However, Mr Milburn's proposals are an over-hyped re-announcement of existing policy, and should be treated sceptically.

ECONOMIST: Health

And sovereign-wealth funds are looking sceptically at calls for cash after burning their fingers while rescuing banks.

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But they should be thinking hard about the world, for its markets have been thinking, sceptically, about them.

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The US has meanwhile focused on securing the participation of the opposition National Coalition, which responded sceptically to the Russian announcement.

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FCC's chairman, Bill Kennard, is right to have put Mr Ebbers on notice that he can expect his deal to be sceptically scrutinised.

ECONOMIST: A high-wired act

From within gilt frames, 18th century grandees gaze down sceptically.

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The right approach conceptually is a dynamic regulatory regime that looks sceptically at the boardrooms and strategies of financial institutions and is capable of intervening effectively when need arises.

ECONOMIST: The contract between society and banks will get stricter

It should strengthen now, as the economy picks up, though some buffeting may intervene if investors react sceptically to the half-hearted new austerity plan which the government approved in principle this week.

ECONOMIST: Poland's central-bank governor has been a huge success

While public opinion has sometimes coalesced, euro-sceptically, around particular issues in these countries, what has been lacking is a broad philosophical acceptance that integration may have gone far enough or, indeed, as Mr Cameron has argued, need to be reversed in some areas.

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