Revolution 2.0
Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing executive, was imprisoned after helping co-ordinate the initial stages of the uprising in Egypt last year. He spoke to us in London about the power of the internet and the progress made since Hosni Mubarak’s fall

What the Dickens
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United States: America, Syria and the UN
America learns how to win friends and influence countries

Europe: Lessons from Georgia
The progress that Georgia has made in its fight against corruption should be studied by other countries

Asia: Street legal in Jakarta
Drink-driving is legal in Indonesia, where politicians seem to think a crackdown on bars and clubs is in order instead

Middle East: Try, try, try again
The Palestinians strike yet another unity deal—but will it come to anything?

China: Dragons aplenty
A collection of cartoons to celebrate the Chinese new year

Americas: Sealing the deal
Canada tries to increase pressure on China to implement an agreement permitting the export of seal meat

Technology: Gestures of intent
Soon, merely holding your hand to your ear may start a telephone call

Technology: Difference engine
Digital technology to deliver superior-quality music exists. Now it’s a matter of educating the ears of consumers

Sport: Up for review
The recent Test series between Pakistan and England demonstrated how a new video-replay scheme is changing cricket

Business education: 21st-century knocks
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Business: Smoke, mirrors, carbon credits
China threatens to stop its airlines complying with the EU’s emissions-trading scheme. But, sooner or later, they will have to pay for their pollution

Back home others pondered how to spoil the deal. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called on Mr Abbas to choose between him and Hamas, implicitly threatening to cut off talks and possibly other ties if Mr Abbas formed "a Hamas government." In Gaza, where Hamas has governed for six years and built up an asset base they have no desire to relinquish, bureaucrats and civil rights sticklers raised constitutional objections.

Hamas's parliamentarians protested that the deal would make Mr Abbas both president and prime minister of an interim government (as well as chief of the armed forces and head of the PLO), empowering an autocrat at a time when the rest of the Arab world was sweeping them away. Several wondered how the head of a political movement could head a government describing itself as "technocratic". Tellingly, Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's Islamist prime minster, was absent from the signing ceremony, though he had been in Doha the day before, as was Mr Meshal's deputy, Musa Abu Marzouq. Other normally garrulous strongmen in Gaza kept schtum. Their underlings called the deal illegal, and protested that Mr Meshal was acting alone without the movement's consent. Hamas's newspaper, Felasteen, gave the Doha deal a mere sidebar on the front-page, devoting most it to analysts who cast doubt on its implementation. 

Messrs Abbas and Meshal have seemed weak of late. Both have lost their patrons—Hosni Mubarak for Mr Abbas and Syria's Bashar Assad for Mr Meshal—and have lacked any kind of political agenda. The former's efforts to secure a Palestinian state by negotiation with Israel or recognition at the United Nations have proved fruitless. Mr Meshal has come in for criticism for remaining so long under the Syrian president's protection in Damascus while Syrians, including his parent organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, have risen up against the regime. The belated flight of his office staff from the Syrian capital has only weakened him further, leaving him homeless and headquarterless. From their Gaza stronghold, Hamas's leaders inside have challenged Mr Meshal's exiled leadership, and eroded his hold over the movement's finances, military supplies and diplomacy.

But the Doha gamble could yet pay off. Thanks to the deal, both Mr Abbas and Mr Meshal now have an agenda and a new common patron, Qatar. The wealthy Gulf emirate has offered a political and financial safety-net should Palestine's Western supporters spurn the new government on the grounds that Hamas is a terrorist movement. And anyway western powers have signalled that they might be comfortable with a unity government whose prime minster complies with their three conditions - of recognising Israel, upholding previous agreements, and renouncing violence. Anxious to portray itself as an inclusive moderate movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has given its backing. Fatah and Hamas's powerful military apparatus have also lent their support, having won guarantees that they will be left in charge of the security forces of their respective enclaves of the West Bank and Gaza for another year. "The material benefits from Qatar will push this deal through," says a member of Hamas's military wing. 

