"After three decades in power, José Eduardo dos Santos is presiding over a resource boom. But too few Angolans are seeing the benefits."

"But if prices in Dubai seem inflated, they have nothing on Luanda. Last year Angola’s capital was the most expensive city in the world, according to Mercer, a New York-based consultancy."

3D printers are already used as components and prototypes for some products. A future town may only need a printer instead of a factory.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia is getting worse despite the international efforts of the EU, UN, and even countries like Iran. As naval forces make the shipping routes through the Gulf of Aden safer the pirates move farther afield. In one case they attacked a ship 1,300 miles off the coast.

What it looks like to try to issue biometric-based identification cards to a country with over a billion people. Contractors have already created a database of 1 million people, only 0.1% of the total population.

Unemployment and poverty rates are rising the fastest in some unlikely places. It’s no longer cities like Detroit that are facing the largest jumps in unemployment.

An interview with Oliver Sacks about prosopagnosia, face-blindness, and his upcoming book.

New research into medieval battlefield corpses lends deeper insight into how warfare was conducted.

The Economist looks into how Anonymous communicates and organizes their cyber-protests.

Ilse Aigner, the German minister of consumer protection, has fired an opening shot in trying to get Facebook to change some of its policies.

"Alcohol consumption is falling in most big European countries."

Congo now has vast oil reserves. The question remains as to whether its largely incompetent government can make effective use of it.

Despite making wide gains in its relative openness to foreign investment Libya is still stuck in an imperfect situation.

"For those who consider India’s Maoist insurgency a grave and urgent threat, the evidence keeps mounting."

"Despite the achievements of Álvaro Uribe’s security policy, his successor will have to tackle a new threat from organised criminal gangs."

"How the mass incarceration of black men hurts black women."

The United States is in desperate need of clearer laws regulating internet access.

Solid argument for why copyright laws need to return to their more lenient roots.

"A flawed election would be better than none, for it would mean progress towards a peaceful north-south split."

"I used to think that the Tea Party consisted of well-meaning budget hawks, peppered, like all movements, with crazies who own markers."

"So when the “Tea Party Nation” began its first national convention in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 4th, Republicans paid particular attention."

"The struggles of booksellers can be explained in part by a surge in competition. More than half of book sales in America take place not in bookshops but at big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, which compete to peddle bestsellers at ever steeper discounts."

The traditional publishing industry is struggling and there is growing pressure to publish in electronic media, and to do it well.

Berlusconi's party performed better than expected in the regional Italian elections of 2010. After a string of scandals the party's performance was surprising.

"Sierra Leone is now considered safe enough at home to send 160 of its soldiers to help the mixed force of nearly 22,000 soldiers and police from the African Union and the UN that are keeping the peace in Darfur."

"After four gruelling years under siege, the Gazans—and the Islamist movement, Hamas, that governs them—are still managing against the odds to survive. Some even prosper."

"Indonesia now wants to raise its diplomatic game, acting the part of a regional power with a global impact. One sign of this is a desire to be ranked among the BRIC economic club of Brazil, Russia, India and China."

A long-standing traditionally revered ginko tree in Japan has fallen.

China's civil unrest is growing and some officials are giving warnings that there's worse to come.

"Nearly a year after the end of Sri Lanka’s long civil war, life remains grim for hundreds of thousands of Tamils in the north of the country, displaced in the final months of fighting."

"The new, as yet unnamed species—the first to be defined solely by its DNA—is unveiled in this week’s Nature. Anatomically, it consists of the distal manual phalanx of the fifth digit or, in layman’s parlance, the tip of the little finger."

Dubai has revealed its plan for pulling out of a disastrous economic downturn and start to repay its debt.

The cabin staff at British Airways appear to be fighting a losing battle in their current strike.

How far apart are the top universities of various countries? The Economist shows how ranking measures can privilege certain schools while putting others at a disadvantage.

The European Union is certainly divided but upon what lines? The Economist argues that the division is north-south.

Turkey has new ambitions in African nations. It's hoping to bring some of it's moderate Islam to countries.

The death of Nepal's last monarch has left a wake of uncertainty and political change.