The Economist: Full print edition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Kid in a candy store

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The Metropolitan’s new director gives his first interview

“I FEEL like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’; picked up by a whirlwind and dropped down in a land where everything is much more brightly coloured,” says Thomas Campbell, who on January 1st became the new director and CEO of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. His description is both apt and unexpected.

Until five months ago, the British-born 46-year-old, educated at Oxford University and London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, was by his own account, “an open shirt, tweed jacket sort of guy”. He liked to clear his diary to give time to his research and writing. Now he owns several new suits and has a crammed schedule. The studies to which he has devoted the past 20 years have had to become a hobby, like the watercolours he paints. The Campbells have moved from the suburbs to a flat near the Fifth Avenue museum. It comes with what many consider the international museum world’s top job. ...

Hedgehogs: Prickly charmers

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

They know many things, and mean more

ARISTOTLE believed hedgehogs could predict the weather. Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher, used them to illustrate the challenges of human intimacy. Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tiggy-Winkle has enchanted children and adults alike since 1905, while Sonic, her modern-day counterpart, is one of the world’s best-known video game characters.

In this engaging memoir Hugh Warwick draws on 20 years of knowledge to explain why hedgehogs have gained such iconic status. He sprinkles his book with facts: hedgehogs snooze through the winter in an aptly named hibernaculum; they have up to 7,000 spines; their fleas are species specific; North America has no native hedgehogs although thousands of imported ones are kept as pets. ...

America and the Middle East: How to learn from history

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

What Barack Obama can learn from Bill Clinton’s failed peacemaking

IF ONLY men could learn from history. Alas, experience is a “lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us”. It is fitting that Martin Indyk, one of America’s most seasoned diplomats in the Middle East, starts his insider’s account of peacemaking under Bill Clinton with this famous passage by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. For if Barack Obama intends to make peace between Israel and the Arabs, his first job is to understand why Mr Clinton, the last president to make a real effort to do so, discovered that he could not.

Mr Clinton faced far riper circumstances in the 1990s than Mr Obama inherits today. He had in Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, a visionary leader willing to return the Golan Heights to Syria and negotiate directly with Yasser Arafat, whom previous Israeli leaders considered an incorrigible terrorist. America wielded vast regional influence following its routing of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Arafat himself, having alienated many Arab leaders by supporting Saddam, was short of friends, cash and alternatives; the “freedom fighter” seemed anxious to give diplomacy a chance. ...

Memoir of Iran: Reading Lolita again

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

An unhappy family in Iran

AZAR NAFISI’S new book is both prequel and sequel to her earlier memoir, “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. Her latest work, “Things I’ve Been Silent About”, reveals some inconvenient truths about Ms Nafisi’s upbringing that she chose to keep private while her parents were alive. The book is less inventive than her earlier work, which was not so much about the author than about the contradictions of post-revolutionary Iran. But it still has appeal as a portrait of a family and a country that are at once alluring and deeply dysfunctional.

All happy families resemble each other, Tolstoy wrote, while unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. For Ms Nafisi, the unhappiness flows primarily from her mother, Nezhat, a beautiful but demanding woman who lost her own mother at an early age and finds it hard to love and be loved in return. She exaggerates the merits of a first husband who died shortly after their marriage, browbeats a second to the point that he is unfaithful, and tries to force their daughter to inform on her father. She assembles an odd collection of acquaintances for Friday coffees and has trouble curbing her tongue. Ms Nafisi writes of her mother that “each person would pass her on to the next, like a dangerous explosive, hoping she would blow up somewhere else.” Yet Nezhat spurs her daughter to excel, accompanying her to England for education, bragging about her accomplishments and frequently plopping chocolates and orange segments into her mouth. ...

Oliver Cromwell: Headless story

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

From pike to spike to college, the head is his

BEHEADED posthumously, as punishment for his part in the execution of Charles I in 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s fate after death matches his grippingly controversial life. Was it really his body that was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1658, with jarring pomp and ceremony? Was the same corpse exhumed and mutilated after Charles II came to the throne, ending Britain’s brief experiment with republicanism and military rule? Was it really the Lord Protector’s head that was rammed on a pike in Whitehall, to discourage regicides, only to be blown down in a gale and swiped by a soldier? And was it really that same head, battered and worm-eaten, with an iron spike still rammed through the skull, that became a souvenir, a vulgar curiosity, a treasured relic and was finally in 1960 secretly laid to rest in the chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where the young Cromwell briefly studied?

