And earlier this year, Mr Mubarak persuaded Mr Arafat to restart talks despite their anger of Israel's failure to fulfil interim agreements.

BBC: Egypt refuses to pressure Arafat

The paper notes that there would ultimately be a written constitution in an independent Scotland but that a constitutional platform, covering such matters as finance, the law and international agreements, would be needed in the interim to enable Holyrood to operate independently.

BBC: Giving in to temptation

More recently he has struck co-operation agreements with Macquarie, an Australian investment bank, and Bank of China. (In the interim, an attempt to buy Sarasin, a private Swiss bank owned by Rabobank of the Netherlands, came to nothing.) The aim is to have 50% of his business in emerging markets by 2015.

ECONOMIST: A Swiss bank bets on emerging markets