Colonel Pierre Buyoya, Burundi's current ruler, said in a Christmas speech that security had improved.

ECONOMIST: Burundi

More likely the current ruler of Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav, with 22 national MPs, might be persuaded to join if offered a big enough dollop of development funds for the state.

ECONOMIST: Politics in India

Much of the impetus comes from choices made in the 1970s when the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, father of the current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed, decided that Dubai needed an economy that would outlast its oil supplies.

ECONOMIST: Business travel

The presidential election that Nigeria is to hold on August 1st was turned into a referendum on General Sani Abacha, the current ruler, when all of the five political parties allowed to take part adopted the general as their candidate.

ECONOMIST: Chinese wrinkles