Current Table of Contents

• Tech.view: Hear the difference
  <p>Which is best-analogue or digital?</p><p>A MUSIC lover but no audio zealot, your correspondent has often wondered whether analogue recordings really are &#8220;warmer&#8221; than digital ones. In other words, do audio amplifiers and microphones with old-fashioned thermionic valves (&#8220;vacuum tubes&#8221; to Americans) inherently produce a sound more natural and satisfying than those with transistors and other solid-state devices?</p><p>He suspects it&#8217;s mostly a myth, stemming from the days when analogue was in its prime and digital recording in its infancy. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=6p64N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=6p64N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=2Zkxn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=2Zkxn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=X93dn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=X93dn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZOZBN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZOZBN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929973" height="1" width="1"/>
• Minerals: How rocks evolve
  <p>It is not just living organisms that evolve. Minerals do too, and much of their diversity has arisen in tandem with the evolution of life</p><p>EVOLUTION has come a long way since Charles Darwin&#8217;s time. Today it is not only animals and plants that are seen as having evolved over time, but also things that involve the hand of humans, like architecture, music, car design and even governments. Now rocks, too, seem to be showing evolutionary characteristics.</p><p>Rocks are made from minerals, which like all matter are composed of individual chemical elements. What makes minerals special is the way that the atoms of those elements are arranged in lattices which create unique crystalline structures and shapes. Today more than 4,000 different minerals can be found on Earth. When the planet began to be formed, however, few existed. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=207NN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=207NN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=VaPHn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=VaPHn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=WHe8n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=WHe8n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZsTGN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZsTGN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929978" height="1" width="1"/>
• Exoplanets: First sighting
  <p>Planets are seen outside the Solar System</p><p>A FEW grainy smudges and computer-generated blobs are not much to look at. But these are the first images of planets outside the Solar System, or exoplanets as they are called. The star they are orbiting, the mass of blobs seen in the picture, is known only as HR 8799. It is 128 light years from Earth, and is just visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Pegasus. The three red dots, marked b, c and d, are exoplanets.</p><p>Since the 1990s more than 300 exoplanets have been found and the number is growing. However, their presence can usually only be inferred through the gravitational influences they have on their nearby star. Images of the three planets at HR 8799, however, were captured directly using two high-altitude telescopes in Hawaii. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=nnNZN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=nnNZN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=vAbbn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=vAbbn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=5aFIn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=5aFIn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=QoDHN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=QoDHN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929979" height="1" width="1"/>
• Moldova and Transdniestria: Another forgotten conflict
  <p>Good behaviour in Moldova&#8217;s separatist dispute reaps meagre rewards</p><p>&#8220;LET us live in poverty, but in a country at peace,&#8221; says Vasily Sova, Moldova&#8217;s negotiator with its breakaway territory of Transdniestria, when asked about the billions lavished on Georgia after its August war with Russia. Unlike the belligerent Georgia, Moldova has taken a gentle approach to its Russian-backed separatists, and it is not trying to join NATO. Yet it is barely nearer than Georgia to a deal over lost territory.</p><p>Russia&#8217;s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, went to Moldova this week to push a new initiative. Russia does not recognise Transdniestria&#8217;s independence, but it wants to keep troops there, a condition all other parties reject. The Moldovan and Transdniestrian leaders have not met recently. Moldova&#8217;s president, Vladimir Voronin, was turned back when he tried to visit his home village in Transdniestria. Mr Voronin called Transdniestria&#8217;s leader, Igor Smirnov, &#8220;an evil force who has turned his region into a festering wound on the body of Moldova&#8221;. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=NoABN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=NoABN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=zZm2n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=zZm2n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=x8uZn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=x8uZn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=kKViN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=kKViN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929982" height="1" width="1"/>
• Tuna in the Mediterranean: Gone fishing
  <p>The European Commission is accused of withholding embarrassing data</p><p>ON NOVEMBER 17th an international meeting in Morocco will consider how much bluefin tuna should be caught in the Atlantic and Mediterranean next year. But it may lack crucial data. The group, called the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), meets every year to argue over quotas, of which the European Union&#8217;s is the biggest. The EU divides this among its members in December (when the big row will be about plans to slash cod quotas).</p><p>The population of bluefin tuna is crashing after decades of overfishing, mainly by Europeans. This year a European body, the Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA), has gathered data on bluefin and conducted inspections. Green members of the European Parliament asked for the study in September. But nothing materialised until Philippe Morillon, the French chairman of the parliament&#8217;s fisheries committee, got the CFCA to produce a ten-page summary on November 6th. It concludes that &#8220;it has not been a priority of most operators in the fishery to comply with ICCAT legal requirements&#8221;. Rules on reporting catches and banning spotter planes have been flouted too. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=XifaN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=XifaN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ducun"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ducun" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=A6yDn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=A6yDn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=VoAON"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=VoAON" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929983" height="1" width="1"/>
• Eastern Europe and America: Looking west, hopefully
  <p>Eastern Europe awaits a new American president nervously but in hope</p><p>DETAINING the next president of the United States for three hours in what an eyewitness called a &#8220;malodorous&#8221; small room at an airport in the provincial Russian city of Perm looks, in retrospect, to have been a pretty bad idea. No matter that the Kremlin muttered an apology for delaying Barack Obama, along with his mentor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, in August 2005. The hold-up was blamed on a muddle over paperwork&#8212;although some Russia-watchers suspected it was a calculated Kremlin snub to the Republican Mr Lugar. </p><p>Mr Obama now plays down the episode, but his first-hand experience of the Russian bureaucracy&#8217;s capacity for at best capricious incompetence and at worst vindictiveness could yet prove telling. His team of hundreds of foreign-policy experts ranges from those who see the Bush administration&#8217;s policy as dangerously confrontational to those who think it too soft. Michael McFaul, a Stanford academic who has become a caustic critic of the Kremlin, is an influential Obama adviser. But it remains to be seen how many people Mr Obama will pick from his own team, and how many from the Hillary Clinton camp of experienced Russia hands. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=vqEiN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=vqEiN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=0naxn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=0naxn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=9y2Nn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=9y2Nn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=UVaCN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=UVaCN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929985" height="1" width="1"/>
• Bagehot: The twilight zone
