The risk that the death of the constitution may also kill off further expansion of the club BELIEVE it or not, one of the most exciting and positive stories in the modern world is taking place in Europe. The headlines in western Europe may be full… more »

AMERICAN society has been getting less like Europe's. It is growing faster and ageing more slowly, it is geographically more mobile and (dare one say it) has become more divided between rich and poor. Yet at the same time, the structure of American polit… more »

Is the president-elect as grim as he sounds? Reformers are in despair, for the new man is in tune with the repressive rule of the conservative ayatollahs "WE SHOULD reach out to each other, for we are all from the same family," says Mahmoud Ahm… more »

There was a time when China's supporters in Hong Kong dismissed Donald Tsang as a British stooge. But this week, with China's backing, he effectively secured the territory's highest post, raising the intriguing prospect of the proud recipient of a Britis… more »

The World Bank's new president is famous for his commitment to "regime change". The Bank is committed to a peaceful version of the same thing. ON ITS way to the Mekong river, the Nam Theun tributary flows uninterrupted across the Nakai plateau in… more »

VISITING the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week was one of those Ozymandian moments. Ozymandias, as readers of The Economist will instantly recall, was an Egyptian pharaoh who inspired a poem by Shelley, in which a “traveller from an antiq… more »