It has been a week rich with financial mysteries of one sort or another.

Javier Blas excelled with his coverage of the rogue trader whose night-time dealings caused a huge spike in Brent crude. Meanwhile, Brooke, Stanley Pignal and Matthew Vincent produced a strong Saturday package on another mystery – the disappearance of  assets backing bond products associated with a dead fugitive from British justice.

The sentencing of Bernard Madoff produced excellent on-the-day coverage from  Jo Chung and  Alan Rappeport in New York, backed  up by Brooke  in London, and a powerful courtroom column from John Gapper.

Citigroup’s decision to raise interest rates on 15m credit cards prompted politicians and unions to ask new questions about the bank – there was a scoop the next day by Francesco Guerrera, Saskia Scholtes and Tom Braithwaite. Francesco also broke the news that Morgan Stanley and its Japanese partner MUFG plan a $100bn joint venture to boost lending to US companies.

Matthew Garrahan landed a great Hollywood scoop about Paramount’s talks with Fox and Sony to unite their home entertainment divisions – and also provided strong coverage of California issuing IOUs to get it out of its budget mess.

Andrew Parker, Neil Hume and Gerrit Wiesmann revealed that Vodafone was thinking of buying T-Mobile UK – which set in train lots of interest from other potential buyers. A George Parker interview with Peter Mandelson revealed the Royal Mail privatisation legislation was being put on hold.

Kim Jong-il son’s secret visit to China was revealed by Jamil Anderlini and  Robin Harding,  and Norma Cohen unearthed UK government proposals for softer  terms for local authority pension funds. Finally, Daniel Thomas revealed a new celebrity business link-up, this time between Alex Ferguson and David Frost.

Analytical highlights of the week included: Chris Giles once again cut through the political claim and counterclaim on UK public spending trends,  while George Parker explained how Gordon Brown had kick-started the election campaign. Sunny Tucker and Jamil Anderlini had a strong article on the Western banks’ exit from investments in China, and the likely consequences. Carola Hoyos analysed Iraq’s far from successful oil auction (with a good online interactive graphic), while  Richard Milne, Brian Groom and Jonathan Birchall wrote an excellent and very timely piece on the flexible working hours trend. Mure Dickie analysed the battle for power between Japan’s bureaucrats and politicians, Ralph Atkins and Krishna Guha explained the policy dilemmas facing central banks, and David Gelles examined Facebook’s future.

Kathrin Hille and Richard Waters provided a series of great articles on China’s attempts to force computer makers to put controversial internet filtering software on all new computers, while Anousha Sakoui examined restructurings that don’t go far enough and James Boxell explained how UK private companies were hoping to benefit from the state financial crisis.

Comment highlights included Clive Crook on Obama choosing to be weak – a massive online hit - and a strong run of Global Insight columns: Peggy Hollinger’s nice dissection of  Sarkozy’s national savings bond plan, Roula Khalaf on the Iranian political balance, Quentin Peel on Russia-Georgia relations,  and William Wallis on China and Africa. Philip Stephens explained the unexpected post-election complications of Israeli policy towards Iran; John Gapper wrote a powerful critique of Chris Anderson’s free model – together with an online discussion with Mr Anderson. Martin Wolf explained the need for more radical action on the banking industry, while Mike Skapinker pointed out the drawbacks of the world’s supposedly  most “liveable cities” – they are small and dull – provoking a lively batch of readers’ letters.

Among colourful writing, Matthew Engel provided a string of entertaining pieces from Wimbledon on the Murray effect, Joe Leahy explained how  Mumbai’s big new bridge is bringing more gridlock to the city; Amy Kazmin explored the high life among Burma’s elite and Vanessa Friedman  wonderfully captured the over-the- top character of Manolo Blahnik in a lunch with the shoe designer. On UK companies, John O’Doherty and Eddie Heathcote combined to produce a very good news story and architectural review of the first hospital designed by Norman Foster. House and Home’s luxury rent-to-buy article was original and the Life and Arts piece on summer holidays had a good seasonal feel.

One of the most inspiring features this weekend was Justine Lau’s brave account in the magazine of her journey back to health after she suffered serious brain injuries when she was hit by a bus in 2007. Justine returned to her reporting job in Hong Kong just 10 months after the accident.

Introduction: Upstart Xstrata makes a multi-billion dollar approach for Anglo-American, the establishment mining company; the turf battle over banking regulation intensifies in the UK; the Iranian authorities tighten a noose around the opposition; and Michael Jackson, the Peter Pan of pop, dies in California, aged 50.

Award watch: Barney Jopson’s articles on the political and economic impact of water aid in Asia and Africa won a distinguished mention in despatches in the Martha Gellhorn prize.

