Has the venerable British weekly The Economist come out with a Chinese edition? It certainly looks that way with this week's Eastweek (pictured). Both news magazines ran their cover stories on the worldwide financial meltdown, with the same picture of a vortex drowning everyone. But The Economist came out late last month.

Perhaps the coincidence just signals the global financial tsunami has finally reached Hong Kong from Britain. But the intriguing thing is, The Economist edition was out two weeks ago. Even the red, white and yellow stripes on the two covers look the same.

Is the graphic designer at The Economist moonlighting, or has Eastweek run out of ideas?