Update: NYSE Euronext opened for trading, up 18% then it triggered a circuit breaker on the back of this news.

FORBES: Could We See A Global Exchange?

He could also turn strike-breaker, telling the Longbridge toolmakers to go back to work and brokering a secret pay-deal for Ford car-workers with the government.

ECONOMIST: Lord Scanlon of Davyhulme

Having dropped (back in 1990) a plan to build the world's biggest ice-breaker, the Canadians may also have to seek Russian help next time they need to carve out a path to the North Pole: even the patrol boats ordered up by Mr Harper this month won't match Russia's leviathans.

ECONOMIST: The Arctic

Ironically, Nicolas Sarkozy, finance minister of the other big pact-breaker, France, this week promised to do more to cut spending to get back below the ceiling.

ECONOMIST: German economic policy