May 1st 2021

The most dangerous place on Earth

The world this week

Leaders

Superpower politics

The most dangerous place on Earth

America and China must work harder to avoid war over the future of Taiwan

Long covid

Health care and workplaces must adjust for long covid

1.5% of working-age people have lasting symptoms

Biden’s taxing problem

How to tax capital without hurting investment

President Joe Biden should improve the design of his taxes on Wall Street

Ivory powers

Viktor Orban seizes control of Hungary’s universities

And makes it hard for a future government to loosen his grip

Hybrid diplomacy

Thanks to the pandemic, diplomats have a bigger, better toolkit

They should keep using it after the crisis passes

Letters

On money-laundering, voting in Georgia, European TV, museums, Ebenezer Howard, simplifying

Letters to the editor

Briefing

A shockingly possible war

China’s growing military confidence puts Taiwan at risk

All-out conflict may not feel imminent, but America is deeply concerned

United States

100 days of aptitude

Joe Biden was a boring candidate. He now draws comparisons to FDR

Sidelined

A cheerleader’s cursing may reshape American free-speech laws

Finis

The only classics department at a historically black college is closing

Overproof

Republicans want to ban businesses from requiring proof of vaccination

Lexington

Why Utah’s conservatism is better

The Americas

Sergeant López Obrador

Mexico’s president is giving the armed forces new powers

Thyme, the great healer

Venezuela’s despot touts a herbal quack cure for covid-19

Bello

How will Latin America’s covid-19 bill be paid?

Asia

Panda power

A powerful faction in Japan strives to keep China sweet

Chips and blocks

The pandemic has accentuated South Korea’s two-speed economy

Isolation nation

For many Australians, quarantine cannot be too tough

Heartening heroics

Volunteers are filling the gaps in India’s fight against covid-19

Banyan

There is hope for South-East Asia’s beleaguered tropical forests

China

Demography

Is China’s population shrinking?

Watching China

Even doveish China-watchers in America are becoming hawkish

Culture clash

China blocks mention of Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao

Middle East & Africa

A tale of two survivors

Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas try to hold on to power

The enemy of my enemy

Firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and America move closer in Iraq

Villa-squatting

Somalia’s power-hungry president has taken his country to the brink

A room without a roof

Why are there so many unfinished buildings in Africa?

Europe

The Caucasian knot

Turkey and Armenia show no signs of reconciling

The rule of Law and Justice

Poland’s fragmented opposition lets the governing party run wild

Empty pews, big pulpit

The lingering influence of Catholicism in increasingly secular Spain

Geeks v bureaucrats

How France’s data scientists are upstaging its administration

Charlemagne

The European Commission is becoming more powerful, quietly

Britain

Upcoming elections

How the Tories may triumph in the Hartlepool by-election

Pond-dipping

Testing sewage for covid-19

Scottish public policy

Enthusiasm for the SNP does not reflect its record in government

Nervous neighbours

Nervous times on the Scottish border

Northern Ireland

Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister, is ousted

Fishy statistics

Norway shows the scale of salmon farmers’ Brexit problems

Remainers

Brexit has caused very few finance jobs to leave London

Domestic politics

Sleaze and Boris Johnson’s redecoration of Downing Street

International

The Zoom where it happens

Diplomacy has changed more than most professions during the pandemic

Business

Living on the edge

How TSMC has mastered the geopolitics of chipmaking

The cookie crumbles

A new type of ad is heading for your iPhone

White hot

India’s steelmakers are the covid-ravaged economy’s rare bright spot

Safe as warehouses

Developers struggle to meet demand for e-commerce storage space

Forest bump

The wood-products industry is undergoing root-and-branch change

The king of Wolfsburg

Bernd Osterloh, labour nemesis of Volkswagen’s boss, abdicates

Bartleby

Abolishing executive offices

Schumpeter

The magical realism of Tesla

Finance & economics

Money, machines and mayhem

What history tells you about post-pandemic booms

Benchmarking Biden

Will Joe Biden’s proposed taxes on capital make America an outlier?

Buttonwood

Why private-credit markets are due a growth spurt

Lights, power, inaction

Tracking the economic impact of India’s second covid wave

Help wanted

Why are American workers becoming harder to find?

Money for nothing

Counting the costs of the lira’s failed defence

Free exchange

What an infrastructure bonanza could mean for America’s economy

Science & technology

Post-covid syndrome

Researchers are closing in on long covid

Books & arts

Orhan Pamuk’s plagues

Turkey’s best-known author reflects on politics and pestilence

Righteous furies

The heroic Jewish women who resisted the Nazis

Home, alone

Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book is a mosaic of memory and observation

Creature discomforts

In an age of animal-lovers, many creatures are suffering

Making a meal of it

Food is an old theme of art. Now the reverse is true too

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Buck for the bang

Nominal spending figures understate China’s military might

Obituary

Black snake, sacred water