World Link

After nearly a decade of boisterous economic growth, investors have been taken aback by recent falls in share prices around the world. America's Nasdaq stock market has fallen by 70% since the beginning of 2000; some emerging markets have fared even worse. Financial pundits have fingered a number of plausible culprits, from the popping of the dotcom bubble to the fallout from September 11th. But when all else fails, critics turn their fire on a centuries-old scapegoat: short-sellers.

Until recently, energy-trading giant Enron was hailed as a paragon of corporate governance. The firm's rapid ascent was credited to an ambitious leadership, which maintained solid earnings despite an aggressive expansion strategy that drained cash flow. Institutional investors fattened their portfolios with Enron's high-octane stock, and CEO Kenneth Lay hobnobbed with then-Governor George Bush at baseball games.

The attacks of September 11 were stunning not only for their brutality, but also for their simplicity. It is estimated that the entire operation cost al-Qaeda just $300,000, and the expertise involved -- from piloting skills to document forgery -- was relatively unsophisticated. Yet the terrorists were able to cause an estimated $200 billion worth of damage to the United States economy, in addition to cutting short thousands of innocent lives.

Mention the Caspian Sea to an oil tycoon and his eyes are bound to flare with longing. Ever since the Soviet Union's demise, energy executives have dreamt of tapping the vast petroleum stores beneath the Japan-sized body of water and the post-Soviet nations that surround it -- Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. The US Department of Energy estimates that the Caspian basin contains an eye-popping 110 billion barrels of oil, three times America's proven reserves.

Technology pundits foresee the day when low-cost wireless devices provide lightning-fast data connections, a future they've labelled with the buzzword "unstrung". Bulky PCs and dial-up modems will be replaced by broadband-ready PDAs, and mobile phones will double as graphics-rich Web browsers. Need to book an airline ticket from London to Harare while riding on the Tokyo subway?