Most predicted bloodshed on Friday after almost four weeks of defiance. Tanks and security forces assembled outside the city. Mohamed Mofleh, the head of military security who had been removed at residents' request after the violence of early June, had been reinstated. But a visit by Robert Ford, the American ambassador, gave those demonstrating heart.

On Friday, checkpoints were removed to encourage protesters to enter the city centre. The call to prayer rang out and the city burst into life. On every street, people marched waving olive branches and pink roses. They poured into Aasi Square, where a banner fluttered, emblazoned with the words, "Long live free Syria! Down with Bashar al-Assd!" Two vans parked in the middle of the square functioned as a makeshift podium from which men led the cries: "The people want to topple the regime!"; "No to dialogue! No to Bashar!"

The crowd of thousands repeated the chants back. A Syrian flag, three kilometres long, was paraded up and down the road. Another van drove around distributing free water to thirsty protesters. Men hung off the balconies and rooftops of surrounding buildings, some filming with mobile phones. Fewer women ventured out this week; some were too scared, others had been sent out of the city with their children. But a small group in black abeyas shouted and waved olive branches from the corner of the square.

In the evening the checkpoints reappeared. Drivers had to show their identity cards. But unlike government checkpoints, the boys in charge apologised for having to carry out the checks. At one they offered sweets and a squirt of perfume when they waved people through.

No-one was killed in Hama on Friday but 14 people died elsewhere in Syria. The city remains tense as another week of defiance dawns.

Goodbye to bricks and mortar
People love bookshops, but as the imminent bankruptcy-court auction of Borders suggests, this is not enough to persuade them to buy books from them. The market cannot seem to accommodate the demand for real places to gather, drink coffee and read new works

Yemen's uncertain future
After four months of conflict, an uneasy peace has returned to Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Saudi Arabia may send aid, but with food prices rising, fuel in short supply and dwindling central-bank reserves threatening imports of rice and wheat, the prospect of more fighting looms

United States: Congress with women
New research on collective intelligence offers a boost to a senator’s mission to get more women into office

Asia: Looking back on the ruins
Catching up with a Japanese couple who survived the tsunami and then gave up on their devastated village

Americas: A hat trick for the PRI
The party of the presidential front-runner sweeps three governor’s races in Mexico

Business: 3D war of the chaebol
Rivalry between Samsung and LG over 3D televisions turns vicious

Africa: A country is born - TO COME
Roger Middleton of Chatham House discusses South Sudan’s future as it declares independence

Asia: Beheading the golden goose
When Saudi Arabia executes a maid, Indonesia threatens to stop sending
workers. So the Saudis stop inviting them

Finance: Clicks and mortar
An update of The Economist’s interactive house-prices index

Culture: The comfort of defeat
Does a sports team become a lovable loser simply because it loses?

Technology: Reducing the barnacle bill
Ships’ hulls are currently kept clean using poisonous chemicals. Less toxic alternatives would be welcome

Science: Difference Engine
The jury is still out on grilled meat and cancer. But now America’s 4th of July celebrations are over, people should stop worrying and enjoy their barbecues

Charts: Twitter away
Details of all our daily charts and interactive tools can now be found on a designated Twitter account

AS POLITICIANS lacerated it and advertisers withdrew their business this week, the future of the News of the World, Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday paper, looked bleak. Then, in a dramatic announcement, James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, his father Rupert’s British newspaper outfit, announced that, in fact, the paper would have no future it all: its issue of July 10th, he said, would be its last.

It was a bold bid to regain the initiative after a week of appalling revelations about wrongdoing at the News of the World. It began with the revelation that one of the many victims of voicemail-hacking by the paper was Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was murdered in Surrey in March 2002. On July 4th the Guardian reported allegations that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working with News of the World journalists, had hacked into Dowler’s voicemail in the days after her disappearance, removing some messages to free up space when her account became full. The effect was to make her family think she might still be alive.

Other dreadful allegations followed. The relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks in London of July 2005, and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, might also have been targeted. News International acknowledged that it had passed e-mails to the police that appeared to document illegal payments to police officers by News of the World journalists. Even worse was alleged by some MPs in a heated parliamentary debate on July 6th.

Mr Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for hacking voicemail messages of members of the royal household, along with Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s royal correspondent. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, executives at News International insisted that Mr Goodman was a lone, rogue operator. In the past few months that defence has collapsed, amid a deluge of civil cases brought by the lengthening list of hacking victims, pay-offs and the arrest of more journalists. James Murdoch acknowledged that the defence was untrue, and that he himself had approved out-of-court settlements with some hacking victims without having “a complete picture”. This was “a matter of serious regret”, he said.

