Oct 17th 2020

Torment of the Uyghurs and the global crisis in human rights

The world this week

Finance & economics

Free exchange

The Nobel prize in economics rewards advances in auction theory

The real deal

Can China’s reported growth be trusted?

The calm after the storm

Wall Street says it is braced for losses. Now what?

Relief efforts

Why securing debt forgiveness for poor countries is so hard

The saver’s dilemma

Low interest rates leave savers with few good options

From acute to chronic

The IMF predicts that the world economy will suffer from “long covid”

Buttonwood

The tale of Iran’s stockmarket bubble is familiar—but also strange

Leaders

Xinjiang and the world

The persecution of the Uyghurs is a crime against humanity

It is also the gravest example of a worldwide attack on human rights

Grading Trumponomics

How to judge President Trump’s economic record

Before the pandemic Trumponomics got one thing right and one thing wrong

Going full circuit

Britain should not resort to a new national lockdown

The costs would outweigh the benefits

Transgender rights

Letting trans women play in women’s sports is often unfair

Other sports could learn from World Rugby’s approach

Technology investing

The lessons from the Vision Fund

Son Masayoshi has shown that the future of technology lies as much in Asia as in Silicon Valley

Letters

On the debates, Germany, energy, Colombia, trade, Dominic Cummings

Letters to the editor

Briefing

Battle royal

Thailand’s king seeks to bring back absolute monarchy

Maha Vajiralongkorn has provoked something new in Thailand: open criticism of a king

United States

Watered with liberal tears

How the American economy did under Donald Trump

Hearing test

Amy Coney Barrett’s arrival on the Supreme Court is inevitable

Pikuach nefesh

Restrictions and rebellion follow New York City’s covid-19 surge

Shaken Collins

Maine’s Senate race and the extinction of New England Republicanism

Making the world glow

The plot against Gretchen Whitmer

Lexington

The audacity of Jaime Harrison

The Americas

A consequential contest

Fresh elections, and perhaps a fresh start, for Bolivia

VAT half-empty

Colombia tries to fix a messy and unfair tax

Bello

The meaning of Mafalda

Asia

Cradle to desk

South Korea wants mothers to work, to bolster the labour force

Take down or cough up

A copyright dispute ensnares the Aboriginal flag

Land of land-grabs

A crackdown in Bangladesh reveals corruption on a daunting scale

From prison to power in a week

Kyrgyzstan’s president resigns as a recent convict takes charge

Banyan

How not to reform Indonesia

China

Orphaned by the state

How Xinjiang’s gulag tears families apart

Chaguan

China calls its “heroic” handling of covid-19 proof of its wisdom

Middle East & Africa

After the coup

Mali’s “civilian” government has rather a lot of soldiers

Cobalt blues

In Congo the little guys are jailed for stealing minerals

Arsenal of theocracy

The weapons embargo on Iran is coming to an end

Old is gold

Dubai hopes rich pensioners will fill empty homes

From Gondar to Jerusalem

The Jews from Ethiopia who confound Israel’s law of return

Europe

The man who lived

An interview with Alexei Navalny, assassination survivor

Wear a different chain

Turkey locks up Kurdish mayors

Will it really take off?

Berlin’s long-delayed airport is finally opening

Like a fish needs a bicyclette

Men should have no place in women’s minds, says a new book

Charlemagne

Can the European Union learn to love a common culture?

Britain

Covid-19

The second wave in Britain

Publishing

Political biographies are dislodging celebrity books

Defence technology

How drone swarms will defend Britain

Trade policy

Farmers, greens and animal-lovers make doing trade deals difficult

Class conflict

Mixed martial arts is on the rise in Britain, and on the right

Maternity services and the pandemic

Covid-19 is limiting access to maternity services for British fathers

Marks for effort

The prospects for Andy Bird, Pearson’s new boss

Bagehot

Britain’s political and social fabric is under unusual strain

International

No vaccine for cruelty

The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights

Business

The future of SoftBank

What SoftBank’s Masa does next

Not boxing clever

A subsidies scrap between Boeing and Airbus comes to an end (maybe)

Bartleby

Countering the tyranny of the clock

Red capitalism

Why Chinese firms still flock to American stock exchanges

Fertile ground

The pull of India’s tractor-makers

The iPhone gets up to snuff

Rather later than rivals, Apple unveils a first 5G-enabled phone

Turning a corner

Convenience stores may benefit from covid-19—if they adapt

Schumpeter

Should big tech save newspapers?

Science & technology

Transgender athletes

A ban by World Rugby could prove influential for transgender sports

Good vibrations

How to send underwater messages without batteries

Healthy childbirth

How to arm Caesarean babies with the gut bacteria they need

Ecology

Arid areas have more trees than previously thought

Physics

Does sound, like light, have a maximum speed?

Award

British Science Journalist of the Year

Books & arts

The road to Camelot

A masterful biography of JFK is a reminder of imperilled ideals

Pyramid schemes

Outsiders pillaged—and helped save—Egypt’s glories

Johnson

Does naming a thing help you understand it?

Secrets and lies

William Boyd’s new novel is set amid the upheavals of 1968

Body and soul

The persecution of a feminist Russian artist

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Man vs machine

Engineers, not racers, are the true drivers of success in motor sport

Obituary

The bird of freedom