The trial began of 150 policemen accused of killing 19 protesters during a 1996 demonstration by Brazil's landless - farmers movement in the northern state of Para.

ECONOMIST: Politics this week | The

It fears that creating a free market in rural land would prompt peasants to sell their holdings to pay their debts, sending an avalanche of landless farmers to cities that have no social-security infrastructure to deal with them.

ECONOMIST: But only for a select few

The large-scale appropriation of farmland in recent years for housing and factory construction has rendered millions of farmers landless.

ECONOMIST: Governing China