Quite what this means for News International and the British newspaper market is unclear. Rumours swirled that the Sun, the News of the World’s weekday sister paper, might begin to be published on Sunday too (and that a rejig of the firm’s tabloid operations was in the pipeline anyway). News International has not disclosed its plans for an alternative publication if any.

But Mr Murdoch has evidently decided that the reputational damage to News Corporation outweighs the revenue the News of the World generated. The tabloid is a relatively profitable part of the Murdochs’ British newspaper business, but piffling in comparison with the serious earners—such as BSkyB, a hugely profitable satellite broadcaster in which News Corporation already has a 39% stake, and wants to buy the rest of. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, looked set finally to approve the deal after a consultation on its impact on media plurality ends on July 8th, but politicians and others are urging him to reconsider or at least find a pretext for delay (the announcement now looks unlikely to come soon). Meanwhile Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is obliged to consider whether the holders of broadcasting licences are “fit and proper”. It is “closely monitoring the situation”.

Out to dry
News International may have bought itself a little awed breathing space, but others are in the line of fire too—including the police, and not only because of the revelations about bungs from journalists. That was only the latest aspersion cast on various police forces by this affair. The Metropolitan Police itself stands accused of failing for several years to notify potential victims of hacking and failing to pursue leads: the evidence for many recent allegations comes from notes seized from Mr Mulcaire in 2006. The Met launched a fresh probe in January. On July 7th its commanding officer said it that 4,000 names were mentioned in the paperwork.

Two former editors are also in deep trouble. Andy Coulson resigned from the paper in 2007 after Mr Goodman and Mr Mulcaire were convicted, though he insisted that he knew nothing of their nefarious methods. He resigned again, this time from his job as Mr Cameron’s communications chief, in January this year, as the hacking scandal escalated. Mr Cameron’s judgment in hiring Mr Coulson after his tabloid escapades now looks ropier than ever. Mr Coulson is said to be implicated in the e-mails that point to illegal payments by journalists to police officers.

His predecessor as editor was Rebekah Brooks; she is now News International’s chief executive. She has rebuffed calls for her resignation, declaring herself “shocked” at the latest charges and promising to “vigorously pursue the truth”. For the moment, at least, Mrs Brooks appears to be protected by what insiders describe as an intense, almost familial bond with Rupert Murdoch; he this week called the recent allegations “deplorable”, but stood by her.

In the gutter
And it isn’t only the Murdoch press that is set to feel the backlash. Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, wants a public inquiry into the culture and regulation of the press; Mr Cameron agrees that there ought to be one or more inquiries, after criminal proceedings are over. One result may be a change to the current model of newspaper self-regulation; the Press Complaints Commission, the toothless body responsible for it, has handled the hacking affair woefully.

Most MPs were in the past much more diplomatic about the press, especially the Murdoch stable, which, so exaggerated legend had it, could decide the fate of governments. But the calculus for politicians has suddenly shifted—along with the ecology of British journalism, public perceptions of the police, and much besides.

Read on: A full judicial inquiry is needed immediately to clean up British journalism

THE executives, notably Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, are staying put—at least for now. But the paper is going. James Murdoch, who runs News Corporation’s businesses in Europe and Asia, told staff this afternoon that the News of the World, Britain’s biggest Sunday newspaper, will put out its final edition at the weekend.

Every day—every hour, it sometimes seemed—brought new trouble for the paper. It has been confronted with allegations of hacking the phones of politicians, abducted girls, terrorism victims, and soldiers. Not all of these allegations may turn out to be valid, but the sheer weight of insinuation is crushing, particularly given the News of the World’s past evasions about the extent of its misbehaviour. Advertisers have fled. The final edition will carry no paid advertisements at all.

Printers’ ink runs in the veins of Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation. But from a pure business perspective (and James Murdoch tends to take that perspective on things) the loss of the News of the World is not at all painful. In a good year, News International’s four papers—the Sun, the News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times—are marginally profitable. BSkyB, which News Corporation wants to buy, is likely to make more than £1 billion in profit this year.

The shenanigans at the News of the World have already slowed the attempt to purchase BSkyB, and may yet stymie it altogether. This is not just the tail wagging the dog. It is the tail threatening to strangle the dog. It needed to be cut off.