  <p>Everything suddenly seems possible in British politics</p><p>FOR the plotters of coups, timing is all. Move too early, and they find themselves facing a firing squad, fleeing into exile or, in more sedate countries, being snubbed in the parliamentary tea rooms and excluded from the membership of select committees, with their supposed champion immortalised as the wielder of a banana rather than of power. That is the fate that seems to have befallen the Labour MPs who called for Gordon Brown to step down, just before the global economy imploded and the prime minister was extolled as its stalwart saviour. The plot, if not the plotters, is now dead&#8212;right?</p><p>There are two things that everyone now knows about British politics. One is that Mr Brown is safe: the rebels have been shamed; the doughty prime minister will lead his party into the next general election. The other is that he and Labour are doomed: their defeat on polling day is still near-certain, even if a narrow one now seems more probable than a rout. Both parts of this new conventional wisdom, Bagehot submits, are doubtful. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZmdmN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZmdmN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Hk8Dn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Hk8Dn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=N9XMn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=N9XMn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=4ICPN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=4ICPN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929987" height="1" width="1"/>
• Renewable energy: The green pound
  <p>Greenery may create jobs&#8212;but not the ones its boosters think</p><p>IT HAS been a confusing time for Britain&#8217;s environmentalists. Dismay greeted reports on November 6th that BP, an oil firm, was ditching plans to build a wind farm at the Isle of Grain, a blowy expanse of industrialised desolation in Kent. In fact, said BP, it was pulling out of wind energy in Britain altogether in favour of an American market brimming with $15 billion (GBP10 billion) a year in green-power subsidies. Four days later moods lifted when Vattenfall, a Swedish company, said it was joining forces with Scottish Power to build a 300MW, GBP780m wind farm off Kent. </p><p>Britain is keen on windmills for two reasons. First, it has promised big reductions in carbon emissions (an 80% drop by 2050 compared with 1990) and a barely credible boost in the amount of energy it gets from renewable sources (15% by 2020). And second, ministers see green power as a growth industry. Gordon Brown said in June, for example, that renewable energy could provide 160,000 new jobs. The prime minister compared its potential with the explosive growth in the 1970s and 1980s of the offshore oil industry. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=TNYDN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=TNYDN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=7SxQn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=7SxQn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=3SYXn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=3SYXn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=o442N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=o442N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929988" height="1" width="1"/>
• Interest-rates outlook: Plumbing new depths
  <p>The Bank of England signals more cuts to come</p><p>THAT show-stopping cut in interest rates looked like a hard act to follow. But on November 12th Britain&#8217;s central bank rose to the occasion as it unveiled the dire forecasts that had prompted its decision a week earlier to cut the base rate from 4.5% to 3%. </p><p>Even after its hefty monetary easing, the Bank of England now expects a nasty recession. Its central projection, set out in the quarterly Inflation Report, shows GDP falling by almost 2% in the year to the second quarter of 2009 (see chart). This outcome is far worse than the bank envisaged in August, even though its forecast then seemed fairly gloomy. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=pAN4N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=pAN4N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=X5bln"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=X5bln" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=sN6pn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=sN6pn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=hYBwN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=hYBwN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929989" height="1" width="1"/>
• Politics and the recession: Bigger, wider, deeper
  <p>Tax cuts make a cross-party comeback, thanks to economic woes</p><p>HOUSES, financial services, iPods&#8212;all sold well during the decade and a half of economic growth that preceded Britain&#8217;s incipient recession. One thing there wasn&#8217;t a market for was tax cuts. Labour increased the tax burden to splurge on public services. Far from feeling put-upon, voters spurned offers of lower taxes from the Conservatives at consecutive elections. And the Liberal Democrats saw their vote go steadily up between 1997 and 2005 as they made the case for higher taxes.</p><p>Yet such are the political changes being wrought by the downturn&#8212;the most profound of which remains the revival of Gordon Brown&#8217;s premiership&#8212;that soon all three parties could be standing on tax-cutting platforms. The pragmatic need to stimulate a flagging economy has achieved what years of principled arguments for lower taxes failed to do. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=YlYmN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=YlYmN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=KRCQn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=KRCQn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=P8iMn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=P8iMn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=6yDdN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=6yDdN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929990" height="1" width="1"/>
• Child-killing: Most foul
  <p>The wrong lessons learnt, and another horrifying death</p><p>ON NOVEMBER 11th two men were found guilty at the Old Bailey of killing a 17-month-old boy known to the public only as Baby P. The toddler had a broken back, eight fractured ribs, a missing fingernail and toenail, multiple bruises and an ear almost torn off. What finally killed him on August 3rd 2007 was a blow to the head so severe that the postmortem found a tooth in his stomach. </p><p>The two men, one the mother&#8217;s boyfriend, the other a lodger, were found not guilty of murder. They will be sentenced on December 15th for &#8220;causing or allowing the death of a child&#8221;, an offence that was placed on the statute books in 2005 to stop those jointly culpable for a child&#8217;s death from avoiding punishment by blaming each other. Earlier, the baby&#8217;s mother had pleaded guilty to the same charge. The maximum sentence is 14 years. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=73jcN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=73jcN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Mxcjn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Mxcjn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=XsBhn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=XsBhn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=vjhPN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=vjhPN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929991" height="1" width="1"/>
• Cash and local councils: Icelandic saga
  <p>Were they reckless, badly advised or just unlucky?</p><p>BACK in 1991 scores of local authorities used newfangled financial swaps to bet and lose millions on interest rates. They were let off the hook by the House of Lords: the peers ruled the deals null and void because council officers had been acting beyond their legal powers.</p><p>No such defence can be used this time. Local governments&#8212;123 of them&#8212;stuffed GBP919.6m into accounts with Icelandic banks that paid over-the-odds interest rates until they collapsed and were nationalised in October, with deposits frozen. On November 13th council representatives were in Iceland to treat with Deloitte &amp; Touche, the accounting firm handling the bank work-out there. They have little chance of being repaid in full. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=G4xTN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=G4xTN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=LDc3n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=LDc3n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=VJK0n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=VJK0n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=oRtQN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=oRtQN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929992" height="1" width="1"/>
• Airdrie Savings Bank: Boring, stolid, small and safe
  <p>How one bank stuck to its last and prospered</p><p>AMID the hallucinogenic chaos of world finance today, it would be hard to find a duller bank than Airdrie, the only surviving, and currently thriving, independent savings bank in Britain. Customers love it. &#8220;We had an inflow of GBP8.5m in deposits in October,&#8221; says Jim Lindsay, the bank&#8217;s general manager.</p><p>That may not sound much, but it represents a 7.4% increase in deposits. Airdrie Savings Bank is tiny. It has seven branches, 60,000 customers and 104 employees to serve the county of Lanarkshire, east of Glasgow. It was born out of the savings-bank movement pioneered in 19th-century Scotland by the Rev Henry Duncan, concerned that his poor parishioners had nowhere to save money earned in good times to draw on in tough times later. Mr Duncan&#8217;s success rapidly spawned copies throughout Britain and, eventually, in America. In 1985 the little bank sturdily resisted heavy pressure from the Bank of England and the Treasury to join the amalgamation of most other such banks into the publicly quoted Trustee Savings Bank (TSB), which was later privatised and bought by Lloyds in 1995. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=smdUN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=smdUN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=wryQn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=wryQn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=L2iYn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=L2iYn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=IcT3N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=IcT3N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929993" height="1" width="1"/>
• Scottish politics: The union forever?
