In the 11 years to June, 960-odd asylum-seekers and crew have vanished at sea while trying to reach Australia, about two-thirds of them in the past three years alone.

ECONOMIST: The prime minister rushes through a policy she once derided

The huge budget surpluses which Mr Bush inherited when he took office have vanished, to be replaced by a sea of red ink.

ECONOMIST: Countdown to 2004 | The

For the moment, though, European and American security experts are more interested in another matter: what cargo a Russian vessel, Arctic Sea, was carrying when it vanished in closely monitored European waters, why a journalist who alerted the world to its disappearance had to flee Russia and why Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, paid an urgent and secret visit to Moscow just a few days later.

ECONOMIST: Russia's political leaders