financial crisis had never happened. A sale of works of art collected by the late designer Yves Saint Laurent brought in $264m, well ahead of ...
Dropping bricks.(Dropping bricks)(property market)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A runaway boom in property prices has gone into reverse IF ANY market has been distorted by the activities of the rich over the past decade, it must surely have been property. For a while it seemed as if the plutocrats were competing against each other to pay the silliest prices ...
Giving it away.(Giving it away)(generosity of the rich)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Will the rich become less charitable? IN JUNE 2006 the then two richest men on the planet performed a remarkable ceremony. Warren Buffett, an eminent investor, agreed to hand over the bulk of his fortune to the foundation run by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. It was a ...
Paying the bill.(Paying the bill)
Apr 04, 2009 ... The rich will become a little poorer. That may be no bad thing, but beware a backlash SOCIETIES have often distinguished between the deserving poor (afflicted by sickness or disability) and the undeserving sort (the feckless and workshy). These days they also seem to ...
Ethereal wisps; Astrophysics.(Another possible glimpse of dark matter)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Another possible glimpse of dark matter ONE of the great mysteries of the universe is what it is made of. The world, as perceived by those who inhabit it, consists of tangible matter, but this explanation cannot be complete. Most galaxies rotate at a speed that should cause them ...
Knobbly ID; Biometrics.(Analysis of a person's knee could confirm their identity)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Analysis of knees could be used to confirm people's identities ONCE the art of disguise would rely on a false moustache, a wig and probably a touch of make-up to foil an identification check. Today you need to beat an electronic fingerprint-analyser or a retinal scanner. It can ...
Bash for help; Mining safety.(A new way to find trapped miners)
Apr 04, 2009 ... A new way to find trapped miners HIGH technology is not always needed to solve a problem. Indeed, a proposed new system for finding miners trapped by an underground collapse is activated simply by hammering on an iron plate with a sledgehammer. Rescuers can be not only alerted ...
I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told; Neuroscience and social deprivation.(How poverty passes from generation to generation is now becoming clearer. The answer lies in the effect of stress on two particular parts of the brain)
Apr 04, 2009 ... How poverty passes from generation to generation is now becoming clearer. The answer lies in the effect of stress on two particular parts of the brain THAT the children of the poor underachieve in later life, and thus remain poor themselves, is one of the enduring problems of ...
Out in the cold; Florida's public defenders.(Funding cuts for public defenders)
Apr 04, 2009 ... How cuts may be illegal THE Miami-Dade County Public Defender's Office has had enough. Overworked and underfunded in its efforts to provide lawyers for the poor, it tried last June to decline all new non-capital cases. In September a judge ruled that it could turn away so-called ...
A river runs through it, again; The Midwestern floods.(When the Red river floods its banks)
Apr 04, 2009 ... Too late for sandbags or watchdogs Fargo's frantic efforts are the latest chapter in a long struggle THE Red river has a record of unruly behaviour. In 1826 it expelled white settlers from a colony along the modern American-Canadian border. A photograph from 1897 ...