Jonathan Fitzgibbons answers these questions ably. The head is indubitably Cromwell’s: though the provenance is a little cloudy in the early 18th century, it beggars belief that a fraudster of that era would be able to fool forensic science many years later. The body was embalmed before it was beheaded; and the skull measurements correspond almost exactly with extant portraits of the Lord Protector. ...

Demographics: Greying globe

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

A sobering, rational look at the worldwide consequences of ageing

EVERY age has its big demographic scares. In 1798, when the world’s population was about 1 billion, Thomas Malthus published his “Essay on the Principle of Population”, predicting that, thanks to mankind’s enthusiastic procreation habits, by the middle of the 19th century there would no longer be enough food to go round. In the event, people happily continued both to multiply and to eat.

Indeed, in the early part of the 20th century, when the world’s population had grown to double that at Malthus’s time, fears started to run in the opposite direction: that people were having too few babies and mankind was in danger of dying out. The super-abundant baby-boomer generation after the second world war gave the lie to that. But by 1972 the argument had come full circle again. The Club of Rome, a global think-tank, produced a doom-laden report, “The Limits to Growth”, which claimed that within less than a century a mixture of man-made pollution and resource shortages would once again cause widespread population decline. What the think-tankers had not reckoned with was the green revolution. By the start of the new millennium the world’s total population had reached 6 billion. It is now expected to rise to nearly 9 billion by 2050. ...

On Sudan, Rwanda, socialism, Muslims, mobile phones, Ecuador, Bernard Madoff, Ginger Rogers

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

SIR – I read your article about the possibility of putting Sudan’s president on trial at home instead of carting him off to The Hague (“A middle way for justice in Sudan”, December 13th). The International Criminal Court’s constitution does support justice being seen to be done nearer to the crime scene. However, although a hybrid court based in Sudan might sound like a good idea, the political environment there is hardly conducive to a free and fair hearing at which witnesses could expect proper protection.

On December 3rd, the ICC prosecutor told the United Nations Security Council that “genocide continues” and human-rights defenders are “arrested and tortured in Khartoum…on account of giving information to the ICC.” Sudan has previously made a mockery of justice in its own special courts in Darfur, set up during an attempt to avert investigations by the ICC in 2005. As you explained, the indictment of President Omar al-Bashir could be deferred in order to consider an alternative court in Sudan, but the Security Council would be misusing the original intent of Article 16 of the ICC’s governing statutes. Justice is better closer to home, but not if that means no justice at all. ...

The oceans: A sea of troubles

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Man is assaulting the oceans. They will smite him if he does not take care

NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like perpetual yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is reassuring.

The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the briny. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy served fried, grilled or with sauce tartare. Worse, you may destabilise an entire ecosystem. ...

Fifty years of the Castro regime: Time for a (long overdue) change

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Both in Cuba and in American policy towards it

AFTER a scintilla of regret over lost youth, to turn 50 should be to enter the prime of life, with a plenitude of projects and achievements. That is not the case for the Cuban revolution. Fifty years after Fidel Castro took power and started to impose communism in Cuba, the island is once again close to bankruptcy. “The accounts don’t square,” Raul Castro, Fidel’s slightly younger brother who last year took over as president, declared this week. His message was that Cubans will have to work harder and longer. Perks such as free holidays will be scrapped or curtailed.

But the Castro brothers do have one cause for grim satisfaction. Later this month George Bush will become the tenth American president to leave office without having seen their overthrow. That is not for want of trying: although America has for decades traded with communist regimes in China and Vietnam, it persists with an economic embargo against Cuba, and under the Helms-Burton act even tries to hinder Cuba’s trade with other countries in defiance of international law. ...

