The French are confident that this phase of the campaign will soon be over, adds our correspondent, though of course the vast desert hinterland offers the Islamists endless opportunities to retreat and regroup.

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Of course it is not easy to create things in a desert.

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Stanley was, of course, specially hardened by its designers for the rough terrain of the Nevada desert.

ECONOMIST: Racing robots

In the Southwest Desert, under the leadership of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicists of Los Alamos won that race and changed the course of history.

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