Lehman Brothers Hid Borrowing, Examiner Says The Wall Street bank used accounting gimmicks to hide its financial weakness in the months before its bankruptcy, according to a 2,200-page report.
Talks to Address Trade in Tuna and Ivory Negotiations on protecting endangered species will open in Qatar with tensions over efforts to ban trade in bluefin tuna and to reopen exports of elephant ivory.
Eurocrats offer up half-baked ideas to prevent a future sovereign-debt scare
NOW that Greece has given in to pressure from its peers for a more austere budget, the euro zone’s policy brass suddenly seems more sympathetic towards its most troubled member. On reflection, perhaps the fault with Greece’s parlous public finances...
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process resumes, after a fashion
IT WAS a wretched beginning to what had been hailed as the hopeful resumption of peace talks, albeit indirect ones, between the Israelis and Palestinians under the aegis of an American mediator. Barely had America’s vice-president, Joe Biden, begun a visit to Israel...
AIG reluctantly hands its crown as America’s global life insurer to MetLife
ANOTHER week, another opportunity for AIG’s rivals to expand at the American insurer’s expense. Days after sealing a $35.5 billion deal for its Asian life-insurance operations with Britain’s Prudential, the firm, which is being dismembered to recoup bail-out...
Did protectionism force EADS to scrap a $35 billion bid to supply the American air force?
THE announcement on Monday March 8th that Northrop Grumman and its European partner EADS were pulling out of a bid for a $35 billion contract to build air-refuelling tankers for the United States Air Force...
Brazil fires another salvo in its dispute with America over cotton subsidies
HOW serious is the decision by Brazil’s government, announced on Tuesday March 8th, to raise duties on a number of American-made imports? The increases are sizeable for goods such as cosmetics (tariffs will double, to 36%) and many household...
THE number plates in Nigeria’s Plateau State declare it to be the “Home of Peace and Tourism”. This has seemed ever more optimistic in recent years, as the state capital, Jos, has been battered by brutal violence, with fresh attacks over the weekend reportedly leaving...
Counting begins after Iraq's modestly hopeful general election
DESPITE a wave of violent attacks, millions of voters took part on Sunday March 7th in the second full parliamentary election in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In a country slowly emerging from years of bloody fighting, voters faced a choice between a...
Renewed diplomatic efforts over Iran's nuclear activities
• AFTER Iran announced that its long-delayed Bushehr civilian nuclear plant will be operational within a few months, American diplomats will renew efforts to obtain further sanctions against the Islamic republic over its suspected efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Hillary Clinton, the American...
Congress reconsiders America’s official position on the Armenian genocide
TWO questions faced an American congressional panel on Thursday March 5th as it considered the mass killings of Armenians during and after the first world war by forces of the Ottoman Empire. First, was it genocide? The historical debate is as hot,...
China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, offers some gestures of conciliation
AT THE opening of the annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, could not resist a bit of boasting. China’s economy, he said, in a two-hour speech, had been the first in the...
Barack Obama unveils his final strategy for pushing health reform in America
“EVERYTHING there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it…now is the time to make a decision.” So declared President Barack Obama on March 3rd to an audience of doctors and...
Greece’s new austerity measures may prove to be enough—if they are fully implemented
GEORGE PAPACONSTANTINOU, the overworked Greek finance minister, likens the effort to steer Greece away from economic disaster to “changing the course of the Titanic.” Until this week it looked as if the country was headed for an iceberg...
Under pressure, GM is now putting up half the money needed to rescue Opel
THE mood at this week’s Geneva motor show, if not exactly upbeat, was in contrast to the fear that gripped the event last year. Europe’s car market is expected to fall in volume terms by around 10%...
A late, and philosophical, return to American political campaigning for Jerry Brown
THE dark, floppy hair has gone, and the face is a little rounder, but otherwise Jerry Brown, at 71, looks much as he did when he slept on a futon on the floor of his office and squired Linda...