The euro at ten: Testing times

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Europe’s currency has been more successful than sceptics expected, but it now faces its stiffest test

THE European Union is entitled to crow as it marks this week’s tenth birthday of the euro. Remember the sceptics (especially in Britain and America) who confidently predicted that the single currency would never happen; or that, if it did, it would soon fall apart? And the traders who, in the euro’s feeble early months, called it a “toilet currency”? Today the euro is well-established and strong—so much so that it is widely seen as a haven from the world’s storms (see article).

Yet it would be wrong to infer from the birthday celebrations that the euro’s troubles are over. In truth the single currency is heading for the trickiest moments of its short life. Eurosceptics were right that the real test of the single currency would come when Europe’s economies fell into deep recession. As job losses mount and businesses go under, criticism of the euro and the European Central Bank can be expected to mount. And in the places that suffer the most—Italy and Greece, say—more voices may begin to question whether euro membership was such a wise idea. ...

Business: Managing the Facebookers

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The balance of power between old-school managers and young talent is changing—a bit

THEIR defenders say they are motivated, versatile workers who are just what companies need in these difficult times. To others, however, the members of “Generation Y”—those born in the 1980s and 1990s, otherwise known as Millennials or the Net Generation—are spoiled, narcissistic layabouts who cannot spell and waste too much time on instant messaging and Facebook. Ah, reply the Net Geners, but all that messing around online proves that we are computer-literate multitaskers who are adept users of online collaborative tools, and natural team players. And, while you are on the subject of me, I need a month’s sabbatical to recalibrate my personal goals.

This culture clash has been going on in many organisations and has lately seeped into management books. The Net Geners have grown up with computers; they are brimming with self-confidence; and they have been encouraged to challenge received wisdom, to find their own solutions to problems and to treat work as a route to personal fulfilment rather than merely a way of putting food on the table. Not all of this makes them easy to manage. Bosses complain that after a childhood of being coddled and praised, Net Geners demand far more frequent feedback and an over-precise set of objectives on the path to promotion (rather like the missions that must be completed in a video game). In a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, 61% of chief executives say they have trouble recruiting and integrating younger employees. ...

Israel's war in Gaza: Gaza: the rights and wrongs

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Israel was provoked, but as in Lebanon in 2006 it may find this war a hard one to end, or to justify

THE scale and ferocity of the onslaught on Gaza have been shocking, and the television images of civilian suffering wrench the heart. But however deplorable, Israel’s resort to military means to silence the rockets of Hamas should have been no surprise. This war has been a long time in the making.

Since Israel evacuated its soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip three years ago, Palestinian groups in Gaza have fired thousands of rudimentary rockets and mortar bombs across the border, killing very few people but disrupting normal life in a swathe of southern Israel. They fired almost 300 between December 19th, when Hamas ignored Egypt’s entreaties and decided not to renew a six-month truce, and December 27th, when Israel started its bombing campaign (see article). To that extent, Israel is right to say it was provoked. ...

Lexington: Huntington's clash

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

One of America’s great public intellectuals died on Christmas Eve

IN THE early 1990s America’s opinion-makers competed to outdo each other in triumphalism. Economists argued that the “Washington consensus” would spread peace and prosperity around the world. Politicians debated whether the “peace dividend” should be used to create universal health care or be allowed to fructify in the pockets of the people or quite possibly both. Francis Fukuyama took the optimists’ garland by declaring, in 1992, “the end of history” and the universal triumph of Western liberalism.

Samuel Huntington thought that all this was bunk. In “The Clash of Civilisations?” he presented a darker view. He argued that the old ideological divisions of the Cold War would be replaced not by universal harmony but by even older cultural divisions. The world was deeply divided between different civilisations. And far from being drawn together by globalisation, these different cultures were being drawn into conflict. ...

Re-training America's workers: The people puzzle

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Thousands of workers are losing their jobs. America now faces the hard task of getting them back to work

MOIRA MCKAMEY is one of many Americans with more free time than she would like. In November DHL, an express delivery company, said that it would close its American domestic operations at the end of January. Up to 10,000 jobs may be lost in Wilmington, Ohio, where DHL has its main hub for domestic traffic, and where it is the town’s largest employer. Ms McKamey’s job has already vanished. She is trying to keep busy but, on a break from painting her kitchen a cheerful yellow, she succumbs to tears. She worked at the hub for 20 years. Her husband is a small farmer; she supplied a steady income and the family’s health insurance. She will be 52 this month. “I just never thought I would have to start all over at my age,” she explains.

