Newsbook
News analysis
Syria's uprising
A report from Rankous
May 18th 2012, 10:58 by The Economist online | RANKOUS
THE houses in the western half of Rankous, a small town north of Damascus, reek of acrid smoke. A burned shoe lies on the floor while fans droop from the ceilings like dead flowers. The living rooms are the most haunting: the televisions that were once a centrepiece of family life are crumpled and withered, a testament to the heat of fire. Walls have gaping wounds in them; some have been demolished entirely. The top floor of one house has collapsed.
Osama, a slender man with bloodshot eyes, gives a tour of the area with the detailed manner of a museum guide (a respected schoolteacher, he has been fetched by the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the few people living in this part of the town).
The week ahead: May 18th 2012
Television debates replace tear gas
May 17th 2012, 23:53 by The Economist online
EGYPTIANS begin voting for a new president, markets eye Greece with anxiety, Nato and G8 summits in America, and nuclear talks with Iran
Greece and the euro
A very fragile situation
May 17th 2012, 16:27 by The Economist online
AS Greece faces a second election and Spain's banking crisis worsens, our correspondents discuss the uncertain future of the euro zone
The euro
Covering the crisis
May 17th 2012, 16:21 by The Economist
The euro-zone crisis, as told through Economist covers
IN MAY 2010 The Economist put Europe's debt crisis on its cover for the first time, accompanied by a decent filmic pun and an image of the Parthenon. Since then, the continent's financial woes have kept our cover designer busy conjuring up various ways to depict doom and despair. From waterfalls to plugholes to sieves, here are 15 of the best.
The Economist
Digital highlights, May 19th 2012
May 17th 2012, 16:03 by The Economist online
A charmed life
At last week’s annual meeting of the Giving Pledge in Santa Barbara, a group of America’s richest individuals discussed giving half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. We sat down with Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, two attendees, to discuss why they giveRankous report
Our correspondent sends a dispatch from Rankous, a small town north-west of Damascus. Houses have been burned and most people, apart from a few locals and men from the Free Syrian Army, have fled since Bashar Assad’s regime shelled the town earlier this yearSchool’s out
The appearance of interns around the office is a sure sign that summer has arrived.Remembering Peter David
What he wrote
May 17th 2012, 13:08 by The Economist online
DURING his 28 years at The Economist Peter wrote on everything. His colleagues thought of him as a Middle East specialist above all, but he also wrote columns on British and in American politics, as well as stories and leaders on science and business. The 14 special reports he wrote ranged from Islam to banking and from Canada to South Africa. They included one on universities, which seems appropriate since he might have been mistaken for one.
Here, in our view, are some of the best things he wrote.
Peter on the opposition, from Newt Gingrich and others, to the proposed Cordoba centre in New York, from August 2010:
From the archive: January 12th 1991
Don't save this face
May 17th 2012, 10:17 by The Economist
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN said there never was a good war, or a bad peace. He was half right. Nobody can be glad that, after the failure in Geneva, the stalemate in the Gulf seems this week to be slipping miserably into war. The result of all wars is men killed, maimed or made insane by horror. This time the horrors may include ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, even—if Iraq is foolish enough to lash out at Israel—nuclear ones too. Can any cause be great enough to justify the slaughter?
The answer is Yes. There is no good war, but sometimes a bad peace can be worse than war itself. A peace that left Saddam Hussein unchallenged in Kuwait would be trebly bad.
Greek politics
Slouching towards the drachma
May 16th 2012, 17:04 by K.H. | ATHENS
PITY Karolos Papoulias. The 82-year-old president of Greece has spent over a week trying to persuade the country’s fractious political leaders to form a government after a general election on May 6th failed to produce a clear winner. Mr Papoulias, a soft-spoken former foreign minister, handed out mandates to various party leaders, none of whom could deliver, and made a three-day effort of his own, before finally giving up yesterday.
Success would have given Greece breathing space, if only for a few months, to pursue urgent reforms—such as recapitalising its insolvent banks and getting on with privatisation—to help restore its credibility with European partners and financial markets.
France and Germany
The Frangela show
May 16th 2012, 15:42 by S.P. | PARIS AND BERLIN
FIRST he got soaked in heavy rain when riding in an open-roofed hybrid car down the Champs-Elysées. Then his presidential plane was struck by lightning shortly after taking off for Berlin, forcing him to return to Paris and board another. François Hollande, who was sworn in as France's new president yesterday at a low-key ceremony at the Elysée Palace, had promised a “normal” presidency, but his first few hours turned out to be anything but. Still, with a sang-froid that may come to mark his term, Mr Hollande seemed unperturbed, and focused on setting the tone for what he billed as a presidency of “dignity but simplicity”.
Israel and Palestine
An opportunity for an opportunist
May 14th 2012, 9:33 by The Economist online
ISRAEL'S prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has convinced the biggest opposition party, Kadima, to join his coalition, which could reset relations with the Palestinians
The North Rhine-Westphalia election
A well Krafted win
May 14th 2012, 9:20 by B.U. | BERLIN
IT IS easy to get carried away with the results of yesterday's election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state. It was the worst ever performance in the state for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which governs Germany and is headed by Angela Merkel, the chancellor. It was a triumph for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, who will continue to govern the state, this time with a clear majority in the Landtag (state parliament).
Jeffrey Sachs and the millennium villages
Millennium bugs
May 14th 2012, 9:17 by J.P. | LONDON
FOR something designed to improve lives in some of the poorest parts of the world, the Millennium Villages Project certainly stirs up a lot of bad blood. The project, the brain child of Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University in New York, takes 14 “villages” (mostly small areas) with around 500,000 people, and scales up aid to them in the hope of springing the poverty trap in which they are caught. Late in 2011, there was a flurry of accusation and rebuttal at the time of the first independent evaluation of one of the villages, Sauri in Kenya, which challenged some of the claims made on behalf of the villages. The Economist reviewed the dispute here and Mr Sachs criticised our account.
Greece fails to form a government
Adrift
May 11th 2012, 20:14 by K.H. | ATHENS
AFTER five days of talks Greece is no nearer to forming a government than at the start of the week. A triumphant Alexis Tsipras, whose radical left coalition Syriza came second in the general election held on May 6th, appears to be gambling on his momentum being sustained should a fresh election be held. An opinion poll published on May 11th showed that 28% of voters would back Syriza, a big increase from the 17% it won on polling day. That would put the leftists ahead of their rivals but still leave them a dozen or so seats short of an overall majority in the 300-member parliament.
In this blog, our correspondents respond to breaking news stories and provide comment and analysis. The blog takes its name from newsbooks, the 16th- and 17th-century precursors to newspapers, which covered battles, disasters, debates and sensational trials
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