And if you missed the Financial Times or ft.com this past week, you would have missed the following top ten items:

1) The Federal Reserve is considering dramatic changes in the repo markets where banks raise billions of dollars overnight. Our front-page scoop from Henny Sender and Michael Mackenzie was accompanied by a full package inside. This included an expose by Henny on the role played by JP Morgan Chase - in its capacity as a clearing bank in the repo market - in the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

2) The founders of Rothschild bank and Freshfields, the leading City of London solicitors, had financial links to slavery, according to previously undiscovered documents in the National Archive. The scoop was by Carola Hoyos (following diligent work by an ex City banker).

3) Simon Cowell, the Pop Idol founder-creator, and Sir Philip Green, the High Street retailer, are teaming up in a joint business venture.

4) Guy Dinmore wrote the best account by far of Silvio Berlusconi’s political difficulties triggered by sexual liaisons with women of various ages and backgrounds.

5) Charles Clover’s magisterial report on the modernisation of the Red Army, pushed through by a group of insurgent generals in the wake of the Georgian war.

6) Board tensions are erupting at Marks & Spencer over the planned (or lack of planned) succession to Sir Stuart Rose. Kate Burgess dug deep, working alongside Andrea Felsted.

7) Tony Barber’s nuanced global insight which explained that there is more common ground between France and Germany than first appears regarding their superficially divergent approaches to economic policy in Europe’s monetary union.

8) Amy Kazmin’s report on the rising number of attacks by white Australians on Indian students. Amy highlighted how Indians are pushed or tricked into second-rate courses by unscrupulous agents, and often forced to live in the least salubrious areas of Australia’s cities.

9) Byron Trott, Warren Buffett’s favourite banker, has raised more than $2bn for a new fund. Justin Baer, Henny Sender and Julie Macintosh broke the story.

10) Simon Schama’s brilliant books essay on insects - a great read for non-scientists but also richly illustrated.

Corporate news watch: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson wrote a sophisticated second fronter on the decline in customer loyalty that has taken place during the economic downturn.

Joe Menn wrote everything you needed to know about the state of play at Apple, post Steve Jobs’ liver transplant.

Saskia Scholtes produced a scoop on insurers owing as much as $6bn on policies that protect companies against legal costs.

William McNamara and Richard Lapper have produced good copy on the Xstrata-Anglo deal.

Richard Waters wrote an excellent Saturday analysis on how western companies are also assisting the Chinese. Kathrin Hille has written lucidly on the Green Dam censorship move in general.

Trend watch II: Catherine Belton revealed that the Kremlin is working on plans to recapitalise Russia’s stricken banks - one to watch. John Authers wrote a sharp Short View on Russia to complement the coverage.

Our man on the spot: Farhan Bokhari’s reporting from the ground in Buner, the district in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province that was the first major battleground in the confrontation between the Pakistani Taliban and the military. Farhan did an audio interview for FT.com as well producing two pieces for the newspaper, and followed up with a scoop interview with Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who disclosed rising Chinese aid to Pakistan and a state of alert in the southern provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

Our woman on the spot: Emma Jacobs wrote an arresting on-the-ground piece on how the downturn is affecting this year’s Wimbledon hawkers. A really hint of the life of the small entrepreneurs feeding and supplying the queue.

Two big stories dominated: the wave of street protests in Iran and the Obama administration’s plans for overhauling financial regulation. But there were some spicy runners-up: the break-up of Formula
One, Sir Fred Goodwin’s sudden display of remorse when he handed back part of his generous pension settlement, Mervyn King’s eloquent power grab on banking reform, Lord Carter’s blueprint for a Digital Britain, and British Airways’s artful pay cut, via a plea for staff to (temporarily) work for nothing to save
costs.

First, a very special mention to Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Roula Khalaf in Tehran who provided expert coverage in print and online in a dangerous and unpredictable environment. Roula Khalaf wrote a splendid analysis.

Second, we provided strong coverage on the financial regulation story in the US. On the day of the announcement, we explored the possibility that the plan would give the Federal Reserve the power to regulate an industrial company such as General Electric and the differences between the new regulatory thinking in the US and Europe.

Third, we produced extensive print and online coverage, including a video package, of our (fifth) Business of Luxury Summit, this time located in Monte Carlo. We had more than 400 guests, including Bernard Arnault of LMVH, Angela Ahrendts of Burberry and Malcolm McLaren, founder of the Sex Pistols, pop icon, cultural commentator and artiste. And if you missed the FT this past week, you would have missed the following special items:

1) Glencore, the publicity-adverse trading house with far-reaching influence on world commodity markets, is considering a stock market flotation. William McNamara broke an important story that was widely read among commodity cognoscenti.

2) Martin Wolf’s column - the recession tracks the Great Depression - was among the best read on ft.com for several days. His Friday column skewering Gordon Brown (and Ed Balls) - Honesty is the best fiscal policy - was cited at length by Martin Ivens in his own op-ed column in the Sunday Times.

3) George Soros’ column on the best way forward for financial regulation was among the most read on ft.com.