America’s overall unemployment rate is 6.7%. But in some states sweeping lay-offs make the outlook much gloomier. Wilmington’s predicament is among the worst in Ohio’s recent history, while in Michigan at least 90 firms have announced firings in the past two months. More will surely come as the Big Three carmakers cut costs and possibly enter bankruptcy. Town and state officials across America now face a daunting prospect: helping millions of workers find new jobs. ...

Unemployment insurance: A safety net in need of repair

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The benefits awaiting America’s unemployed are outdated and skimpy

COMPARED with the systems in other industrialised countries, the American unemployment-insurance (UI) scheme pays lower benefits for less time and to a smaller share of the unemployed. In expansions this encourages the jobless to return quickly to work—and unemployed Americans do indeed work harder at finding jobs than their European counterparts (see chart). But in recessions, when there is less work to return to, it causes hardship. Like America’s training system, UI is ripe for attention from the incoming Obama administration.

Like much of the social safety net, the current UI system was a product of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. States were prodded to provide benefits in accordance with federal guidelines; in return the federal government paid their administrative costs. But the system has not kept up with changes in America’s labour force. ...

Barack Obama's BlackBerry: Subject: Wall Street

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Another look inside the president-elect’s BlackBerry, soon to be confiscated on security grounds

“FIRST the good news. While the recession is getting worse, the financial crisis that started it has been contained—for now. The government has had to bail out only one big financial institution in the past six weeks.

The bad news is that the Bush administration and the Fed had nothing resembling a consistent strategy. They crushed Fannie’s and Freddie’s stock holders. They saved Citigroup’s. Ad-hockery is costly: it keeps private capital on the sidelines for fear of being wiped out in the next Sunday night rescue. And the government is now on the hook for perhaps trillions of dollars of guarantees and new capital, in return for which it got no extra power to protect the system and the taxpayer in the future. ...

Charleston: A turn in the South

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

A blue-collar military town transforms itself into a white-collar security cluster

UNTIL the government closed it in 1996, the navy base in Charleston was the region’s economic engine. The navy was Charleston’s largest employer, directly providing work for more than 22,000 people. But after a decade of decay, some 340 acres (140 hectares) of the site is now part of a 3,000-acre redevelopment plan in North Charleston called Noisette, billed as “a city within a city” and costing $3 billion over 20 years. The redeveloped navy shipyard has already attracted a number of green businesses. Clemson University’s research campus has also moved there.

Partly as a result, the region’s economy is healthier and more diversified than it was a decade ago. Job growth for the Charleston region was 16.5% between 2000 and 2007; nationally, it was less than half that. Charleston’s growth in GDP, wages and bank deposits all outpace national averages. Household income has increased by 30% since 2000. In July Inc, a magazine for entrepreneurs, described it as among the best cities for doing business. ...

The Christmas bird count: Hunting without guns

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

A splendid tradition in its 109th year

DECORATING the tree, sending out new year wishes, counting birds? Thousands of Americans have adopted the annual holiday tradition of the Christmas bird count, now in its 109th year and run by the Audubon Society. From Canada to South America and points in between experienced birdwatchers and novices, armed with binoculars, checklists and bird guides, have been journeying to forests and fields.

In the 19th century it was common for hunters to bag a Christmas bird for dinner and enjoy a competitive “side hunt” for sport at the same time. In 1900 Frank Chapman, an ornithologist, suggested a count instead of a kill at Christmas time. Only 27 observers in 25 places in the United States and Canada took part in that first hunt. In the 2007-08 three-week count, 59,918 people took part and 57,704,250 birds were tallied. ...

Re-naming America: Obamaville

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The next president is already making his mark on America’s cities

DELMAR BOULEVARD is an arterial road running through some of the poorest and richest, and most racially divided, neighbourhoods of St Louis, Missouri. Some city aldermen are now trying to rename the street after Barack Obama before he takes office.