Rejectionist politicians could still spoil the deal in the week left before the two sides are scheduled to meet again in Cairo to name their new government. If Mr Abbas does not delegate his powers to them, Mr Haniyeh and his ministers might stymie things on the ground. Mr Netanyahu might yet tempt Mr Abbas to reconsider, either with the carrot of goodwill gestures, or the stick of reducing his travel and other perks. All the same, with so little hope of movement on other tracks, Palestinian determination to heal their internal divide could be growing.

The veto exercised by China and Russia in the UN Security Council on February 4th was another demonstration of how the two countries now see their interests as aligned. China’s decision to veto a resolution condemning the government’s killing spree in Syria was, on the face of it, odd. Anxious as it is about anti-government protests in a year when leadership of the party is changing, China has little interest in propping up Bashar Assad. But its vote returned a favour from Russia, which, as Richard Gowan of NYU points out, hugs China close at the Security Council, ensuring that neither country need fear complete isolation.

Russia’s support for the Syrian government has at least three motivations. First, standing firm against the West evokes proud memories of table thumping at the UN and plays well for Vladimir Putin, who is faced with an election at home that is likely to be more competitive than any he has fought before. Second, Syria allows Russia to keep a naval base on its shore and buys Russian weapons in return. Though Syria accounted for just 10% of Russia’s arms sales to the Middle East from 2004 to 2008, this was sufficient to make it “largely dependent” on Russia for weapons in the judgment of SIPRI, a Swedish NGO which monitors such things. Third, Russia fears a repeat of Libya and the establishment support for the principle of intervention by foreign countries to topple unpleasant regimes. This all helps to explain why Russia continues to stick by a regime that looks to be finished.

While the assault on Homs continues, so does the diplomacy. Some hope that Russia can be talked into accepting the demise of the Assads and be allowed to back down gracefully, playing a role in the handover of power and holding on to some of its interests in Syria. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, is due in Damascus on February 6th, where he may float the idea of negotiations between a representative of the regime and the Free Syrian Army. If that fails and the killing continues, then military intervention by outside powers will likely follow.

(Photo credit: AFP)

Mr Niinisto declares himself to be firmly in the pro-EU, pro-euro camp—indeed, as finance minister he helped get the country into the euro in the first place. That matters because the Finnish presidency is more than a ceremonial post, especially in foreign policy, even if recent constitutional changes have made it weaker than it once was. Most power, especially in domestic issues, rests with the government, a cumbersome six-party coalition led by Jyrki Katainen, the conservative prime minister. The arrival in the presidential palace of Mr Niinisto, a fellow conservative, will strengthen Mr Katainen's hand. Yet strains within the coalition, which was designed largely to keep the True Finns out of power, are likely to persist.

Despite Mr Niinisto's victory, Finland's membership of the euro remains controversial. Not because Finns want to get out of the single currency but because, as one government minister puts it, they feel "pissed off" by how other countries have broken its rules. Finland is one of only two of the original members of the euro that has always stuck within the fiscal rules (Luxembourg is the other). That makes it politically hard for the country to support bailing out Greece, which has never observed those rules. So Finnish negotiators will continue to be tough over the terms of financial rescues of weaker euro members, even if in the end they are likely to support them.

Mr Niinisto will be the first conservative president in Finland for over 50 years; and this will mark the first time ever that the presidency and the premiership have been in the hands of the centre-right. His election might also, in time, help to change the debate on Finland's defence policy. Finland is one of only four EU countries not in the NATO alliance, and the outgoing president was firmly against joining. But Finns are aware that just across the sea all three Baltic countries are in NATO. The government has agreed not to consider NATO membership in its current term and Mr Niinisto himself is cautious on the matter. But he says he favours more Nordic defence co-operation and also moves to strengthen Europe's defence role. As America switches its focus beyond Europe, it is quite possible that Finland may start to edge closer to joining NATO.

