Message-ID: <26485067.1075840333610.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 15:28:43 -0800 (PST) From: the_economist-business-admin@news.economist.com To: dbaughm@ect.enron.com Subject: The world this week: Business 5th - 11th January 2002 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: The Economist @ENRON X-To: dbaughm@ect.enron.com X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \ExMerge - Baughman Jr., Don\Deleted Items X-Origin: BAUGHMAN-D X-FileName: don baughman 6-25-02.PST Welcome to The world this week: Politics A summary of the world's main events from The Economist. Also available at http://www.economist.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ADVERTISEMENT - TAKING CHARGE: TRANSITION STRATEGIES FOR NEW BUSINESS LEADERS Mar. 19-22, 2002, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA A new Executive Education program that presents the framework for planning and prioritizing your actions upon assuming a major leadership position. Visit http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/tcbtw/index.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - IN THE ECONOMIST THIS WEEK - How the mood of America has changed * In praise of whistleblowers * Zimbabwe's new laws * Rebuilding Afghanistan * Wall Street and small investors * Reforming Britain's House of Lords * Haute couture * New York's skyline You can read these articles, and many more, in the free area of Economist.com, at http://www.economist.com. Subscribers can also read 40 more new articles. Click here to subscribe: http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qUQ0Ai - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - JITTERS IN EUROPE ITALY'S foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero, resigned after several other senior ministers had made hostile remarks about the EU and the euro, and Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, failed to slap them down. Some European leaders feared Italy's government would turn Eurosceptical. No way, said Mr Berlusconi, who took on the foreign ministry himself. But it was clear Italy would defend its national interests more strongly. - - - - - See article: Will Italy really change its policy toward the European Union? http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZS0Ap Goran Persson, Sweden's prime minister, said his country might hold a REFERENDUM ON THE EURO next year. Polls suggest that Swedish public opinion, hitherto hostile, has recently swung in favour of joining the single currency. ESTONIA'S market-minded coalition government, led by Mart Laar, collapsed. FRANCE'S family doctors stayed on intermittent strike, amid increasing signs that the government would surrender to their pay demands. In SPAIN, government-imposed reforms to the country's universities came formally into force, despite the protests of many academics and students. - - - - - See article: Spain's contested university reforms http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZT0Aq FORCE FOR PEACE A British-led, UN-mandated, international force designed to provide security in AFGHANISTAN, was gradually building up to a strength of 4,000-5,000. Turkey and Bulgaria were the latest countries to promise soldiers. Meanwhile, America said that it intended to build a long-term Central Asian base in Kirgizstan. American forces took prisoner 364 men said to be members of the TALIBAN or the al-Qaeda organisation and proposed to fly them to a camp in the American base at Guantanamo in Cuba, for questioning. Afghan tribal leaders protested at the deaths of civilians killed by American bombs, said to outnumber the 3,000 people who died in New York on September 11th. In an effort to please India, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan dropped the term "freedom fighters" in a reference to attacks in Indian-held KASHMIR and said he rejected all terrorism. But India continued to build up its forces on its border with Pakistan. - - - - - See article: Islam in Pakistan http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZU0Ar The Pakistani authorities found 630kg (1,390lb) of HEROIN being carried by a camel caravan in the south-east of the country, one of the largest seizures of the drug. MYANMAR'S military government freed five opposition members, including a cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader. A peace-making team from Norway arrived in SRI LANKA at the start of a new effort to end the 18-year civil war between the separatist Tamil Tigers and the government. - - - - - See article: The wounded Tigers of Sri Lanka http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZV0As SHRINKING SURPLUS As estimates of America's long-term fiscal surplus shrank, Tom Daschle, the Democratic Senate majority leader, accused President George Bush of MISHANDLING THE ECONOMY by pushing through last year's $1.35 trillion tax cuts. Mr Bush promised that "not over my dead body" will the Democrats raise taxes. - - - - - See article: A battle over numbers http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZW0At The Supreme Court reduced the scope of the AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT by ruling that an impairment must have a significant effect on a person's daily life in order to qualify as a disability under the law. The controversial ruling could make it harder for people with afflictions such as carpal-tunnel syndrome (repetitive-strain injury) to get special treatment from their employers. The Bush administration said it may need to resume UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR TESTING at some point to maintain the safety of its scaled-back nuclear-weapons arsenal. The option would form part of the "nuclear-posture review", which outlines the country's justification for reducing the number of strategic warheads by two-thirds over the next ten years. GOING DOWN ARGENTINA devalued the peso by 29%25 for most trade and capital transactions. For other purposes, the currency will float. Eduardo Duhalde's government converted most dollar loans to pesos, but has said dollar bank deposits will (eventually) be honoured. Critics feared that the banking system would collapse. - - - - - See article: Argentina's bankrupt economy http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZX0Au CHILE'S president, Ricardo Lagos, appointed as defence minister Michelle Bachelet, a member of his Socialist party and the daughter of an air-force general who died after being imprisoned and tortured during General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. She is the first woman defence minister in Latin America. COLOMBIA'S three-year peace process came to a halt. President Andres Pastrana gave the FARC guerrillas 48 hours to leave their "demilitarised" zone, after they had refused to drop their opposition to military surveillance of the zone. - - - - - See article: A halt to Colombia's peace process http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZY0Av BY HOOK OR BY CROOK ZIMBABWE'S PARLIAMENT was set to pass laws to prevent the presidential election, due on March 9th and 10th, from being free or fair, or being won by anyone other than Robert Mugabe. Making doubly sure, the army chief hinted that he would not recognise the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, if he won. - - - - - See article: Democracy, who needs it? http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZZ0Aw A senior aide to NIGERIA'S chief judge was found dead, apparently murdered. Bola Ige, the justice minister, was murdered last month. The South African government promised to set up a commission of inquiry into the COLLAPSE OF THE RAND. The country's currency lost 37%25 of its value last year. South African businessmen have accused speculators of foul play. The government of BURUNDI promised to pull troops out of Congo in return for a Congolese promise to stop supporting rebels in Burundi. After a three-week diminution in the violence between ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS, Israel seized a ship allegedly carrying weapons to Palestinian militias, and two Hamas gunmen attacked an army base, killing four Israeli soldiers before they themselves died. - - - - - See article: Arms and the man http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=eRm0UBQN0T50qZa0A4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - GET THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY - Has anthrax ever escaped from a lab? Who is fighting whom in the Congo? What's going on in Kashmir? Or Macedonia? Or Nepal? What went wrong with Germany's economy? What is quantum computing? What are hedge funds, and are they bad? What led to California's power crisis? 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