Some copyright owners in Europe and the US are using IP addresses gathered by monitoring firms to apply for court orders obliging internet service providers to hand over the physical addresses associated with them.

BBC: BitTorrent study finds most file-sharers are monitored

The government says it will soon publish revised guidance, encouraging local authorities to use risk-free land first, and obliging developers to pay for flood defences when they build on risky land.

ECONOMIST: A hard rain

Mr Mehlis's report also politely but firmly chides Syria for stalling, despite a UN Security Council resolution obliging it to co-operate fully with the investigation.

ECONOMIST: Dark deeds in Lebanon | The

It has long denied biographers access to her correspondence, diaries and journals, thus obliging Mr Schultz to rely on fragments released for an exhibition in 2006.

ECONOMIST: The torment behind the camera

In Rio de Janeiro a populist governor brought in a law obliging the main state university to reserve 40% of its places for blacks and half for graduates of state high schools (which, unlike state universities, are for common folk).

ECONOMIST: Race in Brazil

For example, Mr Alito's vote was decisive in upholding a rule in Kansas obliging jurors to impose the death penalty in murder cases where they deem aggravating and mitigating factors to be of equal weight.

ECONOMIST: The Supreme Court

There he stands, at a little distance, jingling coins in his pocket, waiting for someone to need him: a satisfied man, with the sort of good humor and obliging manner I associate with an old-fashioned servant.

NEWYORKER: Mr. Bones