Read on: A full judicial inquiry is needed immediately to clean up British journalism

The launch of the final mission in NASA’s space-shuttle programme is almost upon us. Our briefing last week concluded that “the heroic phase of space exploration, with chiselled-jawed astronauts venturing where no man has gone before, inspiring schoolchildren and defending democracy (or socialism), is now a thing of the past” and that the final launch “brings to an end the dreams of the Apollo era”. Many readers, it appears, hope to keep that dream alive. Raymond Schillinger is currently producing a documentary on “The Second Great Space Race”. He thinks we are being “unreasonably defeatist” when it comes to space:

“My generation came of age long after the brave, exploratory days of the Apollo missions had ended. I, like many of my contemporaries, nevertheless continue to see space travel as inevitable. The history of transportation shows that technical obstacles and cost per passenger decrease over time, particularly as demand drives private-sector development, and vice-versa.

One hundred years ago air travel seemed like a ludicrous experiment; just 50 years ago, flying was still a privilege reserved for the rich and powerful. Now it is taken for granted.

The Richard Bransons and Elon Musks of our day, just like the motor-industry mavens of yesteryear, are bravely taking more of us where few men and women have travelled before. The Space Age is not over; on the contrary, it has just begun.”

Al Barrett is a retired aerospace-engineer, with 48-years experience working on the design of components, such as those for the Apollo Command Module. He points to a difference between space science and space exploration, in that “Human beings do not do significant science in space”.  One example is the James Webb Space Telescope currently being developed under the direction of NASA, which will be positioned in space in a gravity-neutral orbit around the Sun, 1.5 million km from the Earth. Mr Barrett says,

“The mission is totally incompatible with a human crew. So, we are left with a question. What is the value-added to justify the enormous cost of human-crewed space missions?

The Apollo mission served an important geopolitical purpose during the height of the cold war. It convinced many non-aligned nations that America had the technical prowess to be able to guarantee the protection of other nations, giving the United States a strategic advantage in its contest with the Soviet Union for supremacy as the greater superpower. No such purpose exists today for human-crewed space missions.”

The tone of our leader, which declared that “Outer space is history” and “humanity’s dreams of a future beyond that final frontier have, largely, faded” came in for some flak. Paul Donner from Albuquerque thinks we are being “dismal” and “mediocre”: “You should someday read Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘The Lion of Comarre’. Have you no hope for the future?” Jeromy Sivek in Pittsburgh disagrees with our “characterisation of NASA’s accomplishments as un-American. We Americans are at our best when taking difficult collective action. We united to prevent Germany from constructing its own European empire. We united to toss off the burden of the British monarchy. Do not bet against our ability to outdo collectively the success of the Apollo missions. Such endeavours are our specialty.”

Fred Bearden from Laguna Niguel in southern California, obviously with Britain’s past maritime glories in mind, believes that, “Lord Nelson would happily skewer you with his sword. I would happily hold his coat.”

On the theme of the history of exploration, and what it might tell us about the future for space travel, David Montgomery, emeritus professor of history at Brigham Young University, points to the “extensive but expensive” maritime voyages of China’s past, such as Cheng Ho’s fleets that sailed to India, Persia and east Africa. Reflecting on these adventures, Professor Montgomery thinks that,
 
“When China ceased its maritime exploration in the early 15th century, it abandoned the strategic high ground to the Europeans. But in the early 21st century the West’s power is declining and China is on the ascent. It is the West, with Russia still somewhat in the space game, that is now abandoning the strategic high ground.

Consider, if you will, the course of history. What would the small Portuguese ships in their first ventures into the Indian Ocean done had they encountered Chinese ships? The Ming dynasty made a strategic mistake. There is a high probability that the People’s Republic will not repeat, but rather rectify, history.”
 
One another note, Peter Kennedy, who lives in Bangkok, imagines what the scene might have been like at the court of Queen Isabella of Spain if The Economist were available in 1492: 

“Adviser: There is this bloke Christopher Columbus waiting to see you. He wants money to go exploring across the Atlantic Ocean. Wants to reach Asia.

Queen: Sounds interesting

Adviser: Sounds a bit pointless to me and according to the venerable scribe, Economisticus, exploring is both pointless and a waste of money. He’ll never make it and we know all we need to know about the world. Besides the earth is flat and we’ll never see him again.

Queen: Tell him no then.”

David Nixon from Los Angeles sticks up for space cadets everywhere: “I am happy to be labelled a Buck Rogers. But are you comfortable being a Morlock?”

