After finally admitting that the true scale of its SARS outbreak had been deliberately hidden, and that in fact the disease was still spreading quickly, the Chinese authorities are now doing all in their power to contain the disease, from establishing road-blocks to stop people leaving Beijing, to the curtailment of the traditional week-long holiday that should have begun on May 1st.

ECONOMIST: Painful side-effects

While the change is not immediately obvious outside of Yoyogi Station, the first stop past Shinjuku, concrete evidence lies a few blocks away, at Yoyogi Village.

BBC: Seeing Tokyo along the Yamanote Line

Workers yell, slice blocks of ice, haul massive bluefin tuna, spit, stop for a smoke, laugh, bone an eel and yell some more.

BBC: Tsukiji Market: Tokyo's famous seafood market

Unlike Mr Obama's two predecessors, George Bush and Bill Clinton, the president said that building should stop even in the suburbs of East Jerusalem and in the West Bank settlement blocks that are likely to become parts of Israel under a peace treaty, in return for land swaps to compensate the Palestinians.

ECONOMIST: Binyamin Netanyahu cocks a snook at the American president

Ask Sarah Palin, or Newt Gingrich, or the many others who have lately clambered aboard the offensive campaign to stop Cordoba House, a proposed community centre and mosque, from being built in New York two blocks from the site of the twin towers.

ECONOMIST: Lexington

Walk the last few blocks to work or to your meeting, even if it means getting off the train a stop early.

FORBES: Who Comes First In A Partnership?