By Stefan Theil

Berlin -The death on October 11 of Austrian right-wing politician Jörg Haider was not only dramatic – he ran his Volkswagen Phaeton off the road at 142 kilometers an hour while drunk as a skunk – but also high drama. Late last week, Haider's protégé and designated successor as chairman of the Alliance for Austria's Future party, Stefan Petzner, effectively outed himself as Haider's lover in a series of tearful television and radio interviews. Witnesses reported Haider, 58, and Petzner, 27, quarreling at a reception, after which Haider drove to a local gay watering hole for a bout of drinking.

By Anna Nemtsova

Moscow, Russia -- As the financial crisis deepens, the Russian government has been amplifying its anti-American stance, and Robert Schlegel, the youngest deputy in the Russian Duma, is leading those efforts on the streets. On a recent day, Schlegel was standing along Garden Ring Avenue in Moscow, across from the U.S. Embassy, looking for a convenient place to set up a video screen. The screen will come in handy during the anti-American protest that Schlegel, in cooperation with the Nashi, a militantly pro-Kremlin youth group, will hold there on November 1st. He expects 15,000 young Russians to show up in Halloween costumes, holding pumpkins and candles and shouting slogans like "Stop your Big American Show!" and "Revolution Now!"
 
Schlegel lived most of his life in authoritarian Turkmenistan. A former activist for the Nashi, Schlegel is best known for organizing street protests and pranks targeting Putin's few domestic critics. Now he drives an Alfa Romeo, wears an expensive coat and goes on business trips to London and Germany. In other words, people like him are no longer marginal. In his role as a Duma deputy, Schlegel is responsible for Moscow's “information policy.” He’s founded a government-supported television channel for youth, “BL” (which stands for “Beautiful Life”), which has produced a video for the protest.

The video has high production values and makes a good effort to rile up viewers. It features a computer-generated cartoon of President Bush, who wears cowboy gear, slurps whiskey and revels in American power. At one point, the cartoon Bush says, "I control the world's oil, economy, wars, culture, science and information. I will tell you how we achieved that. I call it ‘A Big American Show.’” Graphic images of World War I, Nazi Germany, the Vietnam War, and Sept. 11 set the tone. As Schlegel says, “The American Empire Show, as we call it, is threatening Russia's stability. We young Russians have to put an end to it.”

And young Russian are heeding the call. As Russia grows richer and nationalism grows, the size of pro-Kremlin patriot youth movements crescendos. Nashi involves at least 200,000 activists. The Youth Guards have another 100,000 activists. The New People and Young Russia each attract tens of thousands of young patriots.

But of all youth movements, Stal, or Steel, a Nashi sub-movement, most fully reflects the new nationalism fostered by Vladimir Putin. “We are going to change the world from knowing nothing about Russia to respecting and even recognizing Russia as a new fashion,” says Nadezhda Tarasenko, 23, the leader of Stal. “It is important to consolidate around our leader, so nobody inside or outside the country can damage our stability and unity. One thousand activists in my movement are not afraid of using tough methods to stop America's influence on Russia.”

By Clare Premo, Paris

By Sudip Mazumdar

What guns and bullets, terrorists and troops could not establish in the disputed region of Kashmir, boxes of apples, bottles of honey and sacks of spices achieved this week when trade links between India and Pakistan were revived after nearly six decades of hostility. Two convoys of trucks carrying the goods from two sides of Kashmir crossed a "Peace Bridge" in an historic journey reviving hopes of peace to the strife-torn region. As school children cheered and waved flags, officials and security personnel from both sides, hugged each other and exchanged gifts amidst much bonhomie. "Today marks the beginning of the dismantling of the border," said Mubeen Shah, president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries. "I am sure this trade will grow and help bring peace in the region."

The move to revive the old historic trade routes and links that stretched all the way to Central Asia was proposed by Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh nearly two years ago, but could not get off the ground as both sides remained constrained by mutual suspicion, their respective domestic politics and unrest. Things began to thaw when Singh met Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, in New York in September and they agreed to push for the opening of the trade routes. Officials and diplomats from both sides quietly worked on the modalities and a new era of confidence-building measures started with the trucks crossing the bridge. "Today is an historic day marking yet another chapter of friendship in Indo-Pak bilateral relations," said H.H. Tyabji, a senior Indian official.