  <p>Recession is cutting into the nationalists&#8217; popularity</p><p>ONE of Alex Salmond&#8217;s proudest boasts from his first year as nationalist first minister of the devolved Scottish government was persuading local councils to freeze their tax levels. He achieved it by giving them a generous 5% spending increase for the fiscal year to March 2009 and much more freedom in how they spent it. But now inflation and recession are biting chunky holes in council budgets, cuts are having to be made and a lot of the election pledges of the Scottish National Party (SNP) are being binned. Mr Salmond&#8217;s seemingly unassailable post-election popularity has suddenly plunged as a result.</p><p>The blows to the councils&#8217; finances are big. Edinburgh thinks it will make only GBP23m from selling surplus land and property this year, rather than the GBP43m it expected. Extra fuel and energy costs will add GBP10m to its bills. Glasgow council says that the tanking property market will reduce its revenue from planning applications by about GBP1m a month. Fewer new homes also mean that council-tax receipts will be down by about GBP1.4m on the year. Councillors across Scotland are in a similar plight, and so are having to cut spending. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=33RmN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=33RmN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=rODdn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=rODdn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=GqLtn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=GqLtn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=5B4IN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=5B4IN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929994" height="1" width="1"/>
• Logistics: Failure to deliver
  <p>DHL gives up on its American dream</p><p>MANY an ambitious, long-nurtured growth strategy will be abandoned during this rapidly worsening downturn. Bravely sticking to their original plans may ultimately make heroes of a few bosses, but in most boardrooms caution is now the watchword as new schemes are abandoned in favour of defending what is already profitable. DHL, the overnight-delivery arm of Deutsche Post World Net, a logistics conglomerate, is a case in point. On November 10th DHL said it would shut down its express-delivery service within America, with the loss of 9,500 jobs.</p><p> Five years ago DHL, which had been acquired by Deutsche Post in 2001, targeted the American market with much fanfare, eager to demonstrate that it was at least equal to the two delivery giants, FedEx and UPS. This was a crucial step in the campaign by Deutsche Post&#8217;s boss at the time, Klaus Zumwinkel, to create a global &#8220;one-stop shop&#8221; for delivery. (The former McKinsey consultant stepped down in February this year after a raid on his home in Cologne, and on November 7th he was charged with tax evasion.) ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yni1N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yni1N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=JZgan"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=JZgan" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Xiu4n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Xiu4n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=0c99N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=0c99N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929995" height="1" width="1"/>
• Technology and advertising: Watching the watchers
  <p>Television advertisements can work in fast-forward</p><p>BACK in the 1980s, marketers could be certain of reaching 90% of American households with an advertisement on prime-time network television. Now they would be lucky to reach a third. With hundreds of television channels and millions of websites to choose from, audiences have become fragmented. To make matters worse, the rise of digital video recorders (DVRs) such as the TiVo, which record programmes on a hard disk so that they can be watched at any time, also makes it easy to skip past the advertisements. So here, at last, is some good news for advertising folk: it is still possible to get your message across on television, even when a viewer has his finger on the fast-forward button.</p><p>The finding arises from an observation made by Adam Brasel and James Gips of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College in Massachusetts. They noticed that when people fast-forward a DVR they actually concentrate intensely on the screen, looking out for the end of the advertising break so that they can get back to their programme. This means they are probably paying more attention than they would if the advertisements were playing normally. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=SI0HN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=SI0HN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Em73n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Em73n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yTRon"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yTRon" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Zw0WN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Zw0WN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929996" height="1" width="1"/>
• Corporate restructuring: Centres of attention
  <p>Companies may still have too many heads at headquarters</p><p>DOWNSIZING is the undisputed global management trend of the moment. This week Nortel, a Canadian telecoms-equipment company, Britain&#8217;s BT and DHL, a logistics giant owned by Germany&#8217;s Deutsche Post World Net, were among a host of firms announcing thousands of job cuts. As well as pruning heads in business units, some chief executives are trimming their headquarters (HQs), too.</p><p>Nortel is a case in point. On November 10th the company said that it had lost $3.4 billion in its third quarter and was taking urgent steps to cut costs. These include shedding 1,300 jobs and handing over activities such as marketing and R&amp;D, which were previously run from the centre, to business units. Among those leaving are its marketing and technology chiefs. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=wMpdN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=wMpdN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=34TDn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=34TDn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=l9nYn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=l9nYn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ALVpN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ALVpN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929997" height="1" width="1"/>
• Asian casinos: Place your bets
  <p>Casino operators have taken some big gambles. Who will clean up?</p><p>PUSH through the packed crowds in the smoke-filled haze of the main gambling hall of the old Lisboa, once Macau&#8217;s flagship casino, or try to squeeze into a spot at a packed baccarat table at the Sands or its sister casino, the Venetian, now the most prominent property, and you would probably conclude that the gambling industry in Macau is thriving. Over the past year gambling revenues in the territory have increased by 27% to an all-time high (see chart). On November 10th Las Vegas Sands, owner of both the Sands and the Venetian, said revenues were up by two-thirds compared with a year earlier, and it had moved from an operating loss to a profit because of Macau&#8217;s performance. And yet, as good as all that may seem, trouble is looming.</p><p>In the four years since the ending of the monopoly on gambling held by SJM Holdings, the Lisboa&#8217;s parent, Macau has been transformed from a sleepy island into a legitimate rival to Las Vegas, with the same operators&#8212;Sands, MGM Mirage and Wynn Resorts&#8212;as the driving force. Growth, however, peaked in January and revenues have declined in the past two quarters. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=geENN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=geENN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=GUpTn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=GUpTn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=nTCsn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=nTCsn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ns6WN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ns6WN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929998" height="1" width="1"/>
• Aviation in China: Chocks away
  <p>An air show highlights China&#8217;s ambitions in aviation</p><p>&#8220;ZHUHAI is one of the world&#8217;s most romantic cities,&#8221; claims the airport website of the southern Chinese city, just along the coast from Macau. It is hardly Paris or Venice, but Zhuhai has a special place in the heart of China&#8217;s aviation industry as the home of the country&#8217;s biggest air show, held every two years, at which deals are done and home-grown technology is proudly displayed.</p><p>One of the stars of the 2008 show, even though it has yet to make its maiden flight, was the ARJ21, a locally developed 70-seat regional jet. Its first flight is due to take place on November 16th after several delays&#8212;which, in all fairness, are common throughout the industry. But the ARJ21 made headlines because its manufacturer, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (CACC), announced that the aircraft-leasing arm of GE, an American conglomerate, had ordered five of the $30m jets, with the option to buy another 20. The first will be delivered in 2013. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=tTOwN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=tTOwN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=UO6an"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=UO6an" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=1o5Vn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=1o5Vn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=c0TSN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=c0TSN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455929999" height="1" width="1"/>
• Debt and deflation: Depressing times