4) Andrew Clark’s Lunch with the FT with Simon Rattle, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, was a sumptuous blend of art, history and politics which penetrated the German soul.

5) Richards Waters delivered double scoops: on the return of Credit Suisse banker Frank Quattrone to Silicon Valley and the other on European regulatory challenges to Facebook’s hopes for profitability.

6) Jonathan Birchall produced, a detailed exploration of the new frontier in men’s shaving.

7) Paul Taylor’s column on the best in beach-proof technology for the summer was a good example of how we are getting better at consumer journalism.

8) Chris Giles wrote an excellent news feature explaining why the UK labour market is proving more flexible than might have been expected during the recession. Pay-cuts or de facto pay-cuts through reduced working time are an important factor.

9) Richard Milne wrote an eye-catching analysis on how Norway’s equality law has produced a revolution in the boardroom, triggering interest and scrutiny in other countries.  The feature attracted plenty of letters.

10) Kevin Done’s swan song from the Paris air show included the true reason why Ryanair won’t be charging people to visit the toilet mid-flight.

Humour watch: Best column by a mile by Robert Shrimsley on Mervyn King’s Mansion House speech in which he likened the Bank of England to a church which could draw the congregation to weddings and funerals but has proved unable to compel people to listen to its sermons.  Here is an excerpt…

“Across the City, Mervyn saw a great storm brewing. He saw the Royal Bank of Nineveh with its 125 per cent mortgages and doubtful hedging strategy. He saw the low capital adequacy ratios at the Banks of
Sodom and Gommorah.  Mervyn became angry and stormed over the City and with mighty voice and much fury said: “Steady on a bit, would you.”

Europe watch: Tony Barber and George Parker covered the EU summit with skill and judgment, focusing on differences over the management of systemic risk and the reappointment of José Manuel Barroso as Commission president, albeit amid ructions in the European Parliament.  Nikki Tait wrote a very good analysis on state aid in the recession and the challenge for EU competition authorities.

Trend to watch: Sam Knight’s arresting feature in the Weekend FT magazine on how climate change is about to trigger the biggest migration in history.

Graphics watch: We are becoming more and more confident about innovating in design and producing graphic imagery. The best example this week was the splendid graphic on the global car industry, supporting John Reed’s feature.

Comment watch: A magisterial contribution from Philip Stephens on how Iran has exposed the gap between idealism and realism for Barack Obama. Max Hastings wrote the last word on the UK government’s
decision to hold another public inquiry into the Iraq war in private, sorry partly in public, sorry…..please contact Downing street for the latest developments.

UK companies watch: Dan Thomas produced a great scoop about retail property gloom and also provided a well-written and timely interview with Vincent Tchenguiz ahead of the Bramdean showdown. Gill Plimmer delivered a strong exclusive on National Express’s debt talks.  Plus a scoop from Matt “Mr Hollywood” Garrahan and London’s Salamander Davoudi on a possible bid by ESPN for English Premier League football television rights.

And finally, please note Mrs Moneypenny’s campaign for a place for Sir Keith Park, the New Zealand air ace and Defender of Britain in 1940 has paid off.  A statue of Sir Keith will appear for six months on the fourth
plinth of Trafalgar Square - and he will gain a permanent berth elsewhere soon thereafter. Well done, Mrs M - ably supported by Mr Terry Smith and many other FT readers.

Election fever in Iran, election torpor in Europe, and febrile politics at Westminster were among our top stories this week, and on each occasion our newspaper and online stories meshed extremely well.
Our Iranian coverage throughout the week has been excellent. Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Anna Fifield in Tehran gave us really insightful and colourful news and analysis of the extraordinary energy unleashed in the build-up to polling day, with analysis ranging from the mood of the bazaars to the role of women in Iran – and of the disputed result. The online coverage was equally powerful, including Anna’s online report with pictures, and strong online reporting on Saturday and Sunday. Roula Khalaf provided an excellent Q&A and strong leadership in London, together with Tom O’Sullivan. Daniel Dombey got a good interview with John Kerry calling for a US change of policy on Iranian nuclear power. We also wrote authoritative leaders.

Our European election coverage was also very strong for the most part. From across the continent we had excellent coverage from bureaus, led by Tony Barber with fast, very well judged news and analysis. Tony kept his Brussels blog lively in the run up to the vote.

In the UK the whole of the lobby team did a great job over the elections and the resultant political upheaval. Alex Barker was a particularly outstanding Stakhanovite on Sunday when we were blindsided by the results slowly emerging during the night, rather than in one fell swoop as expected. Later in the week the Westminster blog team revealed Mandelson’s battle with Whitehall over the union flag while George Parker wrote a very fine “Mandy” in the News. He and Chris Giles had a very newsworthy interview with Alistair Darling, from which they extracted full value, while the video team scrambled to ensure we had online coverage.

Another paper/online highlight of the week was the insightful profile by Beth Rigby of George Davies for the (excellent) Saturday magazine and related news stories and the audio slideshow online, organized by Beth and edited by Rob Minto. Charlie Bibby took some great photos.