The Finnish economy suffered badly in the 2009 recession and the country's biggest company, Nokia, has been having a torrid time recently. But Finland remains a very strong economy with exceptionally good ratings for education, health care and high-technology skills. The economy often comes top of the World Economic Forum's annual rankings for competitiveness. And although like other Nordic countries it has a generous welfare state, it is likely to stay highly competitive. This election has confirmed that, just as in Sweden, the centre-left is now decidedly weak and the conservatives are making the running. They will be more concerned to boost jobs and competitiveness than welfare, reinforcing the strong economic performance of the Nordic model that has made this region one of the most successful and richest in the world.

(Photo credit: AFP)

A day later Arab and European states failed in their latest attempt to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the Syrian regime after Russia and China wielded their vetos. Had it passed, even without the threat of military intervention, it would have sent a strong signal that Syria could no longer count on the support of Russia, the most powerful of its dwindling allies.

But amid a divided international response, the regime has little incentive to stop the violence in which 7,000 civilians have already died. The Syrian National Council, the main umbrella opposition group, described the UN's failure as a "license to kill". Frustrated Western states are in uproar: America described the veto as "shameful" and said any further bloodshed would be on Russia's hands. Britain said the failure to get a resolution was "letting the Syrian people down". Before the vote Syrians abroad attacked several Syrian embassies in protest at the massacre in Homs.

Russia's alliance with Syria is longstanding. It has sold Mr Assad and his predecessors arms for decades. Its refusal to back the UN resolution reflects its fears that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, backed by Europe and America, are pushing for regime change in Damascus which would erode Russia's influence in the region. Still angry about the military intervention in Libya last year which was framed as protecting civilians but ended with the death of Muammar Qaddafi at the hands of rebel forces, Russia is unwilling to endorse similar action in Syria.

But Moscow is looking increasingly isolated. South Africa and India, which abstained in a vote in October, yesterday sided with Arab and European countries. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is due in Damascus on Tuesday where he is expected to try to initiate a dialogue between the regime and the opposition. He is unlikely to find much enthusiasm among opposition groups. "This is shaping up into a war between Russia and the west and we are paying the price," says a protester in Damascus.

Both the army and senior government figures immediately expressed their contrition about the violence in Port Said, unlike on previous such occasions. The city's security chiefs are said to be under arrest. On Thursday, parliament began to make inquiries into whether the minister of interior could be prosecuted. Many of Egypt's new MPs went further and called for the government, barely a month old, to be replaced.

The violence in Port Said and the protests that have followed have increased the pressure on Egypt's rulers, both military and parliamentary. Last week protesters called for the transition to civilian rule to be speeded up. They proposed a series of alternatives to the army's promise to hand over power by July. Islamist MPs, who make up around 70% of parliament and who prefer the army's schedule, opposed the move. But calls are now mounting for them to challenge Egypt's military leaders themselves—on the transition, on accountability for the disaster and recent clashes with protestors, and on the terms of the military's exit. If they do, they may find themselves the next objects of Egyptians' anger.

All aboard the Vivek Express
Our correspondent spends four days on India’s longest train journey, from a remote corner of Assam in the north-east, to Kanyakumari in the far south. He chats with soldiers, cooks and a novelist, recording their conversations and snapping photos along the way

A necessary example of tolerance
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Middle East: Makeshift medicine
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Europe: Nastase nailed
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Management: It’s a dirty job
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China: Man-made and visible from space
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Technology: Ten million billion and counting
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Technology: Difference engine
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Economics: Mick Jagger’s top ten
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Language: Enough English for public office?
A woman in Arizona is told her English is too poor to allow her to run for the city council

Sport: The magic formula
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Now outsiders are clamouring to do something serious about Syria. No one is pushing a military intervention—not even the Western countries sounding the harshest notes about Bashar Assad, Syria's dictator. But two of the veto-wielding members of the Security Council, China and particularly Russia, feel that the "responsibility to protect" has already gone far enough, thank you very much. Last year, they signed on to a resolution that authorised "all necessary means" to protect Libyan civilians from Muammar Qaddafi. That intervention became a NATO-led air war against Libya's regime, and ended with Qaddafi's bloody death at the hands of the rebels. The Russians felt duped.