Ever since the British divided the Indian subcontinent in 1947 into India and Pakistan, the two nations have had disputing claims on the state of Kashmir. Following a war a year later, a tense Line of Control (LOC) sliced Kashmir into two and triggered an unrest that later turned into an Islamic separatist insurgency. India has deployed nearly 300,000 troops to keep peace while Islamic separatists launch terror attacks from across their sanctuary in the Pakistan-held Kashmir. Both sides deployed troops on the LOC and they often skirmished as terror attacks and civil unrest kept the valley of Kashmir on the boil. Barely four months ago, a popular uprising against the Indian rule nearly derailed a faltering peace process between the two nuclear-armed rivals. But with the revival of trade routes and the enthusiasm it has generated among the people on both sides, Kashmir appears to be at a turning point to see an end to its strife, and maybe an end to the terrorism that has turned South Asia into one of the most violent places on earth.

By Joanna Heath

The battle between atheism and religion is breaching some unlikely ground in Britain: the iconic London bus. On October 21, the Atheist Bus Campaign announced a drive to raise funds for two weeks of advertisements on the capital's red buses, bearing the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The campaign was conceived as a response to advertisements on London transport by jesussaid.org, which reminds that non-believers will "spend all eternity in torment in hell."

The Campaign has the support of Richard Dawkins, best-selling author of the controversial book "The God Delusion," which, when it was published in 2006, sparked fierce debate in Britain, where only a minority of political party leaders are committed churchgoers, and 20 percent of the population do not believe in God. If the bus advertisements are successfully rolled out in January, the argument is likely to heat up again. For now, the religious community is mixed in its response. The Methodist church thanked Dawkins for encouraging a "continued interest in God." Fundamentalist lobby group Christian Voice knowingly suggested that the ads would be "just the right height" for graffiti. 

By Michael Miller

The financial crisis has hit the banking industry hard. The market values of the top 20 banks in the world have dropped significantly. The biggest losers, of course, are those banks that were heavily involved in mortgage backed securities--American lenders like Citigroup and Bank of America.Over the past year, Bank of America has lost more than 40 percent of its market value. A number of European banks have also suffered from subprime lending. UBS, a Zurich-based bank heavily invested in securities, just received an $8 billion bail out from the Swiss government. Its market value has plummeted more than 56 percent since this time last year. In comparison, Credit Suisse, another Swiss bank much less reliant on derivatives trading, is in much better shape, opting for a private capital infusion.

Yet while some institutions are now shadows of their former selves, others may eventually emerge stronger than ever. Chinese banks, for instance, have emerged from the crisis in pole position. Despite sizable losses of their own, China’s big three banks are flush with funds and have unmatched market-to-book ratios—an indicator of market strength. This newfound swagger has already led the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to open a branch in New York City, a powerful symbolic gesture. That said, even Chinese banks could be hiding serious problems. In the past, China’s banking industry was plagued by bad loans made to state-owned enterprises. Whether these loans are still lurking under the surface somewhere is anyone’s guess.

The runaway winner in all of this is Wells Fargo. It alone among the world’s top 20 banks has seen its market value rise—an almost unreal 10.5 percent—over the past year. Not only did it beat out Citigroup to scoop up Wachovia, but also it had to be forced into accepting Congress’s bailout package. “Wells Fargo is generally considered the best run of the major banks,” says Beim, an impression reinforced by its handling of the past few months. Coming in second is HSBC, the only major British bank to avoid PM Gordon Brown’s capital infusion plan, with another American bank, US Bancorp (USB) a close third. Both HSBC and USB have managed to keep leverage low while generating high return on assets. 