Among scoops, Henny Sender and Patrick Jenkins kept us out ahead in front of the competition on the negotiations between Barclays and BlackRock over the BGI sale, (and Kate Burgess chipped in with a well-timed analysis of M&A in the sector). In the Middle East, the big business story was the trouble of the Saad group, and Andrew England and Simeon Kerr, with support from Patrick Jenkins and Neil Hume in London, did a great job keeping us ahead of the field.

Henny and Francesco Guerrera had a splash with new rules being considered by US regulators that would govern how private equity groups could buy weak banks.

A sophisticated splash – and huge hit on the web – came from Michael Mackenzie and Alan Rappeport on US long-term interest rates hitting a high for the year after a disappointing auction of new 10-year Treasuries. Tom Mitchell, Matt Garrahan and Jack Burton led the field with an investment by Malaysia’s Genting gaming group in MGM, and Ed Luce and Krishna Guha had a scoop of interpretation on the problems facing US government efforts to enlist buyers for depressed banking assets.

In the UK, Brooke Masters’ and George Parker’s excellent digging came up with a splash scoop on City concerns over Gordon Brown’s waning influence in Europe (with a nice Lombard by Andrew Hill), while Jean Eaglesham scored with a widely followed piece on how ex-Labour MPs face little hope of lucrative private sector jobs.

Javier Blas had an exclusive on a fund that allows investors to tap into Glencore’s commodities expertise, while Carola Hoyos, with support from Michael Steen, had a strong and much followed scoop with the boss of Shell calling for executive pay reform. Daniel Schafer reported that Qatar was considering a big stake in Porsche, while Jonathan Moules reported entrepreneurs were queuing up to be Tory candidates.

Mick Kavanagh gave up a lot of his weekend to get an excellent second front scoop and inside interview on Ferrexpo, while Martin Arnold had a string of great private equity scoops, notably Damon Buffini stepping down as chairman of Permira, but also deals involving Baxi and Wood Mackenzie. John Reed revealed Koenigsegg was set to buy Saab, and George Parker and Jane Croft that the UK government was set to help the building societies. Michael Steen revealed that grounded KLM pilots were doing menial jobs.

Among the columnists, Simon Kuper wrote brilliantly on the uselessness of football transfers, while Philip Stephens wrote provokingly on both the crisis of capitalism turning into one for the left and Cameron sleepwalking towards Europe’s exit. He also wrote a magisterial Analysis page on power ebbing away from Labour. Gillian Tett wrote sensitively about the Bank of England rediscovering its City muscle, while Chrystia Freeland hit out at the raw deal for Chrysler bondholders and John Gapper did the same on US financial regulators’ turf wars. Lex was impressive on European stress tests, US executive pay, the UK housing market, and after Tarp.

One of the most enjoyable pieces of analysis this week was Chris Giles’ elegant skewering of Gordon Brown’s misrepresentations in the great debate over public spending. We followed through with an excellent leader on the need for honesty in the debate.

Another of the week’s highlights was Jamil Anderlini’s superb analysis of the Falun Gong movement on the 10th anniversary of its suppression.

Elsewhere in Asia, Sunny Tucker contributed a strong maSrket insight into how the collapse of Chinalco’s Rio bid will divert China’s wall of money from M&A towards under-the-radar investments through fund managers. On the same capital markets page, Lindsay Whipp had offerings on continued appetite for huge amounts of Japanese municipal bonds and a Sony bond sale that took corporate offerings in Japan to 11-year highs. Such coverage provides important insights into how the enormous savings in China and Japan are being marshalled as confidence slowly recovers. Mure Dickie did well on Japan’s post-Kyoto offer, securing an interview with Taro Aso, prime minister, in which he laid out Japan’s offer to cut emissions by what turned out to be a modest 2 per cent on its Kyoto pledge.

Justine Lau did exceptionally well, getting our Asia online news moving earlier in the day. She wrote several early takes on stories outside her usual remit, two so strong – one on Standard & Poor’s sounding the alarm on fiscal deficits, the other on signs that China’s stimulus package is working – that they made the front page of the newspaper.

Other strong analysis included Mike Mackenzie and Aline van Duyn on the tricky balance for central banks on when and how to unwind support for the market; Francesco Guerrera and Greg Farrell analysing winners and losers from the Tarp repayment decision, James Wilson on the problems of German banks and Gerrit Wiesmann and Elizabeth Rigby on the Arcandor insolvency. Richard Waters wrote a superbly authoritative Saturday Analysis page from the frontiers of personal technology. The techblog kept us up with news from the Apple conference.

