Reporters on the Job

• Saved by the Lamb: Staff writer Peter Ford, earning a great deal more than most people in China, says his family grocery budget hasn't been undermined yet by the increase in food prices that the government fears might fuel popular unrest (see story).

Even a 50-percent hike hasn't brought the price of pork anywhere near what he used to pay at his local market in Paris, where he lived before moving to Beijing. "I am also fortunate in my tastes," he says, "preferring lamb, which is not commonly eaten here except by the Muslim minorities, and whose price has not risen so dramatically. But I also know that as a foreigner, the price I am charged at the market is well above what locals pay, inflation or no inflation."

– David Clark Scott
World editor