Leaders
Technology and surveillance
Does China’s digital police state have echoes in the West?
The state can gather more information, more easily, than ever before. Do not underestimate the risks
America and immigrants
A cruel and unusual border policy
Separating migrant families is un-American and bound to fail
Just say know
Festival drug-testing shows a way to reduce harm
When they discover what is in their drugs, users tend to take less of them
Panic, but not yet
Italy needs to be handled with care
It can find a way out of its immediate crisis. But Italy’s long-term outlook is more worrying
Letters
Letters
Letters to the editor
Briefing
Apartheid with Chinese characteristics
China has turned Xinjiang into a police state like no other
Totalitarian determination and modern technology have produced a massive abuse of human rights
Europe
Matteo Salvini’s quest for power
Political chaos in Italy as new elections beckon
Taking it easy
Uproar over new speed limits on French country roads
A modern country
Ireland votes solidly to allow abortion
Wind in their sails
Turkey’s opposition scents success against Erdogan
Charlemagne: Beneath the paving stones
The legacy of Germany’s student protests in 1968
Britain
The new safety net
Britain’s switch to a “universal credit” is not going well
Non-identical twins
Ireland’s abortion vote sparks calls for change in Northern Ireland
The wrong sort of “Global Britain”
Tommy Robinson’s sentence shows how hate has gone global
Big little ones
As rich children slim down, poor ones are getting fatter
More yin than yang
Europe’s oldest Chinatown fights for survival
Rum, strategy and the cash
Britain’s Royal Navy has big ambitions—but a small budget
Middle East & Africa
Too hot to handle
Climate change is making the Arab world more miserable
The balancing bear
Russia struggles to balance between Israel and Iran
A Ramadan viewing guide
Egypt’s bumbling police get their man, at least on television
Extending the safety-net in Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s scheme to help the poor is setting an example
Fast funerals in Conakry
Why hearses sport sirens and lights in Guinea
United States
Counting Puerto Rico’s dead
Eight months after Hurricane Maria, the human toll is still unclear
Seeking the perfect prescription
Some good news from the fight against opioids
Suffer the children
American border officials are separating migrant families
Self-immolation
Racist tweets from Roseanne spur ABC to cancel “Roseanne”
Lexington
John Bolton, the world’s hope
The Americas
An object lesson
Mexico’s crucial education reform risks being unwound
A river runs through it
An expiring treaty will test the health of Canadian-American relations
A strike against the system
Brazil reinstates fuel subsidies after a disruptive lorry strike
Asia
All aboard the peace train, again
Detente between America and North Korea seems back on track
A trip down fantasy lane
A historical soap reveals a lot about modern Thai politics
So long, hipster havens
Singapore’s Brutalist past could soon be gone
China
Bootstrapping a backwater
One of China’s poorest provinces wants to be a tech hub
A web of silk
China talks of building a “digital Silk Road”
International
Faith, hope and clarity
Can “effective altruism” maximise the bang for each charitable buck?
Marginal utilitarianism
To help save the world, become a banker not a doctor
Technology Quarterly
I know what you’ll do next summer
Increased amounts of data and surveillance are transforming justice systems
Walls have eyes
It is hard now to avoid street-level surveillance
Read my phone
Police can bypass encryption and monitor anything
Home, home within range
Electronic monitoring is a different approach to jail
Algorithm blues
The promise and peril of big-data justice
Watching the detectives
Rigorous oversight is essential to check police activity
Business
Into the danger zone
American tech giants are making life tough for startups
Copper bottom
Shootings in India tarnish Vedanta’s reputation
Steeling itself
Activist investors go after a German industrial icon
There can be only one
Comcast and Disney battle over Rupert Murdoch’s empire
Schumpeter
Six muddles about share buy-backs
Finance & economics
Tragedy or farce?
Italy’s political crisis is roiling financial markets once more
Rebuilding the ruins
A critical task for the Greek economy enters a new phase
Small is beautiful
The number of new banks in America has fallen off a cliff
Buttonwood: Lessons from Las Vegas
In investing, as in poker, following rules works best
A worn-out trade deal
Rwanda refuses to remove tariffs on imports of used clothing
Free exchange: Power is money
If wages are to rise, workers need more bargaining power
Science & technology
Evolution
A history of big-headedness
The sunk-cost fallacy
Another’s wasted investment is as disturbing as one’s own
Munching into orbit
A rocket that devours itself
Culture
In the shadows of war
In “Warlight” Michael Ondaatje explores the murky aftermath of conflict
Ghosts in the machine
Retro photography is in vogue
Better to have loved
Dispatches from the border between madness and desire
Obituary
Treating a mystery disease