And local authorities may now run academies (although prising their grip from schools was another).

ECONOMIST: A decade of education reforms��and lessons still unlearned

Each dismantles barriers between the two, prising the landlocked country open to the Union.

ECONOMIST: Less-suspicious Switzerland

The worry for foreign manufacturers is that Kia's stumble may hinder the slow process of prising open South Korea's markets.

ECONOMIST: South Korea��s firms

Mr Becker voices the conventional liberal wisdom when he accepts that they constitute a package deal instead of prising them apart.

ECONOMIST: Israeli politics

All adding up to innovative ways of prising productive investment and endeavour from the private and third sectors, in order to bolster the economy.

BBC: The Scottish budget fight begins

She promptly spent five years wielding her handbag, before prising out of her colleagues a permanent budget rebate at the Fontainebleau summit in 1984.

ECONOMIST: Britain and Europe

Heading one is Mr Lafontaine, who has strengthened his barony in the finance ministry by prising all the important departments from the economics ministry.

ECONOMIST: Who really runs Germany?

Speculation centres on which assets Yukos will be forced to sell, and whether the process will end up prising control of Yukos away from jailed ex-CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky's investment firm Menatep Group.

BBC: Russia's growth is driven by oil revenues

Recent agreement for the Taliban to open an office for negotiations in Qatar is another way of prising the group away from Pakistan and has brought a formal peace process a little closer.

ECONOMIST: Afghanistan: Too close for comfort | The

Try prising that one off her back.

ECONOMIST: Lynn Sherr��s new book offers all the skinny on dipping