  <p>Are rich economies heading merely for a bout of falling prices, or for a 1930s-style deflationary spiral?</p><p>IN JUST a few brutal months, the prospects for the world economy have deteriorated with remarkable speed. Rich countries had seemed set for a shallow, muddle-through recession; now a much deeper slump is on the cards. In a sign of growing concern about American consumers, the Treasury and Federal Reserve on November 12th focused their rescue efforts on loans for cars and college and on credit cards. Central banks, recently so fearful of inflation, are now slashing interest rates to stop it falling too far. It will not be easy: deflation&#8212;annual falls in consumer prices&#8212;is increasingly likely next year. But recalling the 1930s, policymakers will be anxious to ensure that it does not take hold and turn crisis into catastrophe.</p><p>To consider the possibility of falling prices may seem odd when inflation is still uncomfortably high. In America, it reached 5.6% in July, the highest rate since 1991. In the same month inflation in the euro area surged to 4%. Britain&#8217;s consumer-price inflation hit 5.2% in September, well above the government&#8217;s target of 2%. This high inflation was mostly the result of the surge in commodity prices in the first half of the year. &#8220;Core&#8221; inflation, excluding food and energy costs, was far more stable. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=IBANN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=IBANN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=QNxcn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=QNxcn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=jM5vn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=jM5vn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Je5VN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Je5VN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930000" height="1" width="1"/>
• The Federal Reserve: Turning Japanese
  <p>America&#8217;s fed funds rate is, in effect, almost at zero</p><p>REMEMBER Japan&#8217;s zero interest rates? America is almost there too. Since October 29th, the target for the federal funds rate has been at 1%, but the rate at which funds actually change hands, known as the &#8220;effective rate&#8221;, has averaged around 0.25% (see chart). </p><p> The Federal Reserve does not always hit its target on the nose but the size of the gap is extraordinary. If it persists, any decision to lower the target further would be meaningless since it would not affect the rate banks actually pay. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=1yj0N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=1yj0N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=thMCn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=thMCn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=wkQRn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=wkQRn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=POLJN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=POLJN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930001" height="1" width="1"/>
• AIG: Cheque mate
  <p>How AIG got Uncle Sam over a barrel</p><p>JUST how concerned should American taxpayers be about American International Group (AIG), the insurance company brought to its knees by its escapades in the credit-derivatives market? On November 10th a revised rescue package was announced, comprising $153 billion of capital injections and loans. That is the largest bail-out for any firm, anywhere, during the crisis. Is the government being, as AIG&#8217;s new chairman says, &#8220;very, very smart&#8221;, or has it been taken for one of the most expensive rides in corporate history?</p><p>Even on September 16th, when the state first intervened, AIG was a controversial candidate for assistance. Its insurance businesses are ring-fenced by local regulators and individually capitalised, precisely so they can survive a collapse of the holding company. A bankruptcy was avoided only because of the size of the holding company&#8217;s book of toxic credit derivatives, which senior executives barely understood. These left AIG so intertwined with other financial firms that its failure was judged by the Federal Reserve and Treasury to endanger the financial system. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=hoPHN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=hoPHN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ikHpn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ikHpn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=nJ1zn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=nJ1zn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=r2dlN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=r2dlN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930002" height="1" width="1"/>
• Buttonwood: An appetising spread
  <p>The corporate-bond market is discounting very bad news</p><p>SHERLOCK HOLMES might have called it &#8220;the curious case of the corporate-bond market&#8221;. Most commentators agree that bonds issued by companies offer spreads over treasuries that more than compensate for the risk that the issuer might default. But few investors are tempted to buy.</p><p>The reason has more to do with the problems of investors than the deteriorating finances of issuers. About 20 years ago, the main buyers of corporate debt were pension funds and insurance companies. They would buy the bonds of creditworthy, investment-grade companies and then hold them till maturity. It made for a reliable-but-dull asset class. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=trYyN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=trYyN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=WgOSn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=WgOSn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=egjfn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=egjfn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=AqngN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=AqngN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930003" height="1" width="1"/>
• Japan's economy: A tunnel, no light
  <p>Japan finds itself more vulnerable than it had thought to the global chill</p><p>IN THE race to lower forecasts of economic growth and company profits, Japan is near the front. On November 6th Toyota, a paragon among Japanese manufacturers, said that it expected a stronger yen, higher input prices and falling worldwide demand to mean a 74% drop in net profits in the financial year that began in April&#8212;an incident that Japanese swiftly dubbed the &#8220;Toyota shock&#8221;. The pain is spreading fast: in the first three weeks of October, Japan&#8217;s exports were a tenth lower than a year ago&#8212;a deep concern for an economy driven by sales abroad. In late October Japanese share prices reached their lowest point since 1982. Measured by price/earnings ratios, they seemed cheap last month. But now that earnings are hastily being revised downward&#8212;the latest survey suggests companies expect profits to fall by 26% this financial year alone&#8212;they no longer seem such a steal. A growing number of economists see no recovery for Japan until 2010. The IMF expects Japan&#8217;s economy to shrink by 0.2% in 2009.</p><p> Worsening global conditions are being driven by massive deleveraging. That Japan should be part of this appears, on the face of it, unfair. The country&#8217;s banks, recovering from the bursting of Japan&#8217;s own bubble in the 1990s, have not had time to commit the follies of their American and European counterparts. Companies have spent a decade shedding debt, and households have been huge savers. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZuhtN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZuhtN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=co6wn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=co6wn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ixRon"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ixRon" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=32v9N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=32v9N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930004" height="1" width="1"/>
• Banco Santander: Pack behaviour
  <p>Spain&#8217;s biggest bank raises capital, pressuring others to follow</p><p>BANCO SANTANDER is more used to being predator than prey. Spain&#8217;s largest bank, and Europe&#8217;s biggest after HSBC, has hunted down plenty of institutions since the credit crisis began. The tastiest catch was Banco Real in Brazil, once part of ABN AMRO, but it has also snapped up Alliance &amp; Leicester and bits of Bradford &amp; Bingley in Britain, plus Sovereign Bancorp, an American bank. Yet even Santander has vulnerabilities. </p><p>On November 10th the bank surprised investors by announcing a &#8364;7.2 billion ($9.2 billion) rights issue and targeting a new core tier-one capital ratio of 7%, up from 6.3%. (The actual buffer will be higher still, thanks to the extra provisions that Santander set aside when times were good.) The decision came just two weeks after its bosses ruled out going to the market. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=6aYHN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=6aYHN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=SiQ9n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=SiQ9n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=W2UPn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=W2UPn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=G78NN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=G78NN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930005" height="1" width="1"/>
• Specialist lenders: Home run
  <p>Serving subprime borrowers requires specialist skills</p><p>THE word &#8220;subprime&#8221; may now send shudders down bankers&#8217; spines. But a number of listed lenders that specialise in making loans to people with poor or no credit histories are proving that money can be made from even the riskiest customers. The way they operate may explain why mainstream lenders find it hard to descend the credit ladder. </p><p>Last month, Provident Financial, a British lender to what it calls &#8220;non-standard&#8221; borrowers, and International Personal Finance (IPF), a spin-off from Provident that operates in eastern Europe and Mexico, both issued relatively upbeat trading statements. Both reported growth in customer numbers, as other lenders have drawn in their horns. More impressively, they also said that customer arrears had remained stable. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=UzfdN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=UzfdN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=R4rjn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=R4rjn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=PXpun"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=PXpun" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=exsGN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=exsGN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930006" height="1" width="1"/>
• Credit-rating agencies: Negative outlook
