Oct 3rd 2020

Bidenomics: The good, the bad and the unknown

The world this week

Leaders

America’s election

Bidenomics: the good the bad and the unknown

Joe Biden should be more decisive and ambitious about America’s economy

The house party returns

Booming house prices spell more trouble for the social contract

Low interest rates and changing preferences explain housing’s strength during the pandemic

An avoidable tragedy

Famine in Yemen need not happen

Millions of people are on the brink of starvation. Yemen’s warring parties can save them

The sleeping giant wakes up

Thirty years after reunification, Germany is shouldering more responsibility

But it has a lot more to do

Mass destruction

China is demolishing villages and forcing people into bigger ones

The suffering of millions far outweighs any benefits

Letters

On working from home, land reform, scientific management

Letters to the editor

Briefing

The pragmatist

Joe Biden would not remake America’s economy

He would improve its fortunes, though

United States

Key largo

Why Donald Trump is doing surprisingly well in Florida

Courting votes

Would the Supreme Court hand Donald Trump a second term?

Rashomon, with ballots

Why do voters in Georgia face so many hurdles to voting?

The other half

Measuring poverty in the midst of America’s covid-19 epidemic

Render unto Donald

Priestly guidance on voting is dividing the Catholic church in America

Lexington

The end of the debate

The Americas

Justin’s timing

Life is about to get harder for Canada’s minority government

Tabascan onomastics

A Mexican state with a tradition of giving children odd names

Patient, don’t heal thyself

Self-medication increases pandemic deaths in Peru

Bello

The growing importance of Latin America’s mayors

Asia

India v Pakistan v covid-19

Is Pakistan really handling the pandemic better than India?

Colourless, odourless, buyerless

Unable to export its natural gas, Uzbekistan tries using it itself

Jacindarella

A fairy-tale election result beckons for New Zealand’s prime minister

No time for details

Myanmar’s government makes life difficult for Western investors

Banyan

Anwar Ibrahim is in a familiar place, close to leading Malaysia

China

On Harmony Road

To put idle land to use, Chinese officials want to erase many villages

The peddle betel battle

A risky stimulant thrives in China’s capital of chewing

Chaguan

China is celebrating 70 years since it entered the Korean war

Middle East & Africa

No contest

How big firms rip off African consumers

Outcasts united

Somaliland and Taiwan establish diplomatic ties

A king of co-operation

The death of Kuwait’s emir robs the Gulf of a real diplomat

The good ship Safer: unsafe

A possible oil leak in the Red Sea adds to Yemen’s crises

The most infected Arab state

Iraq is too broken to protect itself from covid-19

Europe

The reluctant hegemon

Germany is being forced to take a leadership role it never wanted

Bad blood in the Caucasus

War returns to Nagorno-Karabakh

Taking on Viktor Orban

A by-election shows why Hungary’s opposition struggles

Dancing with death

Spain’s poisonous politics have worsened the pandemic and the economy

Balkan balladeers

What do Dua Lipa, Rita Ora and Ava Max have in common?

Charlemagne

The revenge of strategic yogurt

Britain

Ethnic minorities

Britain’s mixed-race population blurs the lines of identity politics

Cars in the capital

The battle over London’s road closures

Freshers’ covid

British universities may be particularly susceptible to covid-19

Skills

Another promise to improve vocational education in Britain

Wheels within wheals

Cornish miners hope to profit from the shift to electric cars

Scotland

Rewilding in the Scottish Highlands

Bagehot

The Tories launch a culture war

International

The rugrat race

Working-class parents are becoming more like middle-class ones

Technology Quarterly

Virtual realities

Computer-generated realities are becoming ubiquitous

Simulation

Virtual environments are being used everywhere

Hardware

Headset technology is cheaper and better than ever

Health care

Health care is already benefiting from VR

Brain scan

A novelist’s vision of the virtual world has inspired an industry

The future

The Metaverse is coming

Business

Endangered species

Can Tata Sons regain its footing?

Storing up trouble

The Epic-Apple courtroom battle commences

Shelling out on shale’s sale

Why Devon Energy wants to buy WBX Energy

Letting go lightly

Why the rocky engagement between Tiffany and LVMH might survive

In the soup

The proliferation of sustainability accounting standards comes with costs

Bartleby

Why we need to laugh at work

Schumpeter

How good a businessman is Donald Trump?

Finance & economics

The three pillars

Why, despite the coronavirus pandemic, house prices continue to rise

Not forever grand

Is China’s biggest property developer truly too big to fail?

If you can’t bill ’em

Mastercard and Visa seek to get the most out of the digital-payments boom

Spoof proof

JPMorgan Chase faces a fine of $920m for market manipulation

Nature v nurture

Why east and west German women still work vastly different hours

Sticking plaster

Foreign capital helps ease India’s credit drought

Buttonwood

Lessons from the endowment model

Free exchange

Outright bans can sometimes be a good way to fight climate change

Science & technology

Match and mix

How hybrids have upturned evolutionary theory

Books & arts

Latin American letters

Mexico’s chroniclers tell the other half of history

Original sins

An indictment of the CIA, through the lives of four spies

Water all around

The magical allure of islands

I don’t belong here

The author of “Convenience Store Woman” returns

Johnson

The battle against racist language is too important to trivialise

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

A rising tide

It’s better to be a poor pupil in a rich country than the reverse

Obituary

Attacking the devil