The World

Here’s what we’ve been chatting about after the weekend:

• Big data is the main story in the US presidential campaign as the president uses technology to micro-target voters. Richard McGregor, the FT Washington bureau chief, took a look around Obama’s HQ.
• In the Republican camp, the situation is not looking rosy. Mike Allen’s piece on “How Mitt Romney stumbled” and the influence of Stuart Stevens, his top strategist, has focused attention on slip-ups in the Republican campaign. The Republicans are also at risk in Virginia, where they cannot just rely on anti-Obama voters switching their vote to Romney.
• In 2007, Israel struck a nuclear reactor named Al Kibar — David Makovsky has looked at how this happened and how Israel kept it secret.
• The Muslim Brotherhood’s response to the September 11 demonstration was incendiary and exposed the government’s inexperience, according to Ashraf Khalil, who looked at what the protests reveal about the new Egypt.
• Spain’s short-term fiscal problems may be resolved, but other issues could be far more difficult to deal with. Paul Mason has put together comprehensive overview of exactly why “the after effects of the biggest financial folly ever seen in Europe are not over.”