May 11th 2019

Collision course: America, Iran, and the threat of war

The world this week

Leaders

Collision course

The brewing conflict between America and Iran

Both sides need to step back

Triumph and disaster

The US-China trading relationship will be fraught for years to come

That matters more than trade deals today

Latin America

John Bolton and the Monroe Doctrine

Democracy is at risk in Latin America. The danger goes well beyond Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela

The Istanbul election

The new depths of Erdogan’s autocracy

Turkey’s president can no longer bear to lose at the ballot box

Privacy and technology

How creepy is your smart speaker?

Worries about privacy are overstated, but not entirely without merit. Your move, Alexa

Letters

On psychiatry, the EU, ballot initiatives, Huawei, air pollution, measles, Hell

Letters to the editor

Briefing

The 40-year itch

Populism and polarisation threaten Latin America

After dictatorships gave way to democracy trouble is brewing again

United States

Trump v Congress, part 8

Donald Trump’s war on oversight

Everyone’s a little less racist

Race plays an ever-more important role in voting

Riding shotgun

Why American departments are sending social workers to answer 911 calls

After a tipping point

The Mexican-American population is shrinking

Lexington

Jared Kushner’s peace plan is supposedly imminent

The Americas

Running out of options

Can diplomacy dislodge the Maduro dictatorship?

Selling fish, catching flies

Peru’s government wants its citizens to take up baseball

Asia

No takers

Australia’s voters are poised to punish the government

511 days later

Two unjustly jailed journalists go free in Myanmar

A first family affair

The Philippines’ mid-term elections will tighten the president’s grip

Service culture

A dodgy database casts further doubt on India’s GDP statistics

Crown and spectre

Thailand’s junta marks the king’s coronation with more election-rigging

Banyan

Colonialism bequeathed a sense of entitlement to South Asia’s soldiers

China

Formed in Formosa

China worries about how study in Taiwan might affect its students

In deep water

China bristles at Western naval transits through the Taiwan Strait

Chaguan

Calls to harden the West’s defences against China suggest despair

Middle East & Africa

Moving in a dangerous direction

As America and Iran act tough, the risk of conflict is growing

Hassan Rouhani’s remorse

Iran’s president does not want to walk away from the nuclear deal

White magic

The killing of albinos is overshadowing Malawi’s election

Rockets over Gaza

Israel and Hamas come close to war

The wrong kind of rupture

After a lousy election, Benin’s democracy is under threat

Europe

Democracy denied

Turkey cancels the opposition’s victory in the Istanbul election

Out of the frying pan

Italy is out of recession, but for how long?

In the fast lane

Free public transport in Estonia

When Marie met Yanis

What French baby names say about the country

Workers of Russia, unite!

Russian trade unions get political

Charlemagne

The politics of suburbia in Europe

Britain

New left-wing thinking

The brains behind Corbynomics

Monarchy and media

Archie, the first royal Instagram baby

Manchester, united

Manchester’s mayor uses new powers to tackle homelessness

A little less conversation

As cross-party talks stall, Theresa May faces calls to quit

Herd behaviour

British alpacas cheat the abattoir

What’s up?

How is Brexit affecting FDI into Britain?

A life under pressure

The ups and downs of the North Sea’s professional divers

Bagehot

Penny Mordaunt is on manoeuvres

International

A defining moment

What Caster Semenya’s case means for women’s sport

Business

Trouble brewing

Brewers at AB InBev need to rethink its strategy

Down in flames

A Sukhoi accident casts doubt on Russia’s civil-aviation plans

Public distress

Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple—and prospects darken

There will be blood

Occidental Petroleum has bid $57bn for Anadarko

I don’t want my pay-TV

American pay-television is in decline

Bartleby

Why companies are so bad at hiring

Computer chips

Intel’s new boss wants to teach the chipmaker new tricks

Schumpeter

How real-estate barons have ridden the tech boom

Finance & economics

Speaking softly

America ratchets up the pressure in its trade war with China

Shock therapy

So far, Donald Trump’s trade war has not derailed the global economy

Hostage situation

The EU tries to strong-arm Switzerland into a new trade deal

28 weeks later

Months after IL&FS collapsed, India’s markets are on a strong run

Revolutionary cells

Mobile money comes to Nigeria

Spillover effects

New research traces the intricate links between policy and politics

Buttonwood

When you have options, volatility is your friend

They know their customers

The state of America’s community banks

Free exchange

Riding alone in a car is a luxury—an increasingly unaffordable one

Science & technology

Intelligent machinery

Household electronics are undergoing a sensory makeover

Success in academia

In science, grit counts as well as talent

Satellite internet

SpaceX will launch dozens of “Starlink” satellites

Formula E

Electric racing cars are catching up fast with petrol-driven ones

Extinction

A new report confirms that life on Earth is in trouble

Protecting coral reefs

An idea to save coral reefs from climate change takes a step forward

Books & arts

An artist of the floating world

A groundbreaking show on Delos mixes classical and contemporary art

Another country

Into the underland with Robert Macfarlane

Johnson

Words, like people, have tangled and extensive family trees

Tales of the cities

From Istanbul to Paris in “Walking on the Ceiling”

Beyond belief

An encouraging history of religion in America

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Obituary

A bard for the left-out