It was a good week for Special Reports, with a helpful influx of advertising. Highlights included the Spain report, with fascinating pieces on coming to terms with the civil war and on linguistic diversity within the country. The Rail Industry report contained some nuggets from Robert Wright, including that the Tokyo Metro does not keep train reliability data as it would be unacceptable for a train to break down, and (perhaps something you didn’t want to know) that the train out of Blackfriars will use computer technology to take it down the UK’s steepest rail slope because no driver would have the nerve to drive at the speed it should travel at.

The FT did extremely well in the Society of Publishers in Asia awards, the region’s most prestigious, taking five top slots and a runner-up prize.

Joe Leahy’s coverage of the Mumbai bombings, together with pieces on the struggles of Indian farmers and sweeping changes in corporate India, won him Journalist of the Year Award.

Online coverage of the Olympics won us the Best Digital category.

Tom Mitchell led a story on David Li and a settlement related to alleged insider trading that picked up Scoop of the Year.

The FT also won for best Newspaper Design, Best Feature Writing (FT Chinese) and runner up in the Special Feature award for its annual China Report.

In London, Steve Johnson won the journalists’ journalist award in the Ignis Asset management awards.

A great week for big news and the FT news operation has performed with flair and professionalism in print and online.

First, the Westminster team and the UK news desk led by George Parker and Sarah Neville - supported by the night news desk - did brilliantly under pressure on the Brown meltdown and Lazarus-like recovery.

Alex Barker and Jean Eaglesham wrote penetrating analysis and spot news. We were earlier than the rest on Darling and Miliband staying and our pro-Darling leader was reportedly produced to persuade Brown to keep on his chancellor. Philip Stephens wrote pre-midnight comment for the paper as well as a doing a video for FT.com and Robert Shrimsley wrote a trenchant opinion piece for the weekend FT.

Elsewhere, we did a fine job on Obama’s speech. Heba Saleh wrote sharp spot news from Cairo, Roula Khalaf’s Global Insight was a beautiful piece of prose and we wrote a first rate leader. Ed Luce write a thoughtful analysis on domestic reaction to the speech, while Chris Caldwell’s politics of self abasement in the weekend FT struck a welcome contrarian pose.

Scoop of the week goes to Lina Saigol for breaking the story of the unravelling of the Rio-Chinalco deal and the subsequent rights issue. Plaudits to Peter Smith, who filed and refiled for the web throughout Friday as the bones of the rights issue and the BHP joint venture emerged. Peter was a trouper on this, having also been up very late on Thursday night contributing to the story as it first broke.

US watch: this week, Henny Sender and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson broke the news that a planned debt exchange designed to rescue the giant leveraged buyout of Clear Channel, the US radio station and outdoor advertising powerhouse, was in trouble. Other papers followed up the report the next day, as they had to do last week when Ken Li broke the news that Time Warner was moving toward a complete spin off of AOL.

Other US highlights included:

- Francesco Guerrera produced another scoop on the troubles at Citigroup. This was a tricky week for our banking team because a rival ran a story saying the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was pushing for the ousting of Vikram Pandit at Citi - news that the FT broke back in April. We have been more careful in our coverage because the FDIC is only one of Citi’s regulators and its word isn’t final. Francesco responded with a fresh nugget, revealing that the Citi-FDIC squabble was the reason that Citi has delayed its long-awaited debt-for-equity swap, which could come as early as this week.

- Joe Menn attracted considerable attention on US technology blogs with his detailed reporting on Apple’s plans for a cut-price iPhone. Especially well done as he broke and wrote the story as his wife was going into the early stage of labour.

- Bernard Simon beat the competition with a front-page story on car sales by globalising his story. Others had the US sales figures. We put them in the context of global auto sales, becoming the only US paper that reported, for instance, that GM has been doing very well in China.

- Justin Baer, Julie MacIntosh and Francesco Guerrera broke the news that AIG is considering a breakup of its big aircraft leasing arm.

- Also, David Gelles got a scoop on Facebook introducing a payment system, which could eventually become one of their main ways of making money. It was so good that one of our UK rivals ran it word for word.

Finally, a word of praise for our European elections coverage. Tony Barber’s analysis page told us all we needed to know. Ben Hall gave us excellent coverage from France and Betrand Benoit contributed expertly on Germany notably through a splash on Angela Merkel’s outburst against the ECB and central bankers - a development ignored by the German press but explored more fully on the analysis page on Saturday.

FT.com readers will notice a number of changes to the site today. They are part of a rolling programme designed to make the site simpler to navigate and use but also to highlight the content of greatest interest to you.

The first change is that the management section of the site is now in the main navigation bar. This reflects our increased commitment to the subject - something which will be reflected in the coming weeks. The management section of the site encompasses not only management theory and practice but also business education, our MBA gyms, entrepreneurship and leadership. All features and columnists that could previously be found through the Business Life page can now be reached through the management section.

A second change is the appearance of Arts & Leisure on the main navigation. This replaces what was the weekend section. Again nothing which was in the weekend section of FT.com is disappearing but the change is designed to highlight our arts coverage - adorned by such leading writers as Nigel Andrews, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney and Andrew Clark - which is not merely a weekend event but can be found throughout the week. Weekend features and pages such as food and drink, house and home and reportage, can still be found under the Arts & Leisure section.

