The Economist - At a Glance

The most popular ways to fiddle expenses EXAGGERATING expenses—thievery of a sort—may become more popular as recession worsens. A recent survey for GlobalExpense, an accounting firm, found that 22% of Britons who were polled admitted to bumping up claims at some point. Nearly a third said that fiddling expenses was acceptable, for example because of below-inflation pay rises and other miserliness by employers. Three-quarters of dodgy claims were inflated by GBP20 ($30) or less, perhaps explaining why unwary bosses only challenged 4% of claims. Those who bump up their expenses are most likely to do so when claiming mileage driven for work, or for living costs. ...

Coups and attempted coups are going out of fashion REGIME change nowadays tends to be made through democratic means than by an army takeover. The number of coups has fallen in recent years, with only one recorded attempt in 2007, according to the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, a think-tank. This is a steep drop from the decades from 1960 to 1989, when an average of 12 coups or attempted coups were made every year. Many coups during the cold war years were backed by the Soviet Union or America as each superpower tried to gain footholds in strategically important countries, particularly in Latin America. But the biggest change was in sub-Saharan Africa, as decolonisation, especially in the 1960s, left weak governments vulnerable to the armed forces and to foreign mercenaries. The region is still the most prone to coups, although Asia is not far behind. ...

The company Christmas party is falling victim to the credit crunch DRUNKEN passes at colleagues, ill-advised “secret Santa” presents and embarrassing dance moves. Chalk up three more victims of the credit crunch, as beleaguered companies take the axe to Christmas parties. According to a survey of members of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a British professional-development body, 60% of organisations will host a party or lunch for staff this year, down from nearly 70% last year. Although manufacturing and non-profit sectors are cutting back most, more of these firms will still put on parties than the Scrooge-like public sector. Is it better to have partied and lost than to have never partied at all? ...

The American consumer unexpectedly splashes out on Black Friday RETAILERS did their best to entice shoppers to splash their cash on Black Friday, November 28th, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. Massive discounts probably helped to get the shoppers to open their wallets and purses. Shoppers spent $534m online on Black Friday, up from $531m in 2007, according to comScore, a market-research firm. This compares with a drop in online retail spending of 4% in the first 23 days of November, when shoppers spent $8.2 billion, down from $8.5 billion in 2007. Now merchants will hope that shoppers continue to spend on Cyber Monday. Some 84% of retailers say they are offering a promotion to entice shoppers, up from 70% last year. But canny buyers know how to make their money go farther. Traffic to coupon websites shot up by 33% in October compared with a year earlier. ...

Where suspects, and dogs, have been hit by police Tasers BRITAIN has one of the gentlest police forces in the world. Fewer than 7,000 of its 140,000 officers are licensed to carry guns, and then only on authorised operations. Now they are about to get tougher. This week the government announced plans to equip up to a quarter of officers in England and Wales with Taser stun guns. Since 2004, Tasers had been available only to trained firearms officers; now police forces will be allowed to arm officers after a three-day training course. This follows a year-long trial in which officers recorded who was being zapped, and where. Of the 90 men, women and dogs who were stunned, five were children. Of those who had Tasers drawn on them, 60% were drunk or on drugs, and another 20% were judged by officers to be suffering from mental illness. No one was killed but 64% of those who were electrocuted were injured, and one in seven was taken to hospital. ...

A videographic mapping the war in Congo over the past 15 years A EUROPEAN military force might yet be sent to eastern Congo in addition to an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force. This week the government of Belgium, the former colonial power in Congo, said that it would be willing to contribute soldiers to a European force. Ongoing conflict in the east of Congo has worsened this year as a dissident Tutsi general, Laurent Nkunda, who has close ties to the Rwandan government, has launched an assault in the region. Although Mr Nkunda has backed away from threats to attack Goma, the main city in the east, the lot of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians remains desperate. Congo is now at the bottom of global measures of both health and wealth, behind even Rwanda, its troublesome neighbour. To get an idea of the background to the conflict in Congo, you can now watch a short videographic here —a combination of moving maps and charts—and listen to an accompanying narrative that tells a history of the past 15 years in which millions of people have died. ...

