Apr 16th 2022

What China is getting wrong: It’s not just covid

The world this week

Leaders

China’s risky year

What China gets wrong

The pandemic, the economy and the war in Ukraine

Get off the fence

What is at stake in Ukraine

Russia wants to impose its brutal vision on its neighbour. That is everybody’s business

Mismanaged democracy

Pakistan’s generals should let politicians run the country for once

The army thinks it keeps the country stable. But it makes Pakistan ungovernable

Don’t panic

Emmanuel Macron did better than it seems in the first round of France’s election

He still has the advantage over Marine Le Pen in the run-off

Partygate, the final episode

Boris Johnson broke his own lockdown rules

But he won’t be forced from office

Letters

On Ukraine, logistics in Africa, food banks, tacos, initials, energy

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Russia and Ukraine

Warsaw’s mayor explains how his city is coping with a 17% increase in its population

Briefing

It’s a Cossack thing

Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine is defined by self-organisation

Coming together is what Ukrainians do

Rebuilding back better

What will it cost to rebuild Ukraine?

And all sorts of infrastructure will need rebuilding

United States

Taxation in America

In praise of the Internal Revenue Service

Keep the change

Why America keeps delaying student-loan repayments

Read all about it

Startups aim to reinvigorate local news in America

Crime in New York City

Shootings at Brooklyn subway station

After Roe

What happens if America’s Supreme Court overturns women’s right to abortion

Lexington

Ken Paxton’s bid for re-election is a test of Texas Republicans’ values

The Americas

Losing their religion

Latin America is becoming more secular

Going for growth

Canada’s Liberal government tries to boost the economy

Asia

A new Sharif in town

Shehbaz Sharif is Pakistan’s new prime minister

Going for broke

Sri Lanka says it will stop servicing its foreign debt

No Everest for the wicked

The fallout from Europe’s war reaches the Himalayas

Sold down the river

Thai soldiers are forcing refugees to return to Myanmar

Metabolism, digested

An ode to Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

Banyan

Australian politicians need to think harder about defence

China

Locked down, fed up

The way Chinese think about covid-19 is changing

Lingua no thank ya

Why China is turning away from English

Chaguan

China goes on the offensive over human rights

Middle East & Africa

Peace or pause?

War-ravaged Yemen gets a truce and dumps a tired president

Keep cool amid the terror

Israel’s government is being tested by a spate of terror attacks

Follow the money

Islamic State is using South African money to build its network

Horror heaped on horror

Ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans may prolong Ethiopia’s civil war

Marmageddon

Why South Africa is running out of Marmite

Europe

Macron v Le Pen, again

The race to be the next president of France enters the final stretch

Bloc party

Finland is hurtling towards NATO membership

Truth and lies

There are many reports of hostility towards Russians in Germany

Vox populi

Spain’s hard-right Vox party joins a regional government

Charlemagne

Thank the elderly for keeping Europe’s extremists out of power

Britain

Partygate

The Conservative Party keeps waiting for Boris Johnson to improve

Prisons and NIMBYs

Britons don’t want new prisons. They also don’t want old ones to close

No small problem

England’s littlest learners need help to catch up

Douglas Fishbone

An artist suggests a solution to arguments over public statues

Academic pensions

British academics are seeing their retirement benefits cut

Baby you can drive M1 car

The cost of personalised number plates is rising in Britain

Censors and sensibility

The classification of films is changing

Bagehot

Martin Lewis faces up to a world he can no longer fix

International

Friends like these

Why so much of the world won’t stand up to Russia

Business

The new atlas

Can Silicon Valley still dominate global innovation?

The ordnance in the arsenal

What other weapons could the West wheel out?

The Russia remainers

Companies fear consumer boycotts

Bartleby

How to sign off an email

Mergers and acquisitions

How dealmaking has been reinvented

Schumpeter

How much of a risk is opacity for China's Shein?

Finance & economics

The incubator state

Xi Jinping’s bold plan for China’s next phase of innovation

Pervasive problems

Consumer prices in America rise at their fastest pace since 1981

Default settings

Sri Lanka’s default could be the first of many

Talent wars

The latest industry to suffer labour shortages: investment banking

Buttonwood

The complicated politics of crypto and web3

Free exchange

What bigger military budgets mean for the economy

Science & technology

Shipping sleuthing

Tracking ships at sea can help catch sanction-busters

Particle physics

Experiments contradicting the Standard Model are piling up

Fixing wounds

Never mind stitches—it is possible to solder wounds closed

Personalised medicine

Genetic screening can improve drug prescribing

Culture

Indelible or invisible?

Two powerful accounts of Hong Kong’s protest movements

Bonds and bullets

How Abraham Lincoln financed the civil war

Contemporary art

Radhika Khimji and the art of freedom

World in a dish

The joy of gardening

Speculative fiction

Emily St John Mandel’s new novel is her most ambitious yet

Back Story

“Atlanta” matches method with message to sensational effect

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Feeling the heat

In chilly parts of Europe, heatwaves strengthen environmentalism

Obituary

Putin’s court jester