LATEST FROM THE ECONOMIST

Dear Reader,

"STARTING today," President Barack Obama declared in his inaugural address from the Capitol, "we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." In fact his first, urgent task is to remake finance. That divides into two parts. The long-term challenge is to refashion the financial system: that is the subject of our special report this week which explains exactly what went wrong. The immediate challenge which we look at in our cover leader is how to save the banks. Blank cheques, bankruptcy, even nationalisation: the options look increasingly dire, but governments must choose between them.

Here are some other pieces from this week's issue you might also be interested in. You can click straight through to each one and read it online at Economist.com using the links below.


John Micklethwait
Editor in Chief


Subscribe now
THIS WEEK'S HIGHLIGHTS:

A global inauguration
The day Phenomenon Obama became President Obama

The schisms in al-Qaeda
The growing divisions within the terror network

Bend me, shake me, anyway you want me
The flexible screen is coming soon

Hopes for peace out of Gaza
It may be a better moment than you think

The lessons from the Wallenbergs
Are family businesses better suited to coping with the downturn?