But on Sunday government forces returned after the local governor was sacked. Several governors have lost their jobs since Syria's uprising broke out in mid-March but mostly in an attempt to placate the protesters. The governor of Hama, widely popular, was reportedly fired because he was too soft on demonstrators. Since Sunday 22 people have been shot dead. Scores more have been injured and detained. Tanks remain outside the city but reported cuts in electricity and water—though as yet not communications—suggest things could get worse.

Hama, like other restive cities such as Deraa and Homs, has been systematically intimidated and attacked. But memories of the slaughter in 1982 give the city psychological and symbolic resonance. Hama's residents have erected barricades; some say they are willing to fight back. While Mr Assad's father Hafez's month-long siege on the city went unnoticed until weeks later, YouTube and Twitter ensure that the world can watch events in Hama as they unfold. More importantly, unlike the religious uprising in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which had limited support, Hama's peaceful protesters reflect the widespread—and seemingly growing—discontent across the country.

We will have a more extensive update in the print edition tomorrow.

Egypt has long dominated the Arab film industry and with it, the world of dubbing. But thanks to the increasing popularity of Syrian musalsalaat, or soap operas, filmed on location rather than in studios, the Syrian vernacular with its soft lilting tones is on the up. It is used in everything from "Bab al-Hara", a saga about a Damascene neighbourhood under the French mandate to programmes dealing with Islamic extremism and adultery. Even Turkish soap operas such as Gümüs—Nour in Arabic—have been been dubbed into Syrian. The Syrians have been faster on their feet commercially when it comes to dubbing, and have offered cheaper rates than the Egyptians, where much television output is still in the hands of lumbering state broadcasters. Many also think that Syrian Arabic is closer in sound to classical Arabic, so more appropriate to a pan-Arab audience.

By contrast, the voiceovers in dramas from India and its neighbours tend to use gruff Gulf Arabic, most often heard on the music channels playing monotonously in up-market cafés all over the region. "The choice of dialect in dubbing is based on various factors, including the closeness of traditions—Syrians have much in common with the Turks and Kuwaitis rub shoulders with the Indians—and how widely understood the language is," says Ramez Maluf, a media professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

Politics plays its part, too. Iran operates an Arabic satellite channel and makes use of its allies, Syria and Hizbullah, to do much of the translation. This is another way for Iran to subsidise them. Arabic students are usually interested in the region's politics and Syria's regional clout has led to a rise in demand for lessons in Levantine Arabic, says a language tutor in Damascus's Old City. More likely, however, language students like Damascus because it is cheap and easier to manage than Cairo (the Old City of Damascus has turned into a virtual campus for language students, full of bars and cheap eats). But most important, in Damascus, unlike in Beirut, Cairo or Tunis, you really do need to speak Arabic to get by.

As the Arab spring rumbles on, with two dictators toppled, another on his death bed in Saudi Arabia, and more under threat, the popularity of the different dialects may shift again. Post-revolutionary Cairo may flourish as the cultural and intellectual hub it once was and with it colloquial Egyptian. Particularly since Damascus, Sana'a and Tripoli look less appealing to students at the moment.

The reforms are intended to address Italy's budget deficit. Finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, sought almost €50 billion in fiscal adjustments to dispel decisively the danger that Italy could take the same road as Greece.

However, after disastrous performances by the right in recent local elections and referendums, Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, the junior partner in Mr Berlusconi's coalition, had called for tax cuts to restore the government's waning popularity.

Leaks of the draft agreed in cabinet show that Mr Tremonti got the upper hand, but that the savings he sought will not come quickly. Only €1.5 billion will take effect this year; another €5.5 billion should kick in next year; and the remaining €40 billion has been left for 2013 and 2014.

The delay will make it more difficult for Mr Tremonti to reassure the markets of Italy's underlying solidity. Last month Moody's rating agency said it was considering downgrading Italian debt. It may well now do so.

The immediate changes are strikingly modest: an increase in vehicle tax for large cars; staff cuts in an overseas trade promotion body; and restrictions on the use of official aircraft. In future, they will "only" be available to the president, the prime minister, the speakers of both houses of parliament, the head of the constitutional court and ministers travelling abroad on official business.

There were crumbs of comfort for Mr Bossi, though. He got a simplified, three-band income tax structure that the government says will mean most people pay less (though that is far from clear: the government also plans scrapping a wide range of allowances). But the reform will not take effect for another three years.

Meanwhile there is to be a "gradual revision" of VAT rates that could replace any revenue lost to government through lower income tax revenues. Only a couple of the measures address Italy's faltering growth: a tax break for young entrepreneurs; and a promised loosening-up of Italy's notoriously restrictive shopping hours in towns popular with tourists.