Where hostility to migrants is most intense ATTITUDES to immigration vary widely in Europe and America. According to a study of seven countries published by the German Marshall Fund, Italians are the most suspicious of migrants, with almost 70% of respondents to an opinion poll saying that the majority of those in their country are there illegally. At the other end of the scale, most Germans and Dutch thought that immigrants were there legally. However, when asked if immigration was a problem or an opportunity, more Germans saw as it as a problem (as did a big majority of Americans and Britons). In troubled economic times hostility to migrants may grow. ...

The education gap between the richest and poorest within developing countries GLOBAL public spending on education rose from a median 4.5% of GDP in 1999 to 4.9% in 2006, according to a new report by UNESCO, the UN's education agency. The poorest countries invested 3.5%, compared with 5.6% by the slightly richer middle income countries, and 5.3% by developed countries. But spending money wisely also matters. Huge inequalities exist between the richest and poorest within many countries. In India, a 17-22 year old in the richest quintile has had an average of 11.1 years in education, compared with only 4.4 years for those in the poorest quintile. This gap is also big in Peru and the Philippines. The difference in Bangladesh is similar to that in Nicargaua, a much richer country, showing it is using resources more effectively. ...

The cost of goods and services offered by cybercriminals BANK details are the most popular single item for sale by online fraudsters, according to a new report by Symantec, an internet-security firm. They are also the priciest, perhaps because the average account for which details are offered has a balance of nearly $40,000. Sales of details of credit cards make up some 30% of all goods and services on offer on “underground” servers, and nearly 60% of their value. Cards without security codes (or CVV2 numbers) are harder to exploit, and are usually cheaper. A criminal may wish to use “cash-out” services to convert stolen online goods into real currency for a slice of their value. Scams involving the design and hosting of fake webpages for phishing attempts, as well as the “mailer” applications used to send phishing e-mails, are also popular. ...

A jump in mentions of “deflation” in news stories ONLY a few months ago, inflation was the main concern of central banks as the price of oil and other commodities soared. Deflation was not only unthinkable but rarely mentioned in the press. Back in August, only six stories in the Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune and the Times mentioned “deflation”. In November, there have already been 50, and new figures released this week will mean many more. America's consumer-price index fell by 1% in October from September as oil prices plunged, the largest monthly fall since the series began in 1947. Britain's inflation rate has also fallen from its record high of 5.2% in September to 4.5% in October, the biggest drop in 16 years. ...

How countries' greenhouse-gas emissions have changed since 1990 BARACK OBAMA said on Tuesday November 18th that his presidency will “mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change”. According to new UN figures on greenhouse-gas emissions much remains to be done. Some 40 industrialised countries (though not China and India, for example) report emissions data to the UN as part of its Convention on Climate Change. Some of these countries, notably in eastern and central European, have shown big reductions from 1990 to 2006, driven in part by the collapse of heavy industries. By contrast emissions in Spain, Portugal and Ireland grew enormously as their economies surged ahead. Australia, Canada and America also pumped out more climate-warming gases. Despite a 5% decline since 1990 across the 40 countries, the recent trend is upwards. Since 2000 emissions from the former Soviet Union countries have grown by 7.4%, and those of rich countries by 2%. ...

How many years of healthy living before you die? PEOPLE are mostly living longer, but are those extra years healthy ones? Whereas the life expectancy for men aged 50 in European countries varies by some nine years, the years of healthy life differ enormously. In 2005, an Estonian man of 50 could look foward to just over nine years more of good health (defined as having no limits on activity). In contrast a typical Danish man could expect 23.6 years, according to a new study published in the Lancet, a British medical journal. The gap between East and West in both life expectancy and years spent in good health is considerable. ...

Where will President Barack Obama visit first? THANKS to its “special relationship” with America, Britain is firm favourite to be the first country that Barack Obama will visit as president, according to Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker. Although Nicolas Sarkozy will no longer be president of the European Union in 2009, France is offered at 3/1 to receive President Obama. Germany, despite Mr Obama's rapturous welcome in Berlin earlier this year, is given longer odds not only over its Gallic neighbour, but also Iraq and Afghanistan. At 10/1, Kenya is reckoned a more likely first stop than Israel or Japan. ...

