But in China, it seems, a few hundred people are saying something. A 39-year-old Uighar scholar named Ilham Tohti vanished from his home last week after officials accused his website, Uighar Online, of serving as a platform to stir up civil unrest. Now, reports are emerging that Chinese intellectuals are rallying around his cause, even while officials refuse to acknowledge whether or not they are actually holding him.

Mr. Tohti has certainly been critical of Beijing in the past; he defiantly told Radio Free Asia in March that unemployment among Uighars is among the highest in the world, and that he will continue saying so "no matter what." But inciting riots? It's hardly a scientific survey, but here are some screen grabs of the offending website's homepage, with some crude Google-supplied translations (click on the pics for full-size views):

Source: Uigharbiz.net

Goldman Sachs announced its second-quarter results today, and they were impressive. Here's a bit of fun math to illustrate just how impressive: GS set aside $6.6 billion this quarter to pay employee bonuses at the end of year. GS has 29,400 employees. That works out to an average bonus of $224,000 per employee -- for the second quarter alone. Annualized, that works out to a yearly bonus just shy of $900,000. Not bad for a year in which the rest of the world is debating whether we're in the early stages of a new Great Depression or just a very severe recession.

Over the last few days, I’ve been talking with our Rio correspondent, Mac Margolis, about the future of Brazil, which has been one of the winners in the global financial crisis. As Mac reports for an upcoming Scope item in the international magazine, the country has weathered the downturn much better than most; not a single bank went under, its debt is low and is predicted to fall rather than rise significantly in coming years, and the Treasury is still sitting on $208 billion in hard currency reserves. While the Dow, the DAX, and the Nikkei have tanked, the Sao Paulo stock exchange is up 31 percent since January and most economists are expecting Brazilian GDP growth to grow strongly again by next year.

But the fact that Brazil is so flush is also a risk.

[MORE AFTER THE JUMP]

photo credit: Nir Elias--Reuters-Landov