Perhaps most significantly, a reduction in politicians' salaries was pushed into the next legislature. The question of when that will start now becomes central to Italian politics: because this week's budget defers most of the pain until 2013, political commentators are talking about a general election early next year.

That is far sooner than Mr Berlusconi had wanted. On trial in three different courts, and with his approval rating below 30% and falling, the prime minister desperately needs time to recover his footing.

His way of dealing with one tough problem this week may well have come at the cost of creating another.

JUST as France was beginning to pick up the pieces after the shock arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in May on charges of attempted rape and sexual assault, the country today faced the stunning news that the case was beginning to fall apart. At a brief hearing on July 1st, a Manhattan judge decided to release Mr Strauss-Kahn from house arrest, without bail, after prosecutors expressed doubts about the credibility of the hotel chambermaid who brought the charges. The question now is not only whether the case will collapse altogether, but whether DSK, as he is known in France, could even revive his political career.

The latest twist concerns serious doubts about the maid’s credibility. A day after the alleged assault, she made a telephone call to a jailed man, recorded by the police, in which she discussed possible financial gain from the case, according to two officials quoted in the New York Times. He and others had deposited as much as $100,000, said the report, into her bank account over the past two years. There was also inconsistency in her story about her application for asylum in the United States from her home country, Guinea, according to a letter from the district attorney’s office to the defendant’s lawyers, as well as tax fraud.

None of which necessarily means that her allegations are therefore false. The hotel maid’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, insisted outside the Manhattan courtroom today that “she has never once changed a single thing” to her story about the sexual assault itself. DNA evidence suggests that a sexual encounter did indeed take place. However, even if the allegations are true, the maid’s credibility has already been destroyed, and this alone will seriously weaken any chances of obtaining a conviction.

This extraordinary turn in the saga raises numerous questions, not least of them why it took so long for the New York prosecutors to uncover the credibility problem. For France, which has been gripped by the affair, the burning question is whether Mr Strauss-Kahn might now be acquitted, and if so whether it is too late for the ex-IMF boss to return to his home country, and even run in the 2012 presidential election as the Socialist candidate against President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France seems to be divided. From the start, and unlike in America, 57% of French people thought that the whole affair was a conspiracy. Although they were shocked by the accusations, and many women’s groups were emboldened by the case to speak about sexual harassment by politicians, the French were almost as indignant at the way DSK was treated. The “perp walk” was singled out as a humiliating breach of the principle of the presumption of innocence. If he is acquitted, Mr Strauss-Kahn could well benefit from sympathy at the idea of a man destined for the French presidency brought down by an overly aggressive American justice system.

Certainly, the Socialist Party is delighted by today’s news. Martine Aubry, the party leader, who this week declared her own candidacy for the Socialist primary in October, said she “hoped with all her heart” that Mr Strauss-Kahn would “get out of this nightmare”. Long before his arrest, and while he was still at the IMF, she had made a pact with Mr Strauss-Kahn that the two of them would not run against each other for the Socialist nomination, and she has often appeared a reluctant candidate. In theory, were he to be acquitted, she could stand down. But nominations for the primary close on July 13th, which, unless the rules are rewritten, may be too late for DSK; he is due to appear in court again on July 18th.

Would voters be ready to forgive Mr Strauss-Kahn if the case falls apart? It is not clear. Since his arrest, various stories that used to circulate only among inner Parisian circles have emerged about his persistent womanising, and in particular allegations of sexual assault in 2002 by Tristane Banon, a young writer. The French are famously tolerant of extra-marital affairs; but even they draw the line at aggression. Over the past month or so, the mood has changed. Thanks to the DSK affair, two women brought charges of sexual assault against Georges Tron, an ex-minister, who was promptly dismissed from government, a move unthinkable in the pre-DSK era.

Yet nobody is ever quite dead in French politics, and voters like to reward those they see as having paid for their offences. After all, Alain Juppé, the current foreign minister, was convicted of political corruption in France, only to be reinvented as an authoritative political figure. Recent history suggests DSK’s resuscitation, even if not in time for 2012, cannnot be ruled out.

If all goes according to plan during this weekend’s consultations by the eurogroup—a teleconference of finance ministers of countries that belong to the currency—Greece’s creditors will shortly agree on a fresh bail-out package to replace the €110 billion agreed a year ago.

Athens now expects to receive a €12 billion loan tranche within a fortnight from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund, which should enable the government to meet debt redemptions and pay civil servants' salaries at the end of the month.

