Enlarging the European Union
Chicken or Kiev?
The European Union must not abandon its most successful policy when it comes to Ukraine

IT IS, quite simply, the European Union’s greatest achievement. The offer of EU membership to its neighbours in the east and south has proved a masterly way of stabilising troubled countries and inducing them to [...]

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Business this week
Arun Sarin said that he would step down as chief executive of Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile-phone operator by sales. During his five years in the job Mr Sarin endured rocky relations with shareholders, some of whom wanted him to sell the company’s 45% stake in America’s Verizon Wireless. But he also made [...]

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Politics this week
Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, came under pressure to resign after more revelations of payments made to him when he was mayor of Jerusalem (and a minister) by an American businessman, Morris Talansky. See article
Iran’s parliament elected Ali Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator, as its speaker. He is a critic and rival of [...]

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rade in wildlife
Just let them get on with it
Poor people who rely on nature’s gifts should be helped to help themselves

CONSERVATIONISTS and animal-welfare types please take note: trade in wildlife products, as long as it is properly managed, is an indispensable boon for the poor. And what is more, it’s big business, worth around [...]

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Al-Assaf, Paulson Agree on Saudis Keeping Dollar Peg (Update1)
May 31 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf agreed that the Gulf kingdom benefits from keeping its currency pegged to the dollar.
The [...]

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Dollar Posts Monthly Gain, Reaches 3-Month High on Fed Outlook
May 31 (Bloomberg) — The dollar rose this month, reaching the highest since February against the yen, as economic reports signaling the U.S. economy may avoid a recession led traders to bet the Federal [...]

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U.S. Stocks Rise as Economic Outlook Improves, Oil Prices Drop
May 31 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose this week, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its second straight monthly advance, after the government said economic growth accelerated and oil dropped the most [...]

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EU ENLARGEMENT
In the nick of time
If the recent entry of 12 new EU members had been delayed much longer, it might never have happened, argues David Rennie (interviewed here). That would have been an historic error

IN ITALY’S recent general election, voters in the north of the country were greeted by posters showing a Native American [...]

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The Democratic nomination
Looking dicey for Hillary
An obscure committee is the next battleground in the Democratic presidential nomination

FOR Hillary Clinton, it is the final throw of the dice, and the odds look terrible. On Saturday May 31st, the Democratic Party’s hitherto obscure Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) meets in a Marriott hotel on the [...]

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Subprime Finds New Victim as Muni Defaults Triple
Commentary by Joe Mysak
May 30 (Bloomberg) — The amount of municipal bonds that have defaulted this year is already more than triple what it was for all of 2007.
And who could doubt [...]

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