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The new UK Labour government has won fans in the City of London by announcing, after only a few weeks in office, a wholesale reform of financial regulation.

First there were commemorative watches, then there were commemorative bottles of beer - called Red Dawn. Now the Bank of England has joined the crush to make a buck out of Hong Kong's handover to China by printing special £5 notes.

Governments in emerging markets have spent $250 billion bailing out banks in the past decade. How can the industrial countries help stop the haemorrhage and any knock-on into their own markets? By imposing worldwide rules for better supervision, building markets and institutions in their own image, or by letting free markets do their work? James Smalhout reports.

The scandal at Nomura Securities, the subject of this month's cover story, carries an important lesson for anyone dealing with Japan. Japanese financial institutions have a very different attitude to the law than do their western counterparts. Not to put a finer point on it, they have little moral compunction about breaking the law when it suits them.

...argues Standard & Poor's, deserve a better credit rating than their sovereign. But not everybody in the market agrees, nor do other raters. Especially when it's banks that have been re-rated. Suzanne Miller reports on a growing controversy

These are nervous times for investors in Pakistan's power sector, which has attracted around $3 billion since 1994. Allegations that agreed tariffs were set too high and that several of the 18 independent power projects (IPP) that have achieved financial closure involved illegal gifts to members of Benazir Bhutto's government have prompted Nawaz Sharif's administration, which took office in February, to scrutinize terms and conditions.

A special report prepared by Dresdner Kleinwort Benson

With Russian issuance still in its early days, any new bond is a source of interest and speculation. The City of Moscow's debut didn't disappoint. Charles Piggott reports.

Toys, baseball caps, anything to give investors that feelgood factor. It may seem like all cosmetics and packaging, but don't skimp on marketing your issue. Your access to funding could diminish next time round. Michelle Celarier reports.

Despite the hardships caused to African countries by the 1980s' IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes, there have also been benefits. Market-determined exchange rates, interest rate liberalization, privatization, private sector budget deficit management and the removal of price controls have injected new life into African business. Philip Eade profiles some of the continent's listed companies

April is the cruellest month, wrote TS Eliot. Chinese investors may beg to differ. They found May pretty cruel. In the past month the Beijing authorities have declared war on China's two principal stock markets, rattled by alleged speculation. This had carried the Shanghai domestic share index to gains of 55% since January, and pushed Shenzhen up 75%. By the time Beijing decided to act the two markets were on P/E ratios of nearly 50 times historical earnings. But at first Beijing's usually subtle hints had no impact on a market convinced of its own immortality.

Private investigator Kroll Associates has worked hard to restore its reputation following allegations in the early 1990s that its subcontractors employed unsavoury tactics to uncover company information. It has also adapted well to changing business patterns. Now, though, it faces competition from big accounting firms. Public ownership may be the answer, but could its absorption into US insurance information services company Equifax dull its investigative edge or turn it into big brother? Michelle Celarier reports.