In the UK, a third change has seen the merging of our general national news and corporate news on one main page. The UK page is now a one-stop shop for all the best corporate, political, business and economic news. There remain discrete pages for UK companies, politics, economics and business. The personal finance pages can also be reached through the UK page. We hope this offers readers interested in what is happening in the UK a simpler way to find out what is going on.

These changes are the first of many which will occur over the next few months. I hope the changes make the site easier and more rewarding for you. Please let me know - either by email or through comments here - how you feel about them.

PS. On a final note, our mobile site - which can be found at m.ft.com - was last night honoured by the Association of Online Publishers as the best mobile site in the UK. Blackberry users can now download a shortcut for their mobile home page to take you direct to the site.

Thanks for reading

Robert Shrimsley

Managing Editor, FT.com

Introduction: General Motors moves inexorably toward bankruptcy; North Korea explodes a nuclear device; Microsoft and Google go head-to-head on search; oil prices continue to rise on the back of a grudging economic recovery; and more British MPs, embarrassed by their expenses, signal they will stand down after the next election.

And if you failed to read the Financial Times or ft.com this past week, you would have missed the following unique items…1) A riveting tea with the FT weekend interview with Bao Tong, one of the top Chinese Communist party officials imprisoned (and still under house arrest) after the Tiananmen massacre.  Jamil Anderlini’s account mixed sinister atmosphere with historical retrospective and gave the reader a wonderful insight into the strengths and weaknesses of modern China.  See also Geoff Dyer’s Analysis page on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen

2) Regulators identified Northern Rock as the weak link in the banking system in a “war gaming exercise” in 2004, three years before the fast-growing mortgage bank collapsed.  Norma Cohen and Chris Giles uncovered this damning fact after a blocked Freedom of Information request and much digging.

3) New technologies and different ways of working will transform the business landscape in Britain, according to a fascinating HSBC report by Brian Groom.  Name the future super cities (Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool, London and, Mike Ashley please note, Newcastle)

4) Brazil will invite international oil companies to bid for concessions in its “pre salt” oil fields rivaling North Sea finds – a contrast with resource nationalism in Mexico and Venezuela.  Carola Hoyos and Jonathan Wheatley broke the story after an interview with the Brazilian mines and energy minister. We also wrote an excellent follow-up editorial.

5) Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi says that the global economy has strengthened sufficiently to cope with oil at $80 a barrel. Javier Blas broke the story after jogging with the minister in the early morning in Vienna. Oil prices (and Javier’s heart-rate) immediately spiked - to $63, almost double their February low.

6) Peter Voser, chief executive-designate of Shell, will announce a far-reaching management shake-up and reorganisation of the oil major.  Ed Crooks delivered a comprehensive news story and analysis ahead of the official announcement, plus a next day follow-up – all on his week off.

7) Exploding debt threatens America and its AAA sovereign debt rating, according to John Taylor, former deputy US treasury secretary and noted Stanford University professor.  Taylor’s opinion piece was among the most read on ft.com for most of the week. Mike McKenzie in New York also did sterling work on this key story, highlighting the fears about US government finance more than 10 days ago. This past week, Mike noted that investors were dumping Treasuries as they abandoned hedging strategies designed for a falling rate environment. Rates fell for the next two days, suggesting Mike had it right.

8) Henny Sender revealed that Fortress and other private equity firms were nearing a deal to make a big push into retail banking, a story confirmed two days later when the deal was announced.

9) Matthew Green’s fascinating and alarming account of the hottest natural energy producer in Africa: Equatorial Guinea. Target of a military coup organised by Mark Thatcher and a dodgy Etonian, Equatorial Guinea is a potent combination of corruption and wealth.

10) Gilbert and George’s stylish diary of their trip to Hong Kong to attend Bernard Arnault’s modern art show, a mixture of glitz and haut fashion.

Special reports highlights: The second FT Health magazine, with outstanding articles by Clive Cookson, Andrew Jack and Nicholas Timmins (Nick’s piece on computerised medical records is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn why these projects are so hard to manage). Seb Morton-Clark produced an excellent video of Ed Crooks in Aberdeen to accompany the Energy report.
Robert Wright took one of the most revealing pictures of the week to accompany his Transport & Logistics report - of the Eugen Maersk, one of the world’s biggest ships, piled high with containers but riding high in the water because those containers are all empty. In another innovation, Robert’s report on ft.com linked to his own shipping photos on Flickr.

News from ft.com: This week, the website launched its most ambitious interactive project yet. ‘The Pensions Crisis‘ arrived after weeks of work by Cynthia O’Murchu, Helen Warrell, Norma Cohen, Matthew Vincent and Steve Bernard. Videos were produced by Josh Noble and Dan Garrahan. The feature - an exhaustive combination of video, audio and data - was well received by FT.com viewers, making its mark on the most read two days running.

