Here's the second of two bits that struck me as odd in today's paper:

The bureaucrat in charge of issuing your firm with a necessary permit demands a backhander not to lose the paperwork.

Does the word with belong?

[And by the way, the term backhander for bribe was a new one to me. You?]

You have an issue with "issuing with"? I find it awkward as well and would prefer to see something like "...issuing a necessary permit to your firm..."

The construction issuing with and backhander are both not uncommon in the UK. Was the author British, by any chance?

quote: Was the author British, by any chance?

Aha! So he was, and so he is. "Robert Guest ... Mr. Guest is Washington correspondent for the Economist."

PS: I'd mistyped this as correspondint, which i suppose means "a hard-working correspondent."