St Louis is not alone in its efforts to stick Mr Obama’s name on public property. Opa-locka, in Miami-Dade County, Florida (one of the most dangerous cities in America), plans to rename one of its avenues after the next president. A Long Island elementary school in Hampstead, New York, recently changed its name from Ludlum to Barack Obama after students organised a campaign. Another Long Island school thought of doing the same until parents intervened. One in Portland, Oregon, is still considering it. ...

Venezuela: Socialism with cheap oil

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Hugo Chavez embarks on a race against the impending impact of world recession

DURING a turbulent decade in power, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, has been greatly helped by his own remarkable ability to inspire loyalty among ordinary Venezuelans on the one hand, and the sharp rise in the price of oil, the country’s only significant export, on the other. But the world price of oil has fallen from a peak of $147 last July to $40. And popular discontent with Mr Chavez’s corrupt and autocratic regime is mounting. So 2009 looks like being a difficult year for Mr Chavez and his “Bolivarian revolution”.

Re-elected as president in December 2006, Mr Chavez is not due to leave office until January 2013. But he is rushing to hold a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would remove the limit on further presidential terms. This measure has already been defeated once, albeit narrowly, in a referendum on a wider bundle of constitutional proposals in December 2007. As five years of oil-induced economic boom turn to imminent bust, Mr Chavez needs to move fast, lest the mood of the electorate should turn decisively against him. ...

The Caribbean: Hanging them high

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Don’t bother to reform, just execute

ON DECEMBER 19th, as the small island state of St Kitts and Nevis prepared to celebrate Christmas and the annual Carnival, bells rang out from the prison in the heart of the capital, Basseterre. Charles Laplace was hanged that morning for stabbing his wife nearly five years earlier. His appeal was dismissed in October because it was filed after the legal deadline.

It was the first execution in the English-speaking Caribbean for eight years. The day before, the United Nations General Assembly had voted—by 106 nations to 46—for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Against the trend of world opinion, all 12 countries of the English-speaking Caribbean retain the death penalty on their statute books. They make up a substantial chunk of the execution lobby. ...

Turkmenistan: Shadow movement

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Glimmers of light in a murky state

ALTHOUGH Turkmenistan’s eccentric and autocratic president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, was short in physical stature, he has continued to cast a long shadow since his death two years ago. Only very gradually has his successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, begun to make moves to release the country from its self-imposed, Soviet-style isolation.

A new constitution was adopted in September which increased parliament’s powers and raised the number of seats from 65 to 125. This was followed by a parliamentary election on December 14th. Both were hailed as steps towards democracy. But all 288 candidates stressed their support of the president: they were either members of the ruling Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, launched by Niyazov, or were state-approved independents. The opposition is largely in exile. Voter turnout reportedly reached 94%, though little information was made available about the candidates or what they stood for. ...

Horse racing in China: Go for big chests and slim waists

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Not exactly gambling, but the lucky could still win something

OPPORTUNITIES are sparse for China’s small-time speculators. So it was with a certain ebullience that 7,000 residents of Wuhan recently gathered at the Orient Lucky City racecourse to indulge in what the central leadership terms a “social evil”. They were the first people in mainland China to be given official approval to win money from horse races since the Communist Party outlawed gambling in 1949.

To the disappointment of hardened punters, depravity was lacking. No gambling, as such, was allowed. Racegoers could pick a horse for nothing in two of the five races and, if it won, were awarded 20 lottery scratch cards, giving them the chance to win 30,000 yuan ($4,400). One lucky winner scooped 4,000 yuan; most won less than a taxi fare home. The big hitters who had flown in from Sichuan could be heard cursing the impotence of their bulging wallets. ...

Bangladesh's election: The tenacity of hope

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Against all the evidence of past experience, Bangladesh’s voters enjoy a moment of optimism after a pretty clean election and a decisive result

IT WENT better than anyone dared hope. On December 29th Bangladesh held its first general election for seven years. It was well-attended, with a 70% turnout, well-organised, largely peaceful and, despite some vote-buying and other malpractice, far cleaner than its predecessors. It produced an astonishing, massive landslide for the alliance led by the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina Wajed (pictured above), prime minister from 1996-2001, and daughter of the country’s murdered independence leader.

