The bond's real significance is that it diversifies Vietnam's sources of financing and establishes a benchmark for future capital raisings, says Le Thi Bang Tam, the vice-finance minister.

ECONOMIST: Vietnam's maiden international bond: Hanoi calling | The

Ms Le's boss at Indochina Capital, Tung Kim Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American, reckons there is a bigger wave to come as older exiles return to spend their final years back in their homeland.

ECONOMIST: Former refugees bring back skills and money

Exhibitors from 42 countries are displaying 242 civilian and military aircraft at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital.

BBC: air show

Lying abed, looking at the Emerald City of unfettered finance capital coruscating across the rooftops of the Victorian corridor streets that Le Corbusier and Howard so decried, I can appreciate that enacted here is the most important axiom of contemporary architecture - form follows finance.

BBC: A Point of View: Staring at the Shard