But the domestic cost has been high. Almost 200 people received hospital treatment after anti-austerity riots outside parliament on the night of Wednesday’s vote, which the governing PanHellenic Socialist Movement (PaSok) party won by 155 votes to 138. Seventeen extremists face charges of inciting violence. Three days later, teargas fumes were still wafting through narrow streets and shops around central Syntagma square, scene of the worst clashes.

A prosecutor is investigating claims of excessive police violence, denied by Christos Papoutsis, the citizens’ protection minister. The tourism ministry, worried by reports that wealthy Americans were cancelling trips to Athens, released a statement claiming that the protests “did not represent in any way everyday life in the city” and that visitors “continue to enjoy a secure and tranquil environment”.

Greek politicians are feeling battered, too. Conservative European leaders, including Angela Merkel, have rounded on Antonis Samaras, the opposition New Democracy leader, for rejecting their appeals for unity among Greek political parties to confront the debt crisis. A defiant Mr Samaras claims the latest austerity measures will not bring an end to Greece’s recession, now in its third year.

George Papandreou, the prime minister and PaSok leader, is also feeling the heat. Graffiti around Syntagma square say “Go home GAP” (the premier’s initials), referring to his American birthplace. A stencilled portrait on a wall is labelled “Traitor”, reflecting the socialists’ acceptance of continued economic surveillance by the EU and the IMF—considered by leftists a surrender of the country’s sovereignty. 

Yet Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister, has boosted his credentials by securing enough support to push through the necessary legislation after just one week in the job. Mr Venizelos, a tough lawyer from northern Greece who unsuccessfully challenged Mr Papandreou for the PaSok leadership in 2007, worked hard to persuade potential socialist defectors ahead of Wednesday’s parliamentary showdown, painting a grim picture of an impoverished Greece having to return to the drachma if the package was rejected.

Mr Venizelos’s task over the summer will be to implement the new measures. He has to close the tax revenue gap currently undermining this year’s budget, and launch an ambitious €50 billion privatistion plan agreed with international lenders. Progress on both fronts would ensure Athens gets its next slug of loans in September as agreed. A delay, as Mr Venizelos already knows, could trigger a repeat of this week’s nail-biting effort to avert catastrophe.

Guards eventually regained control, raising the possibility that they were in on the incident from the start. In Colonel Muammar’s Qaddafi’s Libya, little happens in the vicinity of foreign media that is not scripted. The government cloisters the world’s press at the Rixos to give its view of NATO bombings. Moussa Ibrahim, its bombastic spokesman, regularly holds press conferences: “Every Libyan mother will be a bomb, a killing machine.” Loudspeakers embedded in the ceiling of every room summon reporters to inspection tours of NATO targets, often in the middle of the night.

The point, repeated relentlessly, is that civilians have been killed by Western bombs and that the people remain loyal to the Brother Leader. Crowds chanting his name greet reporters everywhere they are taken on official tours.

But nowhere else. The picture presented by the regime often falls apart, fast. Coffins at funerals have sometimes turned out to be empty. Bombing sites are recycled. An injured seven-year-old in a hospital was the victim of a car crash, according to a note passed on surreptitiously by a nurse. Journalists who point out such blatant massaging of facts are harangued in the hotel corridors.

By war reporters’ standards, the Rixos is not a bad abode. It remains safer than the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo during the civil war there in the early 1990s. The food is a lot better than at the foreign correspondents’ once-favoured haunt in Baghdad, the Hamra Hotel. At $400 a night, and $150 for lunch and dinner, it ought to be. Alcohol, though, is in short supply in Islamic Libya. The staff of the hotel, opened by a Turkish company 18 months ago, fled in May. A Swiss operator is taking over, with profitability assured for the time being. Many influential Libyans, including—it is said—one of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, have rooms in the Rixos, as it is deemed safe from NATO bombing.

Journalists are not meant to leave without a minder but many slip out. The city is full of spies and informers who have on occasions detained reporters who have been spotted unaccompanied. Following one recent outing, journalists returning to the hotel to the sound of NATO bombs and Libyan gunfire found a note on their beds saying, "There will be spraying in the garden area and nearby balcony, in addition to machine noise. Accordingly it is recommended to close tight the windows. Apologies for disturbance."