Yet, as always, the voting was the easy part. After two years under an army-backed “caretaker” government, the return to democratic rule is unlikely to be smooth. The army staged an unannounced coup in January 2007 amid street violence ahead of a scheduled election that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in power from 1991-96 and 2001-06, was rigging. Both the BNP, led by Khaleda Zia, widow of an assassinated former general and president, and the Awami League had run corrupt, inept governments. ...

Japanese immigration: Don't bring me your huddled masses

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Not what the conservatives want, yet some people are beginning to imagine a more mixed Japan

INFLAMMATORY remarks by Japan’s speak-from-the-hip conservative politicians—among them the prime minister for now, Taro Aso—embroil them in endless controversy with neighbours over Japan’s wartime past. In their defence, conservatives often say that what really concerns them is the future, in which they want Japan to punch its weight in the world. The question is, what weight? Japan’s population, currently 127m and falling, is set to shrink by a third over the next 50 years. The working-age population is falling at a faster rate; the huge baby-boom generation born between 1947 and 1949, the shock troops of Japan’s economic miracle, are now retiring, leaving fewer workers to support a growing proportion of elderly.

Conservatives have few answers. They call for incentives to keep women at home to breed (though poor career prospects for mothers are a big factor behind a precipitous fall in the fertility rate). Robot workers offer more hope to some: two-fifths of all the world’s industrial robots are in Japan. They have the advantage of being neither foreign nor delinquent, words which in Japan trip together off the tongue. Yet robots can do only so much. ...

India, Pakistan and Kashmir: A good vote in the angry valley

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

But India shouldn’t believe that many Kashmiris were won over to its rule

AS AN illustration of the strength of India’s democracy, it was well-timed. On December 28th Jammu & Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, declared the results of a surprisingly smooth election. Unlike previous polls in the state, which is dominated by India’s portion of the divided Kashmir region (Pakistan controls a smaller part of Kashmir, and both countries claim all of it), the election was not rigged. Turnout was high, over 60%. Amid tight security—which included the detention of many unhappy separatists, who denounced the poll—it was unusually peaceful. Omar Abdullah, leader of the National Conference (NC) party, which maintained its position as Kashmir’s biggest, winning 28 out of 87 seats, said he had not once worn a bullet-proof vest on the campaign trail. In campaigning during the state’s previous election in 2002 he wore this garment almost every day.

On December 29th Mr Abdullah and Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, which won 17 seats in the polls, announced that they would form a government together. Congress had previously ruled the state in alliance with the People’s Democratic Party or PDP, a more nationalistic Kashmiri party, which won 21 seats. That government collapsed in June after its decision to cede land in Kashmir to Hindu pilgrims sparked mass protests against Indian rule. ...

Higher education: The future is another country

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

A world of colleges without borders should benefit everyone, including students who stay at home

JUST a few decades ago, students at universities outside their home countries formed a tiny elite. Some gained scholarships with famous names like Rhodes or Fulbright; others were sent by governments, grooming them for top jobs in academia or public service. A few were born to cosmopolitan parents who searched for the best schooling money could buy.

That picture has changed. The 20th century saw a surge in higher education; in the early 21st century, the idea of going abroad to study has become thinkable for ordinary students. In 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available, nearly 3m were enrolled in higher education institutions outside their own countries, a rise of more than 50% since 2000. ...

Internationalising American universities: The Americans are coming

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The next big shake-up of the global higher education business

ALTHOUGH the United States takes a bigger share of the international student market than any other country, with 22% of the total, it underperforms in relation to its size. Just 3.5% of students on its campuses are from abroad.

What explains this? Certainly not the quality of education on offer, which is often superb. One huge factor is the way that American universities shun the intermediaries whose services are used by most students wanting to study abroad. Markus Badde, the chief executive of ICEF, a student recruitment consultancy, says two-thirds of the world’s border-crossing students, and almost all of those from Asia, turn to “agents” to find a university place. But hardly any important American institution will pay intermediaries. ...

Turkey and the Kurds: Television diplomacy

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Hopes that a new channel may herald fresh reforms

ROJIN is a feisty, beautiful Kurdish bard who belts out nationalist ballads. As a result, private Kurdish television channels that showed her were long penalised or even taken off the air. But now she will be a regular on Turkey’s stultified TRT state television, which this week launched a 24-hour Kurdish channel in the main Kurdish dialect, Kurmanji.

