"Jimmy earned his stripes under adversity, " adds Paul Fribourg, a Loews director and chairman of ContiGroup, a global food company.

FORBES: High On Loews

"The bacteria are winning right now, " adds Paul Miller, who directs antibiotic research at Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ).

FORBES: Germ Warfare

"It creates an atmosphere which sets us apart, " adds Associate Dean Paul Joseph.

CNN: Florida law school uses wireless technology

Yet Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at the University of Toulouse, adds that some of the increase in women's part-time work might be because their husbands' wages are frozen thanks to the 35-hour law.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

So it seems to me that Summers should be demonstrating substantially more humility here on the subject of encouraging financial innovation, when countries which constrained it did pretty well during the crisis compared to those with a deregulatory philosophy and when very wise minds like Paul Volcker are credibly arguing that financial innovation almost never adds real economic value.

FORBES: Larry Summers and the Gospel of Financial Innovation

Previous prime ministers such as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating established the first ties with Asia, but the new policy would be deeper and more organised, adds our correspondent.

BBC: Australia PM Julia Gillard outlines Asia manifesto