  <p>Europe misfires in its attack on the rating agencies</p><p>IN AN age of e-mail every industry is likely to have a Henry Blodget moment. The one for rating agencies came in mid-October, when a rash of embarrassing correspondence emerged. Among them was the following exchange between two analysts: &#8220;That deal is ridiculous. We should not be rating it.&#8221; Back came his colleague&#8217;s answer: &#8220;We rate every deal&#8230;it could be structured by cows and we would rate it.&#8221;</p><p>The conversation was more than mortifying. It cut to a central conflict bedevilling the industry: although ratings are relied on by investors and regulators as impartial measures, the rating agencies are paid by those they rate for their judgments. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=xqv1N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=xqv1N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=4jfDn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=4jfDn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=mkxJn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=mkxJn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=28v7N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=28v7N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930007" height="1" width="1"/>
• Greenhouse gases: Eating carbon
  <p>There is a type of rock with a voracious appetite for carbon dioxide</p><p>ONE way of helping to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is to pump the gas into underground caverns or old oil fields. But there is also a rock that is happy to gobble it up, and according to the latest research its appetite for the greenhouse gas is not only massive but could also be increased by a little human intervention.</p><p>The rock is peridotite, which is one of the main rocks in the upper mantle, an area that provides a girth below the Earth&#8217;s crust. The rock occurs some 20km or more down, although in areas where plate tectonics have forced up some of the mantle, peridotite reaches the surface. This happens in part of the Omani desert which Peter Kelemen and Juerg Matter, both from Columbia University, New York, have studied for years. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=m4XzN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=m4XzN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=DinZn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=DinZn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=fdkNn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=fdkNn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=uukTN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=uukTN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930008" height="1" width="1"/>
• Neurology: Light revival
  <p>Researchers are discovering how light can manipulate the nervous system</p><p>A FEW years ago researchers found a way to create a remotely controlled on-off switch in a neuron by inserting a light-sensitive gene into the nerve cell. Now the same technique has been used experimentally in laboratory rats in a study that could help with spinal-cord injuries. </p><p>When the spinal cord is severed instructions being sent from the brain are interrupted. This means not just the loss of the ability to move limbs, but also impairment of the up and down movement of the diaphragm too. This leaves patients unable to breathe on their own and often causes death. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=3Oz6N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=3Oz6N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=8pKUn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=8pKUn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Ff0Fn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Ff0Fn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=0h4hN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=0h4hN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930009" height="1" width="1"/>
• Genetic disease and evolution: Bad old genes
  <p>For reasons unknown, old genes cause more disease than young ones</p><p>DOWN&#8217;S syndrome, muscular dystrophy and haemophilia may be among the best-known genetic diseases, but they are most certainly not alone. Several thousand human genes are linked, when they fail to work properly, to more than 4,000 heritable genetic diseases. Moreover, only a handful of these diseases are treatable. Any way of systematising knowledge about them would thus be welcome, starting with features that the genes which cause diseases have in common.</p><p>On the face of it, genes that cause diseases do share one thing: they are, in a technical sense, non-essential. Deactivating these genes during embryonic development does not kill the embryo (if it did, then that embryo would be stillborn). This observation has led to the assumption that disease-related genes are recently evolved&#8212;for the older a gene is, the more likely it is to be part of the irreducible structure of being alive, and therefore the more likely it is that breaking that gene will be fatal. Another reason for expecting that disease-related genes would be recently evolved is that the older a gene is, the more likely it is that errors and weaknesses that could lead to disease will have been eliminated by natural selection. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=OhBzN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=OhBzN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=3h3Un"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=3h3Un" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=YimLn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=YimLn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=hJQ6N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=hJQ6N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930010" height="1" width="1"/>
• Miriam Makeba, a voice against apartheid
  <p>Miriam &#8220;Zenzi&#8221; Makeba, a voice against apartheid, died on November 10th, aged 76</p><p>SHE told reporters she was shy. When Nelson Mandela came in the 1950s to meet the band she sang with, she sat quietly in the corner and let the men do the talking. Years later, when she was introduced to John Kennedy at the White House, she was awed at the thought that &#8220;little me&#8221;, a &#8220;songbird&#8221;, had held the smooth white hand of the president. Her speaking voice was thin, light and high, an ant&#8217;s voice, as she thought of it. It never sounded thinner or shyer than when she sat alone in 1963 in a vast auditorium of the United Nations, a young woman in a sensible dress, explaining the evils of apartheid to an assembly of empty leather chairs. </p><p> All her conditioning taught her to be quiet. She was hushed from her first days, as her mother suckled her in the jail to which she had been sent for illegally brewing and selling beer. She kept her silence as a teenager, nannying and doing household chores for whites who would look at her as if they owned her. (On her first trip to Europe, in 1959, she was amazed to see white women carrying burdens and white men digging ditches, with sweaty handkerchiefs round their heads.) After shows in the drinking houses of Sophiatown, an island of dirt roads and raucous black culture in the white suburbs of Johannesburg, she knew she had to leave through the scullery to avoid mixing with whites. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ry0MN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ry0MN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=9Dg0n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=9Dg0n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=SIF6n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=SIF6n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=k0E4N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=k0E4N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930011" height="1" width="1"/>
• Business this week
  <p>Business this week</p><p>In a surprise turnaround, Hank Paulson, America&#8217;s treasury secretary, said that the remaining funds in the government&#8217;s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Programme would be best used to provide capital infusions to distressed companies and tackle consumer debt, rather than buy illiquid mortgage-related assets. (The Treasury has already spent $250 billion on bank recapitalisations.) Congress approved the package a little over a month ago on the basis that the illiquid assets would be bought. Already gloomy investors interpreted the policy negatively and stockmarkets fell sharply. See article</p><p>In an attempt to help struggling homeowners in America, the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac outlined a plan to avoid &#8220;preventable&#8221; foreclosures. Households that have missed three or more mortgage payments may receive assistance through refinanced mortgages with lower interest rates and longer payment periods of up to 40 years. Home foreclosures have increased by almost 150% over the past two years. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=lWQYN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=lWQYN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=T0wZn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=T0wZn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=gZFsn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=gZFsn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=PXHHN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=PXHHN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930012" height="1" width="1"/>
• Politics this week
  <p>Politics this week</p><p>Barack Obama paid his first visit to the White House since winning America&#8217;s election to discuss the transition of power with George Bush. With Congress returning to pass another stimulus package, Mr Obama pressed Mr Bush on an immediate bail-out of Detroit&#8217;s troubled carmakers. Meanwhile, leaders from the G20 countries headed to Washington for an economic summit, dubbed Bretton Woods 2, on November 15th that will discuss reform of the world&#8217;s financial system. See article</p><p>The Democrats&#8217; tally of seats in the Senate rose to 57 after returns from Oregon showed that the incumbent, a moderate Republican, had been defeated. In other Senate races, the 206-vote margin obtained by Norm Coleman in Minnesota will trigger an automatic recount; Georgia is to hold a run-off election in December; and Alaska&#8217;s Senate race was level as the absentee-ballot count got under way. Ted Stevens is defending his seat there. See article ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=QFnTN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=QFnTN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=sdsGn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=sdsGn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=EQ2Gn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=EQ2Gn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=OKFKN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=OKFKN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930013" height="1" width="1"/>
• Our weekly editorial cartoon: KAL's cartoon
  <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=PKfyN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=PKfyN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=uF1Zn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=uF1Zn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yyeqn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yyeqn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=gagdN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=gagdN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930014" height="1" width="1"/>