Worsening forecasts for jobs and growth in the OECD AS THE leaders of the G20 countries gather in Washington, DC, to discuss the financial crisis on Saturday November 15th, the economic outlook is grim. Gloomy forecasts just released by the OECD predict that America, Japan, the euro area and the OECD as a whole will slide into recession in 2009—if they are not already there. Barack Obama faces a tough challenge: America's output is set to shrink by 0.9%, although it should bounce back more strongly the following year. Inflation will continue to fall, although Japan will again suffer from deflation. And the unemployment rate will climb to 7.5% in America and 9% in the euro area. ...

The world will use more renewable sources to produce electricity AS THE world grows richer and more populous ever more energy is needed. Rising fossil-fuel prices and supply concerns have prompted many countries to invest in other ways of meeting their energy needs, ranging from new nuclear power stations to wave and solar installations. In 2006 18.3% of the world's electricity was produced using renewable sources. But by 2030 this will rise to 23.3%, as technology gets cheaper and fossil fuels remain pricey, according to the annual report from the International Energy Agency. Energy produced by hydro and wind power will double by 2030 accounting for most of the growth. But the share of electricity generated by renewables is still far behind that of dirty-but-cheap coal, which will rise to almost 44%. Nuclear fuel, however, will drop to just over 10%. ...

Chief executives' pay at the biggest companies in Europe and America RUNNING a big company is a big job with a pay packet to match. But heading an American firm is far more rewarding than leading a European business. Chief executives of America's 50 biggest companies are paid on average 75% more than their European counterparts, according to a new report by Hay Group, a consultancy. They also take a far bigger chunk of their package in long-term incentives, such as stock options. Lee Scott of Wal-Mart, the best-paid CEO, is heavily incentivised. By contrast, Franz Humer of Roche (who has since stepped down) earned the biggest salary, but a smaller bonus and incentives. Steve Ballmer's relatively paltry pay is supplemented by his big shareholding in Microsoft. EDF, a state-controlled energy company, is laudably careful with French taxpayers' money. ...

Some of the bloodiest one-day battles in history THE first day of the Somme offensive was among the bloodiest days in the history of warfare. About 70,000 soldiers, most of them British, were killed, wounded, taken prisoner or went missing in the fighting on July 1st 1916. In terms of one-day battles only Borodino, the most brutal one-day encounter of the Napoleonic wars, bears comparison in modern times—though perhaps more casualties were sustained over a 24-hour period during prolonged fighting at Leipzig in 1813 and in the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. Huge casualty figures reported for ancient and medieval battles should be treated with caution; few are eye-witness reports and chroniclers were prone to exaggeration. Head-to-head combat pales in comparison with the deadliness of the nuclear bombings by America of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which claimed 140,000 and 85,000 lives. ...

Which Europeans use most cannabis? LEVELS of cannabis use in Europe remain high by historical standards, according to a new report on drug use from the EU's drug-monitoring arm. Around a quarter of all Europeans aged between 15 and 64, or some 72m people, have tried cannabis. The Dutch are not the keenest spliff smokers in Europe, despite lenient laws: the Danes, French and Britons are most likely to have puffed on a joint at some point in their lives. The highest levels of usage are reported among people between the ages of 15 and 24. ...

Where it all went right for Barack Obama THE final results of America's presidential election are likely to show Barack Obama garnering 364 electoral-college votes to John McCain's 174 (though North Carolina and Missouri are yet to declare). Mr Obama's 50-state strategy helped to swing nine states in his favour while forcing Mr McCain to devote valuable resources to defending what should have been solid Republican territory. Mr Obama's victory is largely a result of his winning over two-thirds of young and first-time voters and gaining 95% of the black vote. Some 66% of Latinos also cast a ballot for him. He also improved on John Kerry's appeal in 2004 to white graduates and picked up more votes than Mr McCain among independents and Catholics (a vital swing group in states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio). ...

Where your identity is more likely to be stolen INTERNET users in Britain are more likely to fall victim to identity theft than their peers elsewhere in Europe and North America. In a recent survey of 6,000 online shoppers in six countries by PayPal and Ipsos Research, 14% of respondents in Britain said that they have had their identities stolen online, compared with only 3% in Germany. More than half of respondents said that they used personal dates and names as passwords, making it relatively easy for scammers to gain access to accounts. The French are particularly cavalier, with two-thirds using easily guessed passwords and over 80% divulging personal data, such as birthdays, on social-networking sites. ...