The Arena debate on foreign aid continued to rage, overseen by Sarah Laitner. This week’s contributors included Jeffrey D. Sachs and Dambisa Moyo herself.  And we had an opinion piece from Mo Ibrahim, the celebrated telecoms entrepreneur.  Note how other publications are now following our debate.

Corporate news watch:
Ken Li produced a global exclusive that Time Warner was leaning toward a complete spin-off of its AOL unit, a story confirmed by the company the following day.
Sunny Tucker landed a rare scoop interview with Ajay Banga, head of Citigroup’s Asian operations, who said the bank would expand lending across the region rather than selling off assets as some had thought.
Kevin Done did a fine job dissecting Virgin’s earnings and nailing the story behind the sugar-coated press release.
Isabel Gorst did sterling work to get to the bottom of the politicking at the heart of TNK-BP.

Spot of the week: Buy American provisions are hurting US exporters as foreign markets start to boycott American goods. Sarah O’Connor delivered an insightful story behind the news.

GM, Opel and the future of the car industry: This has been an intense week of fast-moving developments across continents.  Our coverage has shone thanks to good teamwork by John Reed, Daniel Schaefer, and Bernard Simon, assisted by Bertrand Benoit and other foreign correspondents. Andrew Slade overcame being a man down on the desk to provide relentless updates on the unfolding drama.

Leader of the week: The devastating commentary on Silvio Berlusconi’s rule  (“Burlesque cronies”) which triggered a flood of letters.

Insight of the week: Tony Barber’s Global Dispatch on the tenure and status of Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.  The headline was perfect because it echoed the punchline: “If the EU is a game of poker, he (Barroso) is player whom the others let stay in – providing he is never dealt higher than a pair.”

Stakhanovite of the week: Tough call as ever, but standout was Christian Oliver, ably backed up by Song Jung-a, who brought us blow by blow accounts of twin stories rocking the Korean peninsula: the suicide of Roh Moo-hyun and the detonation of a nuclear warhead in North Korea. Christian broke his holiday (and abandoned his parents in the South Korean countryside) to return to Seoul immediately on hearing of Roh’s suicide.  Hundreds of thousands of Koreans took to the streets for the funeral at the end of the most dramatic week in the country’s history since it went democratic in 1987.  Christian delivered a classy obit, insightful analysis and still had time to work with US correspondents on the fall-out from Pyongyang’s the nuclear test.

Themes of the Week: The dollar weakens sharply against leading currencies, Congress party wins the Indian elections with a better-than-expected showing and stocks soar, Sir Victor Blank is eased out as Lloyds Bank chairman, President Obama unveils a weak(ish) car emissions plan, and more revelations about British MPs expenses creates a groundswell for institutional and constitutional reform.

And if you missed the Financial Times or ft.com this past week, you would have been deprived of the following juicy scoops and premium insights: 1) The Obama administration is switching its focus toward controlling costs in health care rather than greatly expanding coverage – a significant watering down of campaign pledges to reform health care in the US. Krishna Guha and Ed Luce broke the story and wrote authoritative backgrounders inside.

2) Jonathan Wheatley’s report on efforts by Brazil and China to conduct less of their trade in US dollars was the most-read on ft.com for several days. It underscored concerns about dollar weakness all week (see below).

3) Gordon Brown is considering a Cabinet reshuffle after the June elections, with Peter Mandelson lined up for his dream job of foreign secretary. George Parker delivered the scoop and an arresting account in Saturday’s paper of the tensions between the PM and Bank governor Mervyn King (accused of being too gloomy about Britain’s economic prospects).

4) Eric Schmidt, the Google boss, said the company had decided against buying a newspaper or using its foundation to support one. Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Chrystia Freeland’s interview was the talk of the town – or at least CNBC - the next day.

5) Bank of America has drawn up plans for disposing of billions of dollars of assets to pay back Tarp before the November deadline, because it is desperate to get out of the clutches of the US government. Peter Thal Larsen, Patrick Jenkins and Francesco Guerrera wrote the splash, based in large part on the FT meeting with Ken Lewis, the beleaguered BofA chief executive. This followed up on Monday’s splash from Saskia Scholtes, Julie MacIntosh and Francesco Guerrera on the $24bn capital shortfall facing smaller US banks.

6) James Blitz wrote a first-class analysis page on how the squeeze of the UK defence budget is raising serious doubts in Whitehall about Britain’s place in the world. The article was based on deep research and conversations with leading figures in the military.

7) Jackie Wullschlager wrote a pulsating Lunch with the FT with Tracey Emin, the femme terrible of modern Brit art. A model of the genre, punctuated with more expletives deleted than the Watergate tapes.

8) Foreign-born workers are doing much better than their British counterparts in finding jobs during the recession, according to research by the statistics team led by Simon Briscoe.