• Overview
  <p>The unemployment rate in America rose from 6.1% to 6.5% in October, its highest level since 1994. Employers, excluding farms, reduced their payrolls by 240,000 in that month. The number of jobs cut in September was revised up by 125,000 to 284,000, and in August by 54,000 to 127,000. </p><p>Britain&#8217;s unemployment rate rose to 5.8% in the three months to September from 5.4% in the previous quarter. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose by 36,500 in October, the biggest increase since 1992. Average earnings rose by 3.3% in the year to the third quarter. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=aRrhN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=aRrhN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=n0bRn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=n0bRn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=CsZDn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=CsZDn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=mlvdN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=mlvdN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930015" height="1" width="1"/>
• Vacancies
  <p>Job recruitment in Western Europe and the United States continued to fall in October, according to the Monster Employment Index, which measures the strength of online hiring intentions. The European index declined for the third month in a row, but was nevertheless 2% higher than a year earlier. Within Europe, there were more vacancies in France and Britain than a month earlier. The index for America fell, following small increases in August and September, and was 20% lower than in October 2007. There were far fewer jobs available in real estate, retailing, and the leisure and hospitality industries in America. But in some sectors, such as public administration, mining and utilities, job offerings were more plentiful.</p><p> ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=inRVN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=inRVN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=dpNJn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=dpNJn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=2Aopn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=2Aopn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=8Hv9N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=8Hv9N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930016" height="1" width="1"/>
• The Economist commodity-price index
  <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=LO4cN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=LO4cN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=lbQVn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=lbQVn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=pxN8n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=pxN8n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=m1dtN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=m1dtN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930017" height="1" width="1"/>
• Output, prices and jobs
  <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=9mkqN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=9mkqN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=xdIrn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=xdIrn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=sKdYn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=sKdYn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=gbD6N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=gbD6N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930018" height="1" width="1"/>
• Oil demand
  <p>The world&#8217;s demand for primary energy will grow by 45% between 2006 and 2030, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The global demand for oil is expected to rise from 85m to 106m barrels a day. The thirst for oil among the mostly rich countries in the OECD is set to fall&#8212;so that all and more of the increase in oil demand will come from developing economies. The IEA reckons China will account for 43% of the rise in demand, with India and the Middle East contributing around 20% each. With oil consumption comes pollution. The IEA predicts that three-quarters of the increase in emissions between now and 2030 will come from China, India and the Middle East.</p><p> ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=IKxZN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=IKxZN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yudqn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yudqn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=MiMnn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=MiMnn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZQFJN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZQFJN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930019" height="1" width="1"/>
• Markets
  <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=QXxBN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=QXxBN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=9UV8n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=9UV8n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=sMAan"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=sMAan" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=0OXzN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=0OXzN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930020" height="1" width="1"/>
• Trade, exchange rates, budget balances and interest rates
  <div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=WNtfN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=WNtfN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=wTaRn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=wTaRn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=p4MIn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=p4MIn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=r9wpN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=r9wpN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930021" height="1" width="1"/>
• South Africa and the world: The see-no-evil foreign policy
  <p>Why post-apartheid South Africa, once a shining beacon of human rights, is cosying up to nasty regimes around the world</p><p>ANOTHER African summit, another disappointment. Any hope that the change of leadership in South Africa might bring change across the border in Zimbabwe has proved in vain. The new president, Kgalema Motlanthe, may sound tougher than his ever-appeasing predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. But he seems no more willing to turn the screws on his errant northern neighbour, Robert Mugabe.</p><p> Regional leaders meeting on November 9th all but kowtowed to Mr Mugabe over the terms of September&#8217;s power-sharing deal with the opposition. This was intended to arrest the country&#8217;s political and economic collapse but has foundered, particularly over who should run the interior ministry, and by extension the police. Morgan Tsvangirai, who won more votes than Mr Mugabe in the presidential poll in March, says his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) should be in charge, given that the ruling ZANU-PF controls the army and intelligence organs. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=NYAuN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=NYAuN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=GQuUn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=GQuUn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=JWjtn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=JWjtn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=RVDyN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=RVDyN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930022" height="1" width="1"/>
• Congo: Beware of a stampede to war
  <p>The UN may send more troops to Congo. Would they do any good?</p><p>WHEN elephants fight, goes a Swahili saying, it&#8217;s the grass that suffers. And so it is in eastern Congo, where civilians are being trampled in a terrible way in fighting involving Congolese troops, followers of the rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, and an assortment of nasty militias. Some 250,000 people have been displaced. Reports of massacres, rape, cholera and hunger are multiplying. Aid-workers say some 100,000 refugees are cut off from any help. Worse may come if the instability turns once again into a wider war.</p><p>The cane-wielding Mr Nkunda, a dissident Tutsi general with ties to Rwanda, has led his rebels against the weak Congolese government for years. He declined to take part in the political process that led to the election of Joseph Kabila as president in 2006. He says he is defending fellow Tutsis against murderous Hutu militias who, he says, are being supported by the government in Kinshasa. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=EYdYN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=EYdYN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=VpZin"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=VpZin" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ToCdn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ToCdn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=DF5hN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=DF5hN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930023" height="1" width="1"/>
• Rwanda and Europe: Judicial politics of a genocide
  <p>The arrest of a senior Rwandan official causes a storm</p><p>ON APRIL 6th 1994 a surface-to-air missile brought down an executive jet preparing to land in Kigali, killing the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, and the president of neighbouring Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, together with its French air crew. This attack is not just of historical interest as the starting point of the country&#8217;s genocide, in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists; it is now the subject of an international judicial and diplomatic row. </p><p>Acting on a French arrest warrant, German authorities on November 9th detained Rose Kabuye, a former guerrilla colonel who is a senior aide to Rwanda&#8217;s President Paul Kagame. He had been planning to make a pitch for investment in his tiny African country; instead he found himself denouncing his German hosts and visiting Ms Kabuye in prison outside Frankfurt. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=80cmN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=80cmN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=gz07n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=gz07n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=jZqVn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=jZqVn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=sTsFN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=sTsFN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930024" height="1" width="1"/>