A contradiction, yes. But it may just suggest that the Justice and Development (AK) party is regaining the reformist zeal that made it one of Turkey’s most popular and progressive governments. Kurdish hardliners scoff that the new channel is a cynical sop to the country’s 14m-odd Kurds before local elections in March. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AK prime minister, told an audience of Kurds in Diyarbakir in 2005 that the state had made mistakes in its treatment of the Kurds, his party won many a Kurdish heart (and vote). But it has lost them since he succumbed to the army’s demands to deal with Kurdish PKK rebels by force, not negotiation. ...

Ukraine's government: From heroic to farcical

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

As Ukraine’s politicians bicker, the economy slides

IN-FIGHTING has been a chronic condition of Ukrainian politics for years. The benevolent idea, often from outside, is that it is all part of the democratic process. The grumpier view of many Ukrainians is that it is a sign of the incompetence and immaturity of the elite. Since the “orange revolution” in 2004-05, Ukraine’s politics have moved from heroic to melodramatic, tragicomic to comic, and finally to farcical. A recent satirical television show likened it to a game of chess in which the first white move is for the king to take his own queen.

Until recently, ordinary Ukrainians took little notice of the game’s twists and turns. Indeed, the less time politicians had to interfere, the better the economy did. Yet the financial crisis has sent that into reverse. Ukraine has been one of the worst-affected of all emerging markets. GDP shrank by more than 14% in November on a year ago, and industrial production by twice as much. The hryvnia has lost half its value against the dollar. Erratic behaviour by the central bank has prompted accusations ranging from corruption to insanity. Lay-offs, especially in the industrial south-east, are running into the tens of thousands. Rising unemployment could fuel both crime and street protests. ...

Russia: Uncle Volodya's flagging Christmas spirit

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The Russian government is beginning to run out of the goodies that it has traditionally used to buy popular acquiescence

JUST over a year ago Vladimir Putin sprang a surprise on his country: Dmitry Medvedev, a former lawyer and confidant of his, was his preferred choice of successor as Russia’s president. Optimists rejoiced, as a young, marketwise and non-KGB man offered some hope of a thaw. Pessimists predicted that, at best, Mr Medvedev would play a nominal role, with Mr Putin retaining real power. So far the pessimists have won. Nobody, in Russia or the West, doubts that Mr Putin, who is now prime minister, is still the boss.

Mr Putin makes all the main decisions and hands out money. He acts as leader of the nation—and doubles as Father Christmas, making little boys and girls happy. He took on this particular role in a recent televised phone-in session with the Russian public. One caller was a nine-year-old girl from a village in south-east Siberia who asked Mr Putin to be a magician and give her a new dress, like Cinderella’s. The speechless girl and her family were whisked to Moscow to meet Uncle Volodya and receive the present from his hands. The Kremlin media added dollops of syrup to the saccharine tale. ...

Spain's unemployment: Longer dole queues

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The social consequences of fast-rising job losses

THE “Fat One”, Spain’s record-breaking El Gordo lottery, made it an especially cheery Christmas in Soria. The €2.1 billion ($3 billion) prize draw was worth an average of €2,500 for each of the city’s inhabitants. As a stimulus package, that beats the Spanish government’s by a factor of ten.

For the million Spanish families who saw a wage-earner lose their job in 2008, Christmas was a lot grimmer. The Spanish economy tends to exaggerate both the glories and the pain of its neighbours. When they grow, it grows faster; when they shrink, it is among the worst-hit. Over this decade it has created more jobs than any other country in Europe; now it is destroying them equally briskly. ...

Kosovo and Serbia: Deployment days

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The row over Kosovo’s independence may be dwarfed by economic concerns

FOR months the European Union’s biggest civilian mission, known as EULEX, was in limbo. Planned to consist of 1,900 policemen, judges and others, it was due to replace the United Nations after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia last February. Yet it was blocked because Serbia, which controls small Serb enclaves plus a chunk of northern Kosovo, declared it illegal; and the EU did not want its writ to run only in Kosovo’s Albanian areas.

