The responsibility for Pakistan’s cricketing scandal lies ultimately with the country’s elite (51)
Much less than promised The economy is powering on, but the Congress-led coalition is squandering an opportunity to improve India (295)
Bloody democracy Elections this month should not be quite as awful as last year’s presidential one (9)
Self-destruction Japan’s ruling party should cast its most famous member, Ichiro Ozawa, into the wilderness (30)
A new day beckons, sort of The first election in 20 years coincides with a rushed privatisation programme. Guess who profits from the fire sale (6)
The prime minister calls frankly for political reform (21)
A South Korean state firm joins the scramble for oil (1)
A Western media company offers a product the Chinese can’t resist: education (17)
A bungled rescue of Hong Kong hostages sparks a diplomatic row (55)
Bovine politicians fail to pick a prime minister (3)
New Zealand is not Haiti, yet More »
From our blogs Banyan's notebookNew reporting on the summer's outbreak of ethnic violence raises some disturbing questions More »
Free exchangeWorrying that there may be too much state in China's state-oriented economy More »
BabbageFrightening clutter overhead, frantic growth in telecoms underfoot More »
Schumpeter's notebookLast words from the late management thinker More »
JohnsonWhen being big is not enough More »
What we're reading
The anarchic republic of Pakistan (National Interest)
Ahmed Rashid regards "the mother of all insurgencies"
Chinese warships dock in Myanmar (Christian Science Monitor)
A "friendly port call" rattles nerves in India
Waiting for WikiLeaks: Beijing's Seven Secrets
(New York Review of Books)
If only the Communist Party's archives were leaked
Fortunes's supposed favourites (Microkhan)
Watching James Dresnok, the American who defected to North Korea in 1962
Mao Zedong's American interpreter reflects on the ways in which China has changed More »
Audio interview
A Japanese cartoon explores the repatriation of treasures from the British Museum. We speak to the protaganist's sidekick More »
China's roads
China's traffic jam was inevitable More »
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” Wrobinhood on Contest of the centuryIndian democracy is responsible for the thousands of hectares around Mumbai’s airport being occupied by slum dwellers. In China this would have been converted into a hub of economic activity in which the current dwellers could get jobs.
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” Sense Seeker on Cliff-hanging onThe Greens recognise growth as a means to improve the quality of life in a sustainable way, not an end in and of itself. At least one sensible party in Australia. No wonder they gained votes.
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” PakDemocrat on No sign of a rainbowPakistani politicians are not only incompetent managers but often exceedingly corrupt and self-serving. The problem is that even if they were a brilliant and competent lot they would still fall flat on their faces thanks to the bureaucracy.
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” lr9 on Swamped, bruised and resentfulPakistan has 150 cubic meters per capita of water-storage capacity in dams. China has 2500. Look at how Three Gorges mitigated the impact of floods in the lower Yangzi. And look at what happened in Pakistan.
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” Gylippus on High cost of being greenBy purchasing Chinese goods we improve the labour market there, giving trade unions more room to bargain for health and safety standards, environmental safeguards, pay, or whatever else they actually care about.
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” Caesar Parsa on The great endgamePushtunisation will never succeed in Afghanistan—and yet that is what all of the country's Pushtun client-governments have tried since the 1930s...And Karzai and his close aides are dreaming of it again
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” Sinna Siththar on The Colombo consensusIn the international arena everything has its own price. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Every penny that is invested in Sri Lanka, China expects more in terms of return or benefit in kind.
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” CakMamat on Cursed by plentyFor native Papuans, there's no hope that they'll ever gain independence. Indonesia will be changing BRIC to BRIIC soon...Jakarta will have all the money they need to transform West Papua however they see fit.
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” Far_Far_Away on Stalin's latest victimsDemocracy is not some kind of export commodity that can simply be airmailed into a country and expected to function properly. It is a complex societal system with numerous prerequisites, few of which seem to exist in Central Asia.
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” huhahuha on Socialist workersThe wisdom of Henry Ford will benefit China greatly. Only when the workers have enough money to buy their own stuff (cars, computers, iPhones) can the vast potential of the Chinese consumer market be realized.
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