• Jerusalem’s politics: Money, faith and votes
  <p>A secular entrepreneur is elected to run the holy city</p><p>THE hollowness of Israel&#8217;s rhetoric about &#8220;united Jerusalem&#8221; is never starker than on local election day, when the city&#8217;s 537,000 adults, together with the rest of Israel, can go to the polls to pick their new mayor. Among Jerusalem&#8217;s Palestinians, who make up some 30% of the citizenry, hardly anyone bothers to vote. In East Jerusalem, the mainly Arab part of the city captured and annexed by Israel in 1967, polling stations in schools and public buildings stay yawningly empty, apart from a trickle of municipal employees and their families.</p><p>This time was no different, except that most of the Palestinians who did vote in Jerusalem on November 11th gave their support to Arkady Gaydamak, a colourful but mysterious ex-Russian oligarch who has been trying to make his way in Israeli politics despite a French warrant for his arrest on gun-running charges. With the help of Palestinians, he got a paltry 3.5% of the overall vote. Palestinian commentators attributed his modest popularity in their community not just to his wealth but to the fact that he doesn&#8217;t look Jewish. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=uRHQN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=uRHQN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=vV7en"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=vV7en" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=cl9Tn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=cl9Tn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=DYiGN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=DYiGN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930025" height="1" width="1"/>
• The Palestinians: The return of blood and anger
  <p>And the political cost of ending the ceasefire in Gaza</p><p>THE angry crowds are back on the streets of Gaza, along with the corpses wrapped in symbols of martyrdom and the militiamen in battle fatigues firing their guns. For five months the teeming Palestinian enclave has been quiet, thanks to a ceasefire agreed in June by Israel and Hamas. But that may all be coming to an end.</p><p>The new cycle of violence, rocket-firing, skirmishes and economic blockade started on November 4th, when Israeli forces made an incursion to destroy a tunnel which, they say, was to be used to abduct a soldier. In the view of Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, it is not a matter of whether full-scale hostilities resume, but when. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=SZdkN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=SZdkN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=nKkFn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=nKkFn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=nTpTn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=nTpTn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=qi5HN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=qi5HN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930026" height="1" width="1"/>
• BRIC carmakers make progress
  <p>Indigenous carmakers are working their way up</p><p>RATAN TATA may be the patriarch of Indian business and head of the sprawling conglomerate that bears the family name, but few doubt that his first love is Tata Motors. The company dominates the Indian commercial-vehicle market, produced India&#8217;s first entirely indigenous modern car and has captured the world&#8217;s imagination with the Nano&#8212;the one-lakh (100,000 rupee, $2,500) &#8220;people&#8217;s car&#8221;. </p><p>Sitting in his office on the top floor of the building in central Mumbai from which he controls his empire, Mr Tata recalls what brought him into the car business a decade ago. In the era known as the &#8220;Licence Raj&#8221;, from independence in 1947 until 1990, when India attempted to operate a planned economy, the Indian car industry was suffocated by red tape. Until the birth of Maruti in the 1980s the market was supplied by just two manufacturers: Hindustan, which made a version of the 1950s Morris Oxford, and Premiere, which produced the similarly elderly Fiat 1100. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=kVDpN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=kVDpN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Kcxdn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Kcxdn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=e5Mun"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=e5Mun" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=I4IzN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=I4IzN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930027" height="1" width="1"/>
• Selling cars in emerging markets
  <p>To succeed in emerging markets, rich-country carmakers have to tailor their strategies</p><p>THE carmakers that have so far done best from the emerging-market boom are the ones that placed their manufacturing bets early on. That is partly because developing countries have used (and continue to use) high import duties either to protect fledgling indigenous manufacturers or to force global car firms to invest in the development of national motor industries. It is also partly because the car firms have learnt that they have to be on the spot in order to understand local conditions. Each BRIC market is different, and carmakers have had to employ different strategies to succeed in them. </p><p>In China, for example, the government has until recently insisted that foreign manufacturers can set up shop in the country only through joint ventures with Chinese partners. It aimed to draw on the financial clout and technical expertise of the world&#8217;s biggest car companies as a shortcut to creating a Chinese motor industry that was not only capable of meeting home demand but also of becoming a big exporter. The bait to attract foreign carmakers was access to a huge potential market. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=2fXMN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=2fXMN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=RCnmn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=RCnmn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=CB2hn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=CB2hn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=p2OvN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=p2OvN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930028" height="1" width="1"/>
• Two-wheelers take over
  <p>Cheaper than four wheels, better than two feet</p><p>THE morning rush hour in the southern Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras) is much like those in other big South Asian towns. A throng of mostly small cars hoot and jostle in a race against three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, dilapidated buses, fume-belching lorries and the odd bullock cart. But the real kings of these roads are the hordes of commuter motorcycles that swarm in and out of the choking traffic at daredevil speed. </p><p>Asia is home to nearly 80% of the world&#8217;s 315m motorcycles. About 45m of those are in India, the region&#8217;s second-biggest fleet after China, with more than 100m. Sales of two-wheelers in India are running at about 7m a year, outstripping those of cars by nearly five to one. Not even one in a hundred Indians owns a car, but one in 20 owns a two-wheeler. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=NcEuN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=NcEuN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=BpPBn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=BpPBn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=7AWPn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=7AWPn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=eZznN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=eZznN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930030" height="1" width="1"/>
• Cars for the lakhs
  <p>The cheap-and-cheerful end of the market</p><p>WHEN in 1999 Renault spent $50m to acquire a controlling stake in Dacia, a sickly Romanian carmaker formerly owned by the state, it was unimaginable that it would become one of the jewels in the French car firm&#8217;s crown. This year, at its factory in Pitesti, not far from Bucharest, Dacia will churn out more than 300,000 Renault-Dacia Logan saloons and its cousins. In 2009 the number is expected to rise to 400,000, including kits exported to other Renault assembly plants. Five months ago the millionth Logan since its launch in 2004 rolled off the line. The chances are that it was a car from Pitesti, the Logan&#8217;s &#8220;mother plant&#8221;, but it could have come from any one of seven other production sites in Russia, India, Iran (with two), Morocco, Brazil or Colombia. </p><p>Conceived as a low-cost car for emerging markets, the boxy-looking Logan has become one of Renault&#8217;s most profitable vehicles. Whereas Renault&#8217;s margins across its range are an anaemic 3%, the Logan earns at least twice as much. By 2010 Renault expects to be making more than a million Logans a year, despite its failure to find a partner in China to build them. No wonder most global manufacturers are jostling to get into the low-cost game. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=TPgeN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=TPgeN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yHqCn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yHqCn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=blRRn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=blRRn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=T5wzN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=T5wzN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930032" height="1" width="1"/>
• Opportunities for carmakers