Yet early last month the EULEX mission at last deployed across the whole country. Serbia’s government is desperate to get closer to the EU. But so long as it obstructed EULEX, the EU could block Serbia’s road to Brussels. In the event, the deployment of EULEX went without a hitch. Some UN police switched over seamlessly to EULEX; hundreds more arrived. Indeed, after such a tense build-up, the start of the mission turned out to be a huge anti-climax. Serbia’s government got some of what it wanted, notably UN endorsement of the mission; Kosovo got EULEX deployed in Serb areas. In this way both sides can indulge in political fantasy: Serbia pretends that Kosovo is not independent and Kosovo’s government pretends to be sovereign over the whole country. ...

Christians in Kosovo: Conversion rate

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

A surprising story of Muslim converts to Christianity

A CHRISTMAS tree dominates the centre of Pristina. Nearby a huge Catholic cathedral is being built. Farther off stand statues of two Albanian heroes: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Catholic nun, and Skanderbeg, a medieval prince who renounced Islam for Catholicism. Yet 95% of Kosovo’s 1.8m ethnic Albanians, out of a total population of 2m, are nominally Muslim. Don Shan Zefi, a Catholic cleric, says there are only 65,000 Catholics in Kosovo.

If Don Zefi has his way, there will be a lot more in future. On Christmas Eve some 38 people were baptised in a single town, Klina. Conversions to Christianity have become common (though a cautious Catholic church does not give precise figures). Don Zefi says he knows of large numbers more in “tens of villages” who want to convert. ...

Retailing gloom: Shopped out

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

Amid hectic shopping more famous names on the high street face ruin

IN THE city centre, Poundland is heaving with post-Christmas bargain hunters snapping up everything from underwear to shampoo, some of it for even less than the promised GBP1 ($1.46). Elsewhere in Leeds brightly coloured sale signs fill shop windows as varied as Ann Summers, a racy lingerie chain, and Harvey Nichols, a pricey department store.

For most on the high street, it has been a grim few months, and Leeds is no exception. Next door to Poundland, the Officers Club, a men’s fashion chain which recently called in administrators, is selling dinner jackets for less than the price of a night out (GBP20.80 to be exact) and slashing 60% off much else. Nearby a sports outfitter and greetings-card shop are both holding closing-down sales, with 75% off. A branch of zavvi, a music and video store that has also collapsed, is handling queues 20 people deep at its tills as shoppers rush to snap up discounted GBP2.99 albums and to spend gift vouchers while they can. ...

Election speculation: Will he, won't he?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

An all-too-familiar dilemma for Gordon Brown

FOR a man scarred by his calamitous flirtation with a snap election in 2007—souring opinion polls forced a humiliating retreat—Gordon Brown seems surprisingly willing to thrust his fingers back into the fire. Rumours abound that the prime minister, whose well-received handling of the economic crisis has put Labour within touching distance of the Conservatives in the polls (see chart below), will cash in on his comeback by calling an election in 2009. He was previously expected to cling on until the last possible date the following summer. True, Mr Brown is not stoking the speculation as coquettishly as he did last time. But neither is he squashing it—going only as far as to rule out a ballot in February or March.

The temptations for Mr Brown are obvious. His trustworthiness on economic matters may not survive the job losses and repossessions that seem certain to mount as time passes. Delay also allows the Conservatives to hone their own ideas for dealing with the recession, which have fallen flat so far. On December 28th George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, promised that he would seek to reverse Labour’s planned increase in national-insurance contributions, due in 2011. Moreover, a vote in 2009 would be hard to portray as a self-interested gambit on Mr Brown’s part: the last general election was in 2005, and four years has been the standard interval under Labour. ...

High-speed rail: A surprising conversion

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:39:46 GMT

The politics if not the economics are turning in favour

ONCE it was a wistful dream of technophiles, railway buffs and fringe pressure groups. But in recent months the idea of a British high-speed rail network, similar to those pioneered in Japan and France, has begun to attract some serious political traction.

The Conservatives, traditionally the party of the motor car, endorsed the vision last autumn. In September Theresa Villiers, the Tory shadow transport secretary, claimed that a fast railway connecting London with Leeds by way of Birmingham and Manchester could obviate the need for the unpopular and ungreen third runway planned for Heathrow airport. ...