Guest: Andrea Bernstein, Takeaway Political Director

The lust that once lured prospectors to California is today drawing countless thousands to remote tropical rainforests on a quest for gold. It’s a valuable source of income in developing nations. But Smithsonian scientist William Laurance says the thirst for gold and other metals is fueled by both illegal and legal trade that carries heavy social, environmental and public health costs.

Guest: Faith Salie, Takeaway convention correspondent

The Democratic and Republican conventions are as stylistically different as the candidates. Every convention is designed to within an inch of its life. We explore what the designs say about the two campaigns.

Monday brought the hurricane, Tuesday teenage pregnancy, Wednesday an anxiously awaited Alaskan VP speech, and Thursday a town hall style declaration announcing John McCain as the official candidate for the Republican Party. It could have been -- perhaps should have been -- a disaster, but the RNC pulled through. So now what are the Democrats to do? The Takeaway talks strategy with Jeff Zeleny, New York Times reporter on the trail with Obama camp.

Guest: Andrew Walker, BBC economics & business correspondent

Weeks of political infighting will come to a head tomorrow as Pakistan votes to elect a successor to former president Pervez Musharraf. Will the Pakistani power vacuum be resolved or will the political chaos be too much for one man to govern? The Asia Pacific Foundation’s M. J Gohel talks about what’s at stake on the eve of Pakistan’s presidential election.

Guest: Peter Biles, BBC correspondent

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, once the city’s rising star, resigned in a cloud of violence and scandal. We’ll talk to a long time Detroit journalist on what happened – and what’s next.

Guest: Peter Morici, economist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Business