  <p>Emerging markets are the car industry&#8217;s big hope. But it won&#8217;t be an easy ride, says Matthew Symonds (interviewed here)</p><p>THERE has rarely been a tougher time to be a carmaker. Squeezed by the credit crunch, rocked by the seesawing price of oil and now faced with a nasty recession as the banking crisis infects the real economy, the traditional markets of North America, western Europe and Japan, already sluggish for several years, have all but packed up. In America car sales are running at about 16% below last year&#8217;s level. Detroit&#8217;s struggling big three&#8212;General Motors, Ford and Chrysler&#8212;are in dire straits. They have wrung a $25 billion bail-out from Congress and are now looking for much more. In Europe the market is also collapsing. Sales in Japan this year are expected to be the lowest since 1974.</p><p>However, not all is doom and gloom. Mature vehicle markets may be close to saturation, but there is huge unsatisfied demand in the big emerging car markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRICs). Although not immune from the rich countries&#8217; troubles, they are likely to suffer much less. For one thing, levels of personal debt are far lower and a smaller proportion of cars are bought on credit. For another, the BRIC economies have been expanding so fast that even a slowdown should still leave them with growth rates that look respectable to Western eyes. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=80lWN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=80lWN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=qcPvn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=qcPvn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ssAIn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ssAIn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=TwueN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=TwueN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930033" height="1" width="1"/>
• Billions of cars on the march
  <p>The question is not whether the world can cope with three billion cars&#8212;but how</p><p>UNTIL recently the biannual Beijing motor show was a bit of a backwater, a place where Chinese makers displayed their cheap but not very cheerful little cars and where the supposedly new offerings from the joint-venture manufacturers were in fact warmed-up Buicks and VWs from a previous generation. However, this year&#8217;s Beijing show, the 10th, was a match for any of the industry&#8217;s traditional showcases, not only for its crowds and glitz but also for the number of new cars launched, the size of the display stands and the head count of big wheels from the global firms. Yet there were clear warning signals too.</p><p>Foreigners flying into Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou are impressed by the wide expressways from the modern airport terminals to their downtown hotels. Yet the journey from the centre of Beijing to the show in nearby Shunyi told a different story. As the four-lane highway leaving the city narrowed to a single lane, the show-bound traffic came to a grinding halt. An hour or so later, outside the newly built exhibition halls, chaos reigned. With nowhere to stop, coaches dumped their passengers in the middle of the road where they had to negotiate giant potholes turned into ponds by rain falling from a leaden, polluted sky. It made the show&#8217;s slogan&#8212;&#8220;Dream, harmony, new vision&#8221;&#8212;seem not just silly but almost mocking. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=93toN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=93toN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=qfX9n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=qfX9n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Z1epn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Z1epn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=lcy7N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=lcy7N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930035" height="1" width="1"/>
• Sources and acknowledgments
  <p>Apart from those quoted in the text, the author would like to thank the following for their help in the preparation of this report: Kumar Bhattacharyya of Warwick Manufacturing Group; Cecil Dewars of TVS; Richard Gadeselli of Fiat; David Herman and Nikolay Sobolov of Severstal Auto; Andrew Lorenz of Financial Dynamics; Tom Malcolm and Irina Sharovatova of Ford; C. Narasimham of Sundaram-Clayton; Jackson Schneider of ANFAVEA; Josef-Fidelis Senn of Volkswagen Brazil; Edoardo Spina of Morgan Stanley; and Carlos Tavares of Nissan.</p><p>Sources: ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=H561N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=H561N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=cT9yn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=cT9yn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=SzJrn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=SzJrn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ZJCGN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ZJCGN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930037" height="1" width="1"/>
• Offer to readers
  <p>Buy a PDF of this complete special report, including all graphics, for saving or one-click printing.</p><p>The Economist can supply standard or customised reprints of special reports. For more information and to place an order online, please visit our Rights and Syndication website. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=INp9N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=INp9N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=msNMn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=msNMn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Owq4n"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Owq4n" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=YAIjN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=YAIjN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930038" height="1" width="1"/>
• The global economic summit: After the fall
  <p>On November 15th world leaders are due to sit around a table in Washington, DC, to fix finance. They have their work cut out</p><p>THE leaders arriving in Washington, DC, for this weekend&#8217;s economic summit are being presumptuous. If they want what they are calling Bretton Woods 2 to live up to the original, which took place in New Hampshire overshadowed by war and the Depression, it will have to establish a new economic order for the capitalist world. In 1944 that meant creating the IMF, the World Bank and a body to oversee world trade. Imagine Hank Paulson, America&#8217;s treasury secretary, as John Maynard Keynes; or picture Gordon Brown, Britain&#8217;s prime minister, as Winston Churchill (as Mr Brown himself secretly may), and you get a sense of the task ahead.</p><p>The Bretton Woodsmen of 2008 are grabbing the credit before they have earned it&#8212;rather as all those subprime householders did. More than two years of gruelling technical work laid the ground for the wartime conference of officials and finance ministers (prime ministers and presidents had other things to deal with). By contrast, the leaders gathering this weekend from the G20, a mix of industrial and emerging countries, plus the European Union, have cobbled together an agenda in a few frenetic weeks. They will doubtless produce no shortage of promises. Just what these are worth will depend on sweat and summits yet to come. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=6L23N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=6L23N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=yLPLn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=yLPLn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=Hk3Ln"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=Hk3Ln" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=8GU1N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=8GU1N" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930040" height="1" width="1"/>
• New fiction: Stewart O'Nan
  <p>The spaces left by a disapperance</p><p>SUMMER in small-town America. Three 18-year-olds count the days until they can leave Kingsville, Ohio, for college. They long to be independent, to get away from the place where everyone knows their business, to escape &#8220;the sins of the Midwest, the flatness, the emptiness, the necessary acceptance of the familiar&#8221;. The leader of the three is Kim Larsen, pretty, popular, restless, whiling away her days working at the local Conoco, drinking beer with her friends, dreaming of what the future holds. Then, in the midst of this ordinary life in an ordinary place, the extraordinary happens. Kim disappears. </p><p>Within days, the Larsen home has become the centre of a frantic campaign to find the missing girl. Her quiet mother Fran, a hospital worker, &#8220;trusting efficiency over emotion&#8221;, prints flyers and posters, badges and T-shirts, organises press conferences, TV interviews, rallies. Somewhat repelled by his wife&#8217;s marketing of their distress, Ed, Kim&#8217;s estate-agent father, becomes ever more practical, liaising with the police, commandeering teams of searchers, spending days picking over acres of land in search of clues to his daughter&#8217;s disappearance. Lindsay, the awkward younger sister, always in Kim&#8217;s shadow, retreats to her room. She misses her sibling but is also resentful of the attention surrounding her. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=WXpVN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=WXpVN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=X8gmn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=X8gmn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=ttxtn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=ttxtn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=OczsN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=OczsN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930041" height="1" width="1"/>
• A book of silence: Out of this world
  <p>The transcendental effects of silence</p><p>SARA MAITLAND&#8217;S book is not about peace and quiet. It is about silence as a practice, a discipline, a way of life. A cottage in the country will not do. It is more a matter of desert caves and open oceans, or, in her case, wild Scottish moorland. It&#8217;s the real deal.</p><p>How Ms Maitland gets to that point is a long story; a hunt for greater solitude and further remoteness along the length of Britain, with a detour to the Sinai desert, which she describes with a disarming sense of being thought mad. Her friends tell her she is, and she realises that the modern world has little room for serious silence seekers. It is not just that blasting radios, mobile phones, traffic and aeroplanes can be a source of despair. It is also the assumption that communication and relationships are central to all human life. Ms Maitland knows this because she has been there. Brought up in a large, articulate family, she was nourished on argument. Her politics, her feminism and her religion all fed on talk. In such a context, silence becomes an absence, a mark of intellectual abdication, a rejection of humanity. ...</p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=v8UON"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=v8UON" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=cFsrn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=cFsrn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=QyeSn"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=QyeSn" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?a=onIbN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/economist/full_print_edition?i=onIbN" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/economist/full_print_edition/~4/455930042" height="1" width="1"/>