Blow-up
Which emerging economies are at greatest risk of overheating? This interactive chart, based on an analysis by The Economist, ranks 27 economies according to their risk of boiling over. We take each economy’s temperature using six different indicators. Click away and let us know what you think

China’s economy explained
Chinese investment reached nearly half of GDP in 2010, a staggeringly high level which most economists think is storing up trouble. A three-minute video explores domestic investment in infrastructure and housing; a videographic runs the numbers on Chinese investment overseas

Audio: Gifts for Greeks
Stefanos Manos, former finance minister of Greece, reveals all about the country’s scandalous spending habits

Technology: Seaborne telemetry
Gadgets from Formula One racing make a splash in the world of competitive sailing

Business: Mobile phones in India
India’s call-and-text take on social networking is a roaring success

Business education: Game theory
In the video-game industry, the boring project manager means more to the
success of a project than the flashy designer

Daily chart: Quantifying history
Measured in years lived, this century has already been longer than the 17th century

Culture: Collecting with a vengeance
The Harry Ransom Centre’s aggressive acquisition strategy has ruffled feathers, but it will benefit scholars for years to come

Asia: A cold-hearted door policy
Tokyo’s high-street luxury retailers can’t be bothered to join the sweltering masses when it comes to energy conservation

Business: Privatising Amtrak
Congressmen debate selling the American rail operator’s most profitable bit

Africa: Up, up and away
The joys and trials of flying in Africa

Middle East: Dubstars
The intricacies of doing voice-overs in Arabic

Culture: Picasso in Ramallah
A loan from the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven pits paintbrushes against M16s

Audio: Bureaucratic boondoggles
A Greek entrepreneur discusses the difficulties of doing business in the country

What to do about Greece? Events over the past three tumultuous weeks have led many observers to believe that the country is on the brink of defaulting on its debt, which could have nasty and untold consequences for the euro area, as well as global stockmarkets. Last week we warned that “The opportunity for Europe’s leaders to avoid disaster is shrinking fast”. We argued that the option being touted by some that Greece should “embrace default, walk away from its debts, abandon the euro and bring back the drachma” would be “ruinous, both for Greece and the EU” and we repeated our call for “an orderly restructuring of Greece’s debts”.    

Gabriel Stein, a director at Lombard Street Research, disagrees:
 
“Ultimately, the only solution for Greece is one which promotes stronger output growth. Remaining inside the euro will do nothing for Greek growth prospects, whereas exiting and devaluing would at least hold out some hope for the country, particularly if this was combined with economic reform that would be easier to undertake with a lower cost base.

Nor would a Greek exit be disastrous for the euro area. The euro area must eventually develop into a fiscal union in order to survive and flourish. But it is all but impossible to see that happening as long as it involves German (and Finnish, Dutch, etc) taxpayers taking on responsibility for the debts of Greece, let alone of Italy.

Only when the southern Europeans, which never should have been in the euro in the first place, are out, will the single currency truly flourish.”

Our briefing on Greece and the euro made one reader feel “sad”. Not by events on the ground, but by our “subsequent points of analysis that wavered between invective and sophistry.” Vasilis Vourkoutiotis, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa, has some sympathy for the protesters, who, “may be young and scruffy, but do not assume that this makes them stupid. They know that the days of ‘living well on borrowed money’ are gone forever—and they are angry that they were led to this place by our leaders in the first place.

Did your article offer any quotes from protesters indicating that they expect or even want the old system back?  No—because they don’t.  They want to move forward. In their youthful, angry, but idealistic way they are unclear how to do this, but this does not mean that their opinions don’t count. 

If a default is not a question of if, but when, then the majority of Greek people would like to just get it over with. Who in their right mind would prefer to lose a limb by a thousand small cuts, rather than one clean stroke?”

Other readers submitted their thoughts on what should be done to save Greece. Paulo Sousa, a financial consultant in The Hague, wants the EU,

“To underwrite Greece’s entire privatisation programme. This would not only provide cash flow to the Greek government but would also make it more palatable for the rest of Europe to continue pumping money into the rescue by replacing the writing of painful blank cheques with the purchase of real assets. Even non-euro countries could join the effort.”

Writing from London, Sir Philip Whitehead thinks “It is time to face a few basic facts. Greece has no economy that can realistically sustain the amount of assistance that is being considered”. He suggests one solution to the country’s woes would be to,

“Place the Olympic games back on Greek soil once and for all. It would give the country a regular global event, creating jobs and services. It might not solve the whole problem but it would help mitigate the problem going forward. It would be an historically fitting end to the merry-go-round of destinations in which the games are held.”