This is behind the Russian reticence, this week, to sign on to a draft resolution that would have Mr Assad delegate power to his deputy. This is despite strong support not only from a unified West, but from the Arab League, which has suspended Syria. The assertiveness of the league, once a do-nothing talking shop for tyrants, has been striking. It suspended its observer mission in Syria because of threats to its personnel and inability to do a proper job monitoring. Observers hope that a personal briefing by league representatives about the bloodshed will sway the recalcitrant Security Council members.

But the Russians, citing Syria's sovereignty, have shown no sign of budging (which suits the Chinese, who do not like vetoing resolutions alone). The frustrated other members of the 15-seat council are still trying to craft a resolution everyone can agree to. But if they cannot, they have hinted that they will force a vote anyway, to get a Russian veto on the record at least. For those dying in Syria, the manoeuvring must seem absurdly abstract, and Russia's desire for "a peaceful settlement without foreign intervention and with respect to the sovereignty of Syria" somewhere between cynical and downright ridiculous.

(Photo credit: AFP)

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The mission was already floundering after the league's six Gulf states withdrew their monitors in protest at Damascus's refusal to implement a plan the government had signed intended to end the crackdown. The violence has continued unabated since the observers arrived on December 26th. President Bashar Assad has failed to withdraw tanks from residential areas or to release political prisoners, believed to number in the thousands. The UN last week said it could no longer keep track of the number of people who have been killed in the unrest. Other groups have documented the names of between 6,000 and 7,000 people who have died since March.

On Tuesday Mr Araby will present a transitional plan, backed by European states, to the UN under which Mr Assad would hand power to one of his vice-presidents and form a unity government before elections at some point in the future. Mr Assad's government has rejected the proposal, but diplomats hope that this rejection and the ongoing violence will force Russia to reconsider its support for Mr Assad. So far it has blocked any action in the UN Security Council against Damascus.

IF THERE was one recurring theme during Nicolas Sarkozy’s live prime-time television interview last night, it was the French president’s obsession with Germany. In an appearance that lasted just over an hour, watched by a massive 16m viewers, Mr Sarkozy repeatedly held Germany up as a model for France, which is still reeling from the loss of its triple-A credit rating at the hands of Standard & Poor's earlier this month.

France has to bring down labour costs to improve its competitiveness, Mr Sarkozy declared, just as Germany did so successfully a decade ago. France should do this by transferring the cost of social protection from labour to value-added tax, as Germany did. France must develop far more apprenticeships for the young, he announced, along German lines. France needs to focus on preserving jobs by making working time more flexible, as Germany has done. 

Mr Sarkozy identified two specific German-inspired measures that he insisted he would put in place before his five-year term runs out in May. First, he wants to abolish €13 billion ($17 billion) of social charges paid by employers, which are earmarked for family benefits. He would finance this by increasing the full rate of VAT from 19.6% to 21.2%.

The idea is to remove a big obstacle to creating (and keeping) jobs in France. Mr Sarkozy cited figures suggesting that, for an employee on a salary of €4,000 a month, a German employer pays €840 of social charges while a French boss will pay twice as much.

Second, Mr Sarkozy wants to allow employers to negotiate changes to working time at company level, in return for the company agreeing to keep the worker in the job. This sort of flexibility, he pointed out, has helped Germany to keep unemployment levels relatively low, even during the current downturn. With the French jobless rate at nearly 10%, next to less than 7% in Germany, Mr Sarkozy’s immediate aim is to stop unemployment rising.

When the economy recovers, Mr Sarkozy hopes to give employers more flexibility to get staff to work longer hours, although he stopped short of announcing an end to the legal maximum working week of 35 hours. The French work 1,679 hours a year, next to 1,904 in Germany, according to a study by COE Rexicode, a research group.

