Ever since oil started gushing from its well in the Gulf of Mexico, the British energy company BP Plc has responded precisely the way you'd expect from a massive corporation caught up in a terrible mess.

The moment that corporate executives from New York to Tokyo have dreaded has arrived: Chinese workers are demanding a raise.

Al and Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage, after four children and three grandchildren, after just buying a US$9-million house in Montecito, California, two weeks after celebrating their anniversary.

So you're Barack Obama and you meet with Japan's new leader. Do you bother remembering his name?

While fault for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico clearly belongs to private entities, chief among them BP Plc and Transocean Ltd., responsibility for the resulting damage is shared by an incompetent government.

A spate of suspected suicides at Foxconn Technology Group in China and rising labor tensions could damage the country's image among foreign investors, New York University law professor Jerome Cohen said.

This time things are different. It's odd that Greece's debt gets more attention these days than Kim Jong Il's nuclear weapons.

Greece is going bust. The euro is sliding. The bond markets are in open revolt. And what does the German government decide to do? Shoot the messenger.

China is under growing pressure from Asia, Europe and the U.S. to revalue its currency. Until recently, it even looked like we were about to embark on a sustained process of yuan revaluation fairly soon.

The U.S. stock market reels. Europe cringes at the prospect of serial defaults by Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy.