two news from france in the last weeks that  are  worth mentioning:

1. the creation of a new “independent, digital and participative” web media: mediapart.fr, a news website, entirely independent from traditional media and highly open to external participation. access is only available through subscription (9 euro), but after only a few days from the official launch the number of subscribers exceeds 3.000!

2. from a relatively different sector, an interesting report on “governments and dominant positions in IT sector“. actually the conclusion of this report is quite obvious and well known: (a) monopolies are only possible if an explicit – yet possibly hidden – government policy allows them and (b) monopolies are bad both markets and for development.