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The article discusses the politics involved with reproductive health. A decade ago, the world's leaders met in Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). There, they crafted a plan to achieve "reproductive health and rights for all" by 2015. That plan was wide-ranging--from more contraception and fewer maternal deaths to better education for girls and greater equality for women. The ICPD plan also aimed to change the way those at the sharp end of making policy and delivering services thought about reproduction. It wanted to move away from a focus on family planning (and, by extension, government policies on population control) towards a broader view of sexual health, and systems and services shaped by individual needs. Over the past week, hundreds of government officials, public-health experts and activists met in London to mark the anniversary of the ICPD and to take stock of progress towards achieving its goals. On paper, that progress has been impressive. Governments around the world have introduced legislation that reflects the ICPD's aims. But when it comes to turning policy into practice, "mixed success" is the verdict of a report card just released by Countdown 2015, a coalition of voluntary bodies involved in the field. According to the United Nations' Population Fund (UNFPA), 61% of married couples now use contraception, an 11% increase since 1994. This has helped push global population growth down from 82m to 76m people a year over the past decade. But in some places--particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia--birth rates remain high. Few poor countries have earmarked enough of their budgets to meet their citizens' reproductive-health needs. Nor have donors lived up to expectations.

This article describes a workshop conducted by Joe DiVanna, a consultant, with the purpose of writing a book in a day. No problem, you might think, to judge by the work of Florida Romance Writers, Inc, which recently ran a book in a day workshop for would-be writers of pulp fiction. In 1992 Oxfam, a British charity, challenged some authors to write a short story in a day, then published the result. Probably the most successful--albeit the work of years rather than hours--is "Q", an elaborate novel about the Reformation, concocted by a team of four Italian writers calling themselves Luther Blissett. Given infinite time, logicians say, 1,000 monkeys would accidentally hammer out the entire works of Shakespeare. Joe DiVanna, on the other hand, is not someone often afflicted by self-doubt, or the doubts of others. He is a polymath to whom words come easily, and who has committed many of them to paper. The 30 were a selection of bankers, management consultants and strategists from various British companies. They were able to produce examples of passion in the workplace (workers who saved a South African tea factory by volunteering to take a pay cut) and emotional commitment (the parable of two stonemasons: one sees his job as chipping stone, the other says he's building a cathedral.

Discusses the outlook for economic growth in London, England as of March 2002. Information about population and housing, according to a paper published by the Centre for Economic and Business Research; Idea that there is an impending crisis in housing, according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social policy think-tank; Indication that the increasing population is straining the transport system; Issue of Ken Livingstone's London Plan that will force councils to release land for development.

Presents the author's experience as a journalist who joined 'The Economist' in 1933 and retired as finance director in 1978. History of the journal, which began as a weekly paper in London, England; Impact of war, the communications revolution, and economic and social change; Outlook for the periodical.

The article looks at the decrease in crime in Great Britain following the terrorist bombings of July 2005. It has long been the subject of speculation among the police and criminologists: what would happen if all the officers who now spend so much of their time taking statements, profiling criminals and moving pieces of paper around were suddenly put on the streets? Crime figures released by London's Metropolitan Police this week provide the best answer yet. Following the bombings of July 7th and 21st, thousands of police officers materialised on London's pavements, many of them sporting brightly coloured jackets. Drawn from all over the city, they were assigned to guard potential targets such as railway stations. The show of force did not just scare off terrorists. There was less crime in July than in May or June, which is unusual: the warmer month tends to bring out criminal tendencies, as windows are left open and alcohol is imbibed alfresco.

The article focuses on international banking and a British court case. Normally, an insolvent, little-known British paint company would interest few bankers besides those who had lent it money. However, any international bank that has made a secured loan under English law--which is used in many jurisdictions around the globe--might well keep an eye on the case of Spectrum Plus. Earlier this month the Court of Appeal in London said, in effect, that the House of Lords, Britain's highest court, should have the final say in a test case brought by National Westminster Bank about Spectrum Plus, to which it had given a secured loan. At issue is whether NatWest enjoys a fixed or a floating charge over Spectrum Plus's book debts and their proceeds. The difference is important, because fixed charges give banks the legal right to payment from a bust borrower ahead of all other creditors. With a floating charge, they must join the queue and face more risk of losing their money. NatWest asked the High Court last year whether security (identical to that in the Siebe Gorman ruling) that it had taken for a loan to Spectrum Plus gave it a fixed charge. Recent doubts over the correctness of Siebe Gorman date from 2001.In a New Zealand case known as Brumark, senior English judges hearing the final appeal in London ruled that whether a charge was fixed or floating depended on substance, not form: what mattered was not what the parties had agreed on paper, but how easily the lender could gain control of the assets on which the loan was secured. The appeal to the Lords will surely cause a re-examination of this ruling too. It will interest the British government as well as bankers. Until the law changed last September, some government departments were first in line after fixed-charge holders when firms went under. Now they must wait their turn, at an estimated cost to the state so far of £70m ($128m).

Six Algerian men and one Ethiopian were arrested in a north London flat this week in which a smidgen of ricin, a lethal poison was discovered. Ricin is derived from castor beans using a simple chemical process involving easily obtainable materials, chiefly lye, acetone, a coffee grinder and some old newspapers. The latest raid in London is probably a result of another success: the discovery last month of false papers, protection suits, and chemicals suitable for bombmaking in a flat in Paris, where four North Africans were arrested. Documents found after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan show that al-Qaeda had investigated ricin, among other poisons. The government is planning new laws to update the country's disaster planning, which is currently a cluttered mixture of cold-war relics and ad hoc measures introduced since September 11th 2001.