Nor do they set much store by a reported Haqqani-network promise to sever links with al-Qaeda.

ECONOMIST: Rumours fly as Karzai talks to Pakistan

Its Asian network is set to grow by 70 branches, or 10%, this year.

ECONOMIST: Finance after the crisis

We enjoy a very tight network of clinics all working to standards set by our professional bodies.

BBC: Condoms

The Global Network Initiative is a set of principles agreed to by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!

FORBES: Is the Organization Investigating Apple's Factories Good Enough?

Through these profiles in backroom power, we mean to show how a new network operates in Washington today, and by a new set of rules.

NPR: Can Next President Deliver on Promises of 'Change'?

It has been set up by UAP Insurance of Kenya, Safaricom, Kenya's biggest mobile-network operator, and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, part of a big Swiss agribusiness group.

ECONOMIST: Insuring crops with a mobile phone

Rachel Wolf of the New Schools Network, which advises people seeking to set up free schools, reckons that hundreds will be open by 2015.

ECONOMIST: Schools reform

The goal was to establish and encourage the adoption of a common set of standards that would bring a 3G-like end-user experience to Wi-Fi by facilitating an automatic network discovery, selection and authentication of carrier-operated Wi-Fi networks.

FORBES: Making Wi-Fi '3G Secure' For Mobile Data Offloading