Yves de San, from Beirut, proffers an historical analogy: 

“If China could accept under duress that some of its territories, islands and rocks should pass sovereign management temporarily to foreigners, why couldn’t Europe accept a similar fate for some islands and rocks in the Aegean Sea in exchange for a clean bail-out, perhaps by China?”

Ronald Diorio simply thinks that, 

“Germany should buy Greece for at least the amount of its outstanding debt. This would give Germany a genuine Mediterranean state where much of its multitude of people already find solace from Germany’s cold and damp. Let the negotiations begin.”  Mr Diorio writes from Naples, Florida.

Meanwhile, John Halstead in Oxford maintains that our leader on Greece,

“Wielded its usual omniscient tone on what ought to be done for Greece and the euro zone. It might be nice if you mentioned that the unfolding disaster was predicted in its entirety by the anti-EU right and that all of these predictions were ignored by your newspaper in its unceasing and baffling pro-European stance.

Countries now have interest rates unsuited to their economies, inevitably leading to recession. Without free-floating exchange rates, countries lose one of their most powerful bulwarks against a downturn. Now that these economies have inevitably failed, the case for fiscal integration is being made and we are moving just that bit closer to the European super-state. Was that the idea all along?” 

Finally, Colin Leisk from Paris points out that “The caption beneath your picture of Angela Merkel, as she tries to chart Germany’s difficult course on Greece and the euro crisis, places her politically as ‘Between Scylla and Charybdis’. This is very apt, except in one respect: Scylla and Charybdis mark the entrance to the dangerous waters of the Strait of Messina and are in Italy”.

Mr Leisk thinks this could well portend rougher economic waters ahead.

It is a meeting of winners whose economic relationship is deepening by the day. Trade leaped nearly 40% in 2010 to €130 billion ($185 billion); that accounts for one-third of the European Union’s total trade with China. German companies have invested some €21 billion there. Investment flows the other way are small but growing, and Germany wants more. The widespread fear of Chinese economic might—as Charlemagne wrote yesterday, the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, is soon to issue a paper saying that China “is taking over Europe”—found little echo in Berlin as Mr Wen came to town.

The visit marks the final burial of the ill feeling that erupted four years ago when the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had the temerity to receive the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of restive Tibet, in her office. One Chinese diplomat grumbled at the time that Mrs Merkel viewed China as a bigger version of communist East Germany, where she was born and raised.

That is all forgotten, at least on the official level. In an apparent gesture of goodwill towards Europe, last week China released from detention Ai Weiwei, an artist, and Hu Jia, another dissident. Still, China continues to bridle at the attention paid by ordinary Germans to its human-rights abuses. In a bizarre column for Handelsblatt, a business newspaper, China's vice-foreign minister complained of “arrogant accusations” by the German press.

For their part, the Germans want to avoid making their relationship with China look too mercenary. “Intensive polit. & econ. relations with China are in Germ. interest, don’t rule out plain talk on human rights,” tweeted the government spokesman, Steffen Seibert. But neither country wants such issues to spoil the mood.

For the moment, interests matter more than values. The United States remains Germany’s most important ally, but on economic issues the world’s top two exporters increasingly speak the same language. Germany and China joined forces at last year’s G20 summit in Seoul to block an American proposal to cap current-account imbalances. Long-running economic arguments may, slowly, be abating. Although China’s lax protection of intellectual-property rights remains an irritant, it is modelling its patent-protection standards on those of Germany rather than on the weaker practices of the United States, notes Michael Hüther of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.

Some tensions continue to fester. The EU, of which Germany is the weightiest member, still does not recognise China as a market economy, which exposes it to trade sanctions. A new dispute has flared up over the EU’s plans to tax carbon emissions on flights to and from Europe. China has threatened to boycott purchases of Airbus planes over the issue.

Yet Mr Wen and Mrs Merkel are unlikely to let such concerns get in the way of their burgeoning friendship. “Whatever global issue we have, China is part of the problem and part of the solution,” says Eberhard Sandschneider of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Along with its western allies, Germany wants Chinese help to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, restrain North Korea’s aggression, pacify Sudan (which is about to split up into two separate countries) and avert climate catastrophe. The EU’s failure to act coherently on foreign policy makes Germany by default China’s most important European partner.

The flurry of contacts and agreements between German and Chinese ministers touches on everything from hospital management to electric cars. The creation of a mechanism for such discussions is more important than the subject matter (even if Chinese ministers count for less than Communist party bosses). Such consultations have helped Germany and France through rough patches in their relationship, points out Mr Sandschneider. They mean that “you have to meet on a regular basis, whether you like it or not.”