The news was coming from three hardhitting directions this week: from Washington and the global fallout from the downgrading by one credit agency of the US's rating; from all around us here in the UK, which has been hit by civil unrest; and from the Arab world, particularly Syria, where the death toll from security forces cracking down on pro-democracy protesters was thought to have passed 2,000.
Beyond that, there was also the momentous events in Egypt, with the formerly all-powerful Hosni Mubarak going on trial; the US suffering its worst-ever single-incident death toll in the Afghan war, with 30 troops after their helicopter was shot down; the continuing news of the African famine; and, the significant events - a UN report and an admission of liability from Shell - relating to oil spills in Ogoniland.
There aren't often news weeks like this.
Away from the news agenda, there's a reminder however that people have been seeking to find a way out of trouble for many years. We've a fascinating account of Wilhelm Reich, who claimed that better orgasms could cure society's ills, and invented a machine, the orgasmatron, to help the process, and we explore a new theory about how the geology of the moon reached its current state. We all need to get away from the everyday some of the time.
I hope that you enjoy the edition.
Quote of the week: "The biggest victims [of the US crediting downgrade] may not be the United States itself, but other countries that have depended on external demand to amass national wealth - be they Asian nations that depend on exporting goods, or nations in Latin America and the Middle East, as well as Russia, that depend on exporting resources." The Chinese economist Sun Lijian, in a commentary for the People's Daily
Fact of the week: More than 1 million hectares of Russian forest have been destroyed by fire this year, outstripping the disastrous record of 2010.
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