Not only did Mr Sarkozy hold up Germany as an economic model for France, he has also secured the electoral support of its chancellor, Angela Merkel. Although Mr Sarkozy has yet to declare officially his candidacy, the secretary-general of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union announced this weekend that the chancellor would back him for re-election because he was “the right person for the Elysée”.

Mrs Merkel would even, the party said, take part in campaign rallies on Mr Sarkozy's behalf. For a president who badly needs to maintain the appearance of parity with Germany in Europe, this is quite a gesture.

It is far from clear that Mr Sarkozy’s last-minute, half-improvised conversion to these structural reforms will get anywhere. Parliament is due to rise in early March, which leaves little time to push the new measures through. But, by embracing the Germany model, Mr Sarkozy seems to be making a double calculation.

On one level, he simply wants to capture a bit of the stardust of German economic success. Over the past few years, the economic performance of the two countries has diverged markedly in Germany’s favour. Germany’s export-led success, built on the back of fiscal consolidation and labour-market reform, has contrasted with low growth, low exports, high budget deficits and high unemployment in France.

Mr Sarkozy has been talking for a while about the need for a “convergence” of the two tax systems (which, in reality, implies reducing taxes in France). Copying Germany looks like a credible electoral message. “If it worked for them”, he said last night, “why wouldn’t it work for us?”

But there may be a second, more subtle calculation at work. The French president has been much taken recently with the experience of Gerhard Schröder, the former centre-left German chancellor, who dropped in to see Mr Sarkozy in late December at the Elysée palace. On his watch, Germany boosted flexibility for employers with measures known as the Hartz reforms, and reduced social charges in favour of a VAT increase. These reforms helped to lay the ground for today’s economic performance nearly a decade later.

Mr Schröder’s reforms were unpopular at the time, and he lost power in 2005 to Mrs Merkel. Now, though, he is credited with a certain courage. In France, polls continue to suggest that Mr Sarkozy will be beaten by his Socialist rival, François Hollande, at the two-round presidential election in April and May. Could it be that the French president is preparing for the possibility of defeat by trying to enact last-minute labour-market reforms for which history might one day judge him well too?

“Paint It Black”: Gloom was the official on-stage state of mind at this year’s Davos. The toxic combination of the euro crisis and the ubiquity of longtime Cassandras such as George Soros, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Nouriel “Dr Doom” Roubini was more than enough to give anyone a 19th nervous breakdown. In private conversations, however, there was a bit more optimism, though no one was getting carried away. Cautious encouragement was taken from better recent economic news in America and, above all, a shift towards activism by the European Central Bank, which was seen by many as greatly reducing the risk of a catastrophic failure in the banking system.  

“Angie”. She is not his usual type, but Sir Mick has the perfect ballad for the top political star of this year’s Davos. Sadly, Angela Merkel’s keynote failed to answer his question, “When will those clouds all disappear?”

“Some Girls”. There was much comment about the fact that Davos Men still far outnumber Davos Women. (In the Congress Centre, that is, where the serious talking is done. Curiously, at the many Davos parties, the gender balance is somehow evened up considerably, even as the age gap widens.) Aside from the Chancellor of Germany, the most prominent females on stage this year were two pioneers of social media, Arianna Huffington and Sheryl Sandberg, who was talked about less for the upcoming initial public offering of Facebook, where she is chief operating officer, than her long-term political ambitions (Treasury Secretary? President?). According to WEF, the percentage of women participants this year was 17%, which is progress of sorts from 9% ten years ago, but still far too low. At least there is gender parity in the WEF’s new under-30s youth wing, the “Global Shapers”, who were given prominent roles in this year’s Davos.  

“Sympathy for the Devil”. The public image of the sort of political and business leaders who attend Davos has never been worse, and a large part of the agenda was given over to worrying about inequality and how to redesign capitalism to make it produce more inclusive growth and jobs. Yet your correspondent was struck by how many of the capitalists he encountered—especially from the Newt Gingrich-bashed private-equity industry—felt that their current unpopularity was undeserved, so this Rolling Stones classic about why the baddest of all bad guys at least deserves some courtesy would have gone down a treat.