By Clare Premo, Paris

Is France an old-world Catholic country, a land of soaring cathedral spires and hallowed saints? Or is it an extremely secular state, grimly opposed to religious symbols in its schools, whether crucifixes, yarmulkes or veils? The truth, of course, is that it’s both. And in this week’s edition of Le Nouvel Observateur, scholar Olivier Roy, best known for his studies of militant Islam, uses France’s own experience to look at old time religion in the new world of the 21st century.

France, like the United States and much of the rest of the world, has seen an explosion of what’s often called revivalism and public religiosity. But according to Roy this is no “return to religion” in the traditional sense. He calls it a “mutation”  that is quite particular to our times. Hybrid faiths are emerging as the result of global rootlessness or, as Roy calls it, deculturation. By separating religions from their traditional cultural environments, Roy says, globalization actually encourages fundamentalism as people practicing their faith come to see themselves as embattled minorities. In the French case, the constant influx of North African and Africans has created a substantial population that is no longer grounded in the inherited traditions of the land where they now live or the one that they came from.

By Stefan Theil 

After months of insisting that they would need no Paulson-style bank bailout, European governments acted swiftly on Monday. Within hours of each other, the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain announced a total of over €1 trillion ($1.35 trillion) in lending guarantees and bank recapitalization funds. In addition, Britain injected $62.5 billion into three of the country's biggest banks in return for large government shareholding stakes. The markets loved it. German stocks alone were up 11.4 percent on the day—the biggest jump in history.

The moves came none too soon. One of the worries that froze bank lending and sent markets crashing last week was whether and when the Europeans would act and do their part to avert a full-blown global meltdown. That worst-case outcome now seems a lot less likely. So far, so good.

Will it work, and is it enough? As of Monday, it was yet unclear how any of the bailout plans – America's TARP included - will resolve the underlying problem of bad debt and toxic assets--the estimated $700 billion still lurking on the balance sheets of US and European banks, according to Bob McKee of London's Independent Strategy. (The estimates vary, but the bad assets are clearly there, or the banks wouldn't be so distrustful of each other.) None of the bailout plans include clear, systematic rules about how these dud assets will be written off -- or whether banks will drag them along for years, Japanese-deflation-style. The unanswered question is how these debts will be unwound – and whether that process leads to a sharp contraction of credit to the "real" economy, i.e. companies and consumers. If so, there may not be a meltdown. But there would be much worse to come beyond just the mild stagnation in economic growth that the current numbers signal.

Sarah Palin may not have much experience with the rest of the world—she didn’t even hold a passport until well after her 40th birthday—but the rest of the world has had enough experience with her to know exactly what it thinks. Those thoughts range from mild bemusement to borderline horror. Much of the world, especially in Europe, has spent the last four years counting down the days until President Bush’s final hours in office, and for them, Palin’s folksy ways carry too many echoes of the sitting president. That sentiment doesn't rule out the possibility of a little satirical fun at Palin's expense, of course.

The sober-minded Brits find a perverse appeal in her plain-spoken ways. "She could never exist in the British political system," says London Times columnist and former political satirist Alice Miles. "Or we don't think she could. We're all men in suits saying very, very safe things." Her exoticism has obsessed many, including tennis coach Jack Garvey, who admits to staying up until two a.m. to catch the vice-presidential debate last week. "I found myself shouting at the screen, imploring someone to push her on a few issues," he says. "But everyone was too polite to challenge her. The idea of her facing off against Putin or being in any way near power is just frightening." Even her fashion choices offend the Isles; the Guardian dedicated an entire column to her Alaska-shaped earrings, which, "with terrifying literal-mindedness...express everything we need to know about her pride in her roots and her people."

Across the Atlantic, optimistic Republicans might have hoped for a bit of favorable coverage in Brazil, where evangelical Christians are the fastest-growing religious group. No luck. Palin's been lampooned in cartoons there, and Sergio Augusto, a columnist for the daily newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, joked that "judging by appearances alone, [Palin] could have swapped politics for synchronized swimming or been singing covers of 'Pink Shoelaces.'" Win or lose, Palin should exercise sound judgment in determining how best to make use of her new passport.

With reporting from Barbie Nadeau in Italy, Tracy McNicoll in Paris, Sophie Grove in London and Mac Margolis in Brazil