Missing is any sense that, beyond winning wars, Israel has the capacity to shape a different reality. Yet at times, plenty of Israeli politicians and officials will agree that the parameters of peace are clear, writes Philip Stephens

He needs a stellar crew that will dispel the unions' baseless fear that trade with poor countries harms US workers' wages, writes Jagdish Bhagwati

There is little evidence of any sustained Bank of England effort to co-ordinate banks and institutions in a return to normal lending, say John Eatwell and David Pitt-Watson

The utterances of leading Labour and Conservative politicians do not explain how the UK is to emerge from its current quagmire, writes Martin Wolf

An effective approach to staving off unrest in urban areas would be to increase investment, not in hardware but in people, writes Minxin Pei

Two decades ago, most hedge funds obtained most of their funds from individuals and family trusts. Now, there are many more funds to deal with and institutional money is encroaching. Funds of funds must show they contribute something valuable, writes John Gapper

Fragmented responses could yield to policies that run the risk of accelerating rather than ameliorating the crisis, writes Kevin Rudd

His name is rightly invoked to license fresh economic approaches rather than take refuge in inert doctrinal purity, writes Peter Clarke

Trilobites died out about 250m years ago. If current trends continue, estate agents could go the same way in 2009, writes Jonathan Guthrie

We need to weaken labour, environmental, social, health and other 'standards' that block rational human activity, writes Vaclav Klaus

Some entertain hopes of restoring the globally unbalanced economic growth of the middle years of this decade. They are wrong. Our choice is between a better balanced world economy and disintegration. And it must be made this year, writes Martin Wolf

If we wish to emerge with less damage sooner from this crisis, we need to allow the banks to make more profit, writes John Redwood

Ukraine and Russia tolerate, even encourage, use of the upper political echelons as instruments in business disputes , write Jérôme Guillet and John Evans

The people who succeed in business are passionate about it. And, by the way, you can make a lot of money in the process, writes John Kay

Ending the blockade in return for a ceasefire remains the best option for both humanitarian and strategic reasons. But the longer the bloodshed goes on, the more both sides in the conflict will be sucked into a logic of revenge and retaliation, writes Gideon Rachman