"Gimme Shelter". The Occupy movement has benefited from all that public anger towards leaders. The protestors who turned up in Davos found themselves occupying a few yurts and giant igloos in a coach park a long way from the Congress Centre.  Particularly in need of shelter were three female protesters from Ukraine who removed their shirts to reveal chests emblazoned with slogans such as “Crisis: Made in Davos”. 

Representatives of Occupy were invited to take part in a WEF public meeting, which they tried to disrupt only to be voted out by the vast majority of the audience, who seemed actually to want to discuss how to remodel the capitalist system. The speakers included Ed Milliband, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, and Stephen Roach, a veteran Wall Street economist.

“Time Is On My Side”. Two dynastic youngsters had a Davos coming out: Howard Buffett, grandson of Warren, is one of the Global Shapers; Chelsea Clinton moderated a roundtable on e-philanthropy. Expect them to become Davos regulars in the years to come. (On the subject of giving, Bill Gates turned up as usual, this year celebrating the 10th birthday of the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an innovative approach to fighting disease that was born in Davos in 2002. Surprise guests at the celebration dinner included Mr Jagger and notable signatories of the “giving pledge” launched by Mr Gates and the elder Mr Buffett, George Soros and Ray Dallio, boss of Bridgewater, the world’s biggest hedge fund company. Mr Gates gave a vote of confidence to the Fund, which has been criticised for mismanaging money, announcing a new grant of $750m.)

“Street Fighting Man”. A year ago, the start of the Arab Spring caused considerable excitement and enthusiasm in Davos. This year, the focus was more on the difficulty of democratising the Middle East than the potential for positive change. The most upbeat speaker was Hammadi Jebali, the newly-elected president of Tunisia. On the other hand, there was a growing sense that some sort of military strike against Iran’s nuclear program is inevitable this year, probably led by Israel. 

“Start Me Up”. The most optimistic people in Davos came largely from the tech industry, which was represented by some of its biggest stars. As well as Ms Sandberg, there was Eric Schmidt of Google, John Donahoe of eBay, Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame, and several faces of European tech, including Niklas Zennstrom, a co-founder of Skype. All seemed convinced that entrepreneurship can answer everything from worries about the shortage of jobs to how to accelerate solving big social problems, from ending disease to giving everyone a decent education.

“Brown Sugar”. An unusual abundance of snow did not deflect Davos goers from their usual drug of choice, alcohol. The dozens of parties in the Belverdere Hotel were as crowded as ever, with the McKinsey and Google parties the best (as usual), though an excellent choice of band enabled PriceWaterhouseCoopers to give McKinsey a run for its money. An event hosted by Skybridge Capital, a hedge fund, in support of an organization combining philanthropy with buying fine wine, was perhaps the best party in the Piano Bar at the Hotel Europe, where in the wee small hours of the morning chief executives can be found leading the singing. 

The big disappointment was the closing gala, hosted this year by Brazil, where before midnight the cocktail waiters ran out of alcohol to put in the caipirinha. This national embarrassment added to the sense that Brazil had put on a poor show in Davos, with its president, Dilma Rousseff, preferring to stay away and instead attend the rival World Social Forum. No such complaints could be heard about Mexico, which the previous night threw a bash where margarita flowed like water, whilst a beaming President Calderon enthusiastically shook hands.  

And to finish? If the choice was made by the public, looking on from afar, Sir Mick surely would have to end his Davos show with that anthem to frustration, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” At the end of five days of big thoughts, fierce debate, countless conversations and almost no sleep, your exhausted correspondent would have settled for “Shattered” followed, with mixed feelings, by “It’s All Over Now.”

