That's a good result given the pitched battle to retain dominance against the fast-improving Coles supermarket chain and its big red "down, down" hands. In the discretionary spending parts of the Woolies empire such as Big W, sales were down 0. We have to wait a week to see Coles' numbers, but on Woolies' numbers it appears the pitched battle between the two giants is stealing customers away from the independent grocers. 8 per cent - not a bad result given the flagging sales at the more upmarket department stores. Once you get away from food, things were tougher for Woolies, with only a final-quarter recovery helping Big W to a marginal sales fall for the year. 9 per cent), annual sales were up a creditable amount despite the many headwinds posed by higher savings rates, natural disasters and consumers spooked by the carbon tax. And that advantage showed clearly in Woolies' sales results.

All of this changed last August when he published the book Germany abolishes itself (Deutschland schafft sich ab). Within months the provocatively titled tome of 464 pages, laden with statistics and footnotes, became the best selling non-fiction... A former state treasurer in the city of Berlin and director of the German Bundesbank, Sarrazin was mainly known to political insiders. Its author developed into an unlikely media star whose name recognition in Germany now surpasses the Pope and the chancellor. Sarrazin's media success may be unlikely but it can be explained. Perhaps because Sarrazin was used to speaking his mind behind closed doors he believed he could also get away with it in public. In a media society governed by political correctness, he did not play by the rules. FORMER career civil servants and central bankers seldom have star potential. Their work rarely excites the public and their pictures do not usually appear on front pages.