It was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. On May 30 in a boardroom showdown between president Vladimir Putin and Rem Vyakhirev, the chief executive officer of Gazprom - Russia's gas monopoly and what the Russian press likes to call a state-within-the-state - Putin ousted what one investor calls "one of the more encrusted of Russia's vested interests".

European private-equity firms escaped the full effects of the tech collapse that hit their US peers so hard last year. But they could hardly escape the atmosphere of panic and have trimmed their sails, avoiding riskier start-up-style ventures and giving more attention to buy-outs and blue-chip companies’ disposals of non-core businesses.

One reason why Syria feels that it does not need to move ahead as quickly with economic reforms as some other regional countries is that it still has plentiful natural resources. Agriculture, for example, accounts for about one-third of the economy, and has benefited from major efficiency gains over recent years.