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Scottish questions
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Debate: State capitalism
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United States: Democracy and its flaws
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Africa: Galloping ahead
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Business: Supreme Vittorio
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Management: Something must be done
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Science: Politics and physiology
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Europe: A gorilla in Bratislava
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Americas: Talk is cheap
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Technology: Starting from scratch
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Culture: Phew, the Oscars are still irrelevant
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Sport: Coming up short
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Advertised, but sadly absent, was Tony Blair, apparently "stuck in the Middle East"—hopefully doing something constructive. What he would have added to the discussion is unclear, as even his own wife publicly describes him as "useless" with technology. When Katie Couric, an American news anchor, once asked him, "do you Tweet?" he replied, "Never intentionally."

Still Mr Blair presumably has some familiarity with the role of Twitter and Facebook in last year's Arab Spring, which might have prompted him (unlike Ms Clinton) to ask Mr Milner what he is doing to help bring about a Russian Spring, and Mr Ross what the US State Dept had learned from last year about how technology could be used to thwart Vladimir Putin's attempt to resume the presidency of Russia. 

You might think this all hass little to do with philanthropy, but all of the panelists saw e-philanthropy in broad terms as the way tech can be applied to bring about social change. Mr Parker spoke about his "quarrel" with traditional philanthropy, and questioned with tax-advantaged non-profits are really the best vehicle society has to advance social change. He did not believe that a non-profit would be able to develop the technological tools necessary to create efficient social movements, which is why he structured his do-gooding social network organisation, Causes, as a for-profit. 

Alas, he was not asked why Causes has failed to live up to the early hype that it would transform fundraising for non-profits by making giving and building support for a cause easy. He implicitly acknowledged this slow progress, with phrases such as "early days" and admitting that relatively little money has been raised so far via Causes. One problem, he suggested, is that most non-profits are incapable of making good use of the latest technology and the data it produces. After starting out aiming to get all of America's million-plus non-profits connected, he says Causes will now focus on 10,000 or so he says are sufficiently tech savvy. Will this targeted apprpoach deliver better results?

Mr Schmidt was at his most interesting on the subject of the next generation of Silicon Valley rich, who he says are more concerned about society's problems and much more generous than his own Baby Boom generation. The "one percent rule", whereby a firm gives away 1% of annual profits, 1% of its equity and 1% of its employees' time, pioneered by Salesforce.com and adopted by Google, is now the norm for Silicon Valley start-ups, said Mr Schmidt. Alas, he was not asked what went wrong with Google.org, which was launched with much fanfare as the future of corporate philanthropy, but has since sunk almost without trace.

Mr Schmidt predicts that the mobile phone will be the most philanthropic (in the broadest sense) of all the new technologies, especially once its cost in the developing world falls to around $70. One of the striking things about mobile telephony is that it is already delivering huge social benefits even though it is largely commercially driven, rather than relying on charitable donations or government aid. 

Mr Ross agreed, highlighting how money had been raised cheaply by text to help in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. He talked excitedly about the benefits of a mobile app that has been developed to let Masai warriors more effectively monitor the menstrual cycles of dairy cows, and thereby greatly increase their productivity. As he rightly pointed out, this is not something that would ever be thought of by government or "in Davos".

Perhaps the most interesting new idea came from the audience where, this being Davos, sat Tim Berners Lee. The inventor of the internet suggested a radical approach to improving the effectiveness of philanthropy through extreme charity: it should become a routine activity, he suggested, that anyone receiving a donation should publish in cyberspace exactly what they do with it, all the way along the line until the money reaches its ultimate charitable destination. Now, wouldn't that be an e-philanthropy game changer?

We received a treasure chest of gems this week. Many readers went with a pirate metaphor. New Conservative suggested "A pirate and his booty", a theme several others echoed. (We emphasise that Mr Dotcom denies all wrongdoing.) For some reason, quite a few readers drew attention to Mr Dotcom's physical appearance. "If only I could touch my toes" was suggested by fU4Fra7snW; guest-ijaiojo came up with "Too big to fail?"