9) Josh Chaffin wrote an elegant news feature on the world news pages on why French fishermen are on the streets rather than on the high seas because of quotas and bureaucrats.

10) Dambisa Moyo, the rapidly ascending Zambian anti-aid activist and author of Dead Aid is the target of a vicious counter-offensive by aid enthusiasts led by Sir Bob Geldof and Professor Jeffrey Sachs. William Wallis broke the story on Saturday and it was the talk of the Hay Festival this week. Leyla Boulton cooked up a great online debate led by Martin Wolf on Is Aid working?

Dollar Watch: Thursday’s front-page off-lead from Krishna Guha and Michael Mackenzie focused attention on a decline in the dollar and growing concerns about US national finances. The Journal buried these developments in several inside roundups but joined us in splashing on the subject on Friday after an S&P warning about the UK’s finances exacerbated global anxieties about the dollar and the ability of other countries to repay their debts. The Journal’s coverage wound up missing the point that turning point in the markets came on Wednesday – before the S&P’s UK warning (in fact, gilts sold off the day before the report). Our readers knew better. Peter Garnham wrote a good all-round features on the capital markets pages explaining the background to the change in sentiment. For a counter-point, see Geoff Dyer’s Global Insight on why the Chinese have a long way to go before the Rmb can rival the dollar as a global currency.

Sketch of the Week: Matthew Engel’s account of the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Headline of the Week: Brown to Bank: Lighten up. Andy Davis and Mark Alderson reworked the old President Ford to New York line for an appetising front page headline on Saturday.

Off-beat feature of the week: Peggy Hollinger’s Business Life feature on bossnapping in France. A good read.

Poem of the Week: Andrew Hill’s poke at Sir Victor Blank, via a blank verse contribution to the Lombard column.

Lex comment of the Week: Tough call, but the Lloyds notes remain lethal (and highly influential; cf. Sir Victor)

Specialist read of the week: Gillian Tett, Aline van Duyn and Jeremy Grant on Treasury Secretary Geithner’s plan for tightening up the regulation of derivatives - a key battle for specialist (and highly profitable) interdealer brokers in London.

Corporate news watch: At least three bidders will make formal offers for a stake in General Motors’ European operations, including Italy’s Fiat, Canada’s Magna and RHJ International, the Brussels-based car parts holding company. John Reed delivered the scoop 24 hours ahead of schedule.
Andrea Felsted did a great turnaround job following a tip that Aquascutum, the renowned British clothing brand, was being wound up in the UK after the Japanese owners rejected a management buy-out at the last minute.
Lufthansa wants Sir Michael Bishop to stump up £100m to refinance BMI, the struggling airline which it agreed to take over. Gerrit Wiesmann and Kevin Done picked up the story after an interview with the Lufthansa boss, and our story immediately triggered a counter-blast from Sir Michael who is threatening to go to court.
Pan Yuk produced an excellent news story and feature on more management changes at UK pub group Mitchells and Butler as a result of a disastrous hedging strategy. Pan has consistently been ahead of the pack on this sector, not least because she has been a good deal more sceptical about the securitisation model.
Richard Waters on efforts by US battery makers to secure government support.

Westminster watch: Margaret Moran, the Labour MP under fire in the Westminster expenses scandal, also used her parliamentary staff to help a company partly run from her office to win £50,000 of business sponsorship and public funding. Miles Johnson produced the story after an exhaustive week of digging, editing and lawyering. Philip Stephens wrote a magisterial column on Friday dissecting the politics of the expenses scandal.

The Indian elections: A tremendous effort on the Indian election results on Monday, led by James Lamont with Amy Kazmin and Joe Leahy, and a really good graphic that showed exactly what had happened (not in colour in Asia unfortunately). Joanna Kassel worked like a Myrmidon on Saturday, hunting down the results for ft.com.

Man-on-the-spot: Mure Dickie piece on why Osaka will have fewer problems form recession than other parts of Japan (because it’s already been forced to restructure by a long local downturn), a top class piece of on the ground reporting on the real impact of the economic crisis.

Woman-on-the-spot: Amy Kazmin’s beautifully written Analysis page on Mayawati, the so-called Dalit Queen of India, and her Augustan building programme in Lucknow – so sensitive that the state government tried to have her thrown out of the city for asking questions.

Special reports watch: An impressive online report on international schools, put together by Rob Orr, who also ran a successful Q&A from worried parents around the world. The hope is that this will be the beginning of an online ft.com site for people being posted around the world, covering a whole range of issues from the best removal company to finding a local accountant. A promising start.
And an apology to Rob for failing to mention his excellent work on the Future of Capitalism special report last week. High class design, top class content beautifully stitched together. (I have received several email compliments and readers letters)

Letter of the Week: Bill Emmott’s good-humoured missive from Somerset, gently lampooning our Future of Capitalism series. The former editor-in-chief of the Economist remains a great admirer of the FT, he assures me.