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Leaning easily against their sandbagged position, the machine-gunners look decidedly bored and even a little sleepy in the glaring midday sun. Watching the quiet approach road to Karachi's main international airport is, apparently, not the kind of duty that sets pulses racing. The local newspapers may be exercised by the story that a section of the airport is being handed over to American forces as a staging post for Afghanistan - and by the notion that US troops might be hunting for Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan - but Karachi's citizens apparently couldn't care less. The mopping up of Al-Qaeda leaders has become a subject of wry humour rather than passionate outrage. When the Americans called their operation Enduring Freedom did they mean that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were going to enjoy enduring freedom? So runs one popular joke.

Russia

Global: Deals of the year 2001: The landmark deals of 2001

Last year was marvellous for the debt markets. Despite all the setbacks, such as the collapses of Enron, Argentina and others, frequent interest rate cuts and huge corporate financing programmes kept the banks in clover. This year doing deals will be much tougher. Corporates have less borrowing to do and interest rates may rise. Banks will have to fight harder than ever for market share to keep revenues up.

A rash of European high-yield defaults has pointed up the skills of specialist law firms practised in pursuing the interests of bondholders.

MEXICO

INDIA

Did Kenneth Lay's call of doom to Paul O'Neill contain a germ of truth? The Enron chairman claimed in an October telephone conversation with the US Treasury secretary that the collapse of Enron could lead to a systemic decline in the US financial system. It was easy to deride it at the time as the desperate ravings of a man scrambling to save the company he and fellow executives had crashed into the ground. For a while the Enron saga unfolded as an extraordinary but somehow remote and isolated event, rather like the collapse of Argentina. Financial markets took the biggest ever bankruptcy in America calmly. Neither credit nor equity markets sold off. But now, three months on, it seems Lay had a point.

For financial institutions from Europe, the US and Japan, China is the last great frontier. Though the country's membership of the World Trade Organization, which came into effect last month, will bring major changes across the economic board, the revolution is likely to be most radical in banking, share markets, insurance and allied services.

TAIWAN

David Bowie was a big hit when he debuted in the securities market. His $55 million bond issue securitized by future royalties on his back catalogue of records was an innovative transaction, appeared to herald a slew of similar deals, and made a star out of banker David Pullman.

The world’s elite AAA-rated bond issuers will need to be fast on their feet to get the best deals in 2002. Interest rates are on the way up and investors look set to focus on yield rather than quality. Charles Olivier reports on borrowing strategies.