Other fine efforts included:

chocolatecity:  "I had one simple request: sharks with frikken' laser beams attached to their heads"
JW_uncapped:  "The YMCA dance was not one of Kim Dotcom's strongpoints"
Devin423: "She's also my lawyer"
guest-iioaenw: "In hot water"

Both our correspondent in San Francisco and a reader called Vectorly suggested "Dotcom bust", which we've used as the title of the article. The (lightly edited) winner is: "This year's beach sumo contest was surprisingly one-sided". This was suggested by Harry Krishna and appears in the paper tomorrow. We offer our congratulations to the winners and our thanks to everyone who took part.

CAN you write an Economist picture caption? The excellent standard of entries in our previous competitions suggests that many of you can. Here's a new chance for you to see your wit in print.

The photograph above will accompany an article in the Business section in this week's issue. It shows Kim Dotcom (pictured, wearing sunglasses), co-founder of file-sharing site Megaupload. Last week police in New Zealand arrested Mr Dotcom at the request of American officials, who also shut down Megaupload, claiming it encouraged users to share copyrighted content (the firm says that the vast majority of its traffic is legitimate). The eccentric businessman, who changed his name from Schmitz, is reported to have enjoyed a lavish lifestyle: with a mansion in New Zealand, a fleet of luxury cars and a slight tendency to show off.

As before, it's up to you to provide the caption: please leave your suggestions in the comments thread below. The captions should be as short and snappy as possible, and ideally no more than about 30 characters long. The best contribution will appear beneath the picture in this week's print edition, which is published on Friday morning. Entries close at midnight London time on Wednesday evening, so you've got a little more than 48 hours. The winner can truthfully claim to have written (at least a few words) for The Economist. Over to you.

Update: The competition is closed, and the winner has been announced.

That, at least, is the message of the latest annual “trust barometer” published by Edelman, a PR firm, on January 24^th to put the global elite in a bad mood as they board their private jets and head for the mountains. This year, overall trust has declined in the leaders of the four main categories of organization scrutinized—government, business, non-governmental organizations and the media. Of the 50 or so countries examined, 11, nearly twice as many as last year, are now judged “sceptical”, with less than 50% of those polled saying they trusted these institutions. Trust in Japanese institutions plunged to 34%, from 51% in 2011, not surprising given the handling by leaders of the Tsunami and its aftermath. But the collapse in trust was even more striking in Brazil, the country in which trust was greatest in 2011, at 80%, but now, following ab series of corruption scandals, has slipped to 51% (admittedly, still above America and Britain, among others).

This headline slump in trust is due, above all, to the public losing faith in political leaders. In 2011, across all countries, Edelman found that 52% of those polled trusted government; this year, it was only 43%. Government is now trusted less even than the media, which actually enjoyed a modest recovery, to 52% from 49% last year. Trust in business fell slightly, from 56% to 53%, as did trust in NGOs, which still remain the most trusted type of institution, at 58%, down from 61% in 2011. As in previous years, the barometer is based on a poll of what Edelman calls “informed people”, which typically means professional and well-educated, though this year for the first time the views of the informed were benchmarked against a poll of the public as a whole. For each institution, the broader public was even less trusting than the informed, with government trusted by 38%, business 47%, NGOs 50% and the media 46%.

These averages hide some significant variations. Trust in government has actually increased modestly in Ireland, India, Canada and even America, and ranges from 88% trusting (or saying they do) in China and the United Arab Emirates to only 20% in Spain (despite the handover of power in the recent general election). Nobody will be surprised to learn that the least trusted businesses are banking and financial services, and the most trusted (to a remarkable degree in China and India) is technology.

In recent years, changes in trust in government and business increasingly have been in the same direction, as they were again this year, even though the loss of trust in government was larger. Remarkably, worldwide 46% of informed people say they “do not trust government leaders at all to tell the truth”. By that extreme standard, business leaders do much better, with only 27% of those polled saying they do not trust them to tell the truth at all. Nonetheless, says Edelman, the credibility of chief executives has now returned to the low of 2009. Will anything these leaders say or do this week in Davos start to reverse this reputational decline, or has it now reached the point of no return?