Britain’s nightmare before Christmas
The world this week
Leaders
Our election endorsement
Britain’s nightmare before Christmas
A divided country faces an election that will tear it still further apart
NATO’s summit
New troublemakers emerge
As America draws back, members of history’s most successful alliance are squabbling
System failure
Time for Iraq and Lebanon to ditch state-sponsored sectarianism
Protesters rightly blame the system for producing disastrous results
Departure of the founders
Who will control Alphabet once Sergey Brin and Larry Page are gone?
The company’s strategy, role in society and governance are open questions
Climate change
The necessity of pulling carbon dioxide out of the air
But it is difficult to do at the scale you need
Letters
On billionaires, groceries, The National Health Service, wind power, Kurt Vonnegut
Letters to the editor
Briefing
Clearing the air
Climate policy needs negative carbon-dioxide emissions
The world is not remotely ready to provide them
Europe
Under new management
Germany’s Social Democrats pick new leaders
La République en grève
Pension anxiety drives France on strike and onto the streets
Fumbling the capture
China tries, and fails, to influence the Czechs
Charlemagne
The decline of the Five Star empire
Britain
If the Tories win
“Get Brexit done”? It’s not as simple as Boris Johnson claims
Corbyn the dealmaker
What would happen in a hung parliament?
After the fall
How to rehabilitate a terrorist
Speakers’ Corner
The best quotes from the final full week of Britain’s election
Capital losses
The Tories are down but not out in London
You’ll always walk alone
It’s lonely being a Tory candidate in deep-red Liverpool
Middle East & Africa
The fight for Iraq’s future
Elites backed by Iran are clinging to power in Iraq
The numbers behind the rage
Arabs are losing faith in religious parties and leaders
Unprecedented violence
How the Iranian regime put down economic protests
Once more, without enthusiasm
Algerians fear their election will be a blow to democracy
Change hits a speed bump
Jammed streets highlight the challenges of Sudan’s transition
United States
Denying opportunities costs
What America could lose by curtailing refugee resettlement
Uncommon grounds
The impeachment inquiry enters its next phase
Fostering enmity
Why Donald Trump wants to keep religious adoption agencies open
Theocracy in America
Short Creek starts to move beyond its past as a fundamentalist fief
Lexington
The stickiness of Joe Biden
The Americas
Asia
Searching for a landing site
India’s economy is growing at its slowest pace since 2013
China
A new battleground
In the UN, China uses threats and cajolery to promote its worldview
Tense times recalled
On the China-Russia border, visitors reminisce about the bad old days
International
The parable of Finland
PISA results can lead policymakers astray
Special report
Political economies
Does democracy hurt or help growth in the tiger economies of Asia?
The tigers’ future
Where do the Asian tiger economies go from here?
Business
Trouble in Taranto
ArcelorMittal gets its fingers burned in Italy’s Ilva steel mill
Bartleby
Let them eat Christmas cake
The future of Google
Alphabet turns a Page and a Brin
Finance & economics
Bottle shock
Tax our tech and we’ll blacklist your bubbly
Looking wobbly
Splits in Italy threaten to derail euro-zone reforms
Meant to be
Myanmar admits foreign life insurers
Science & technology
Warfare in space
America seeks faster ways to launch military satellites
Rome’s timber trade
Some planks from ancient Rome started life in eastern France
Tropical disease
Malaria infections have stopped falling
Computing records
The first computer chip with a trillion transistors
Animal behaviour
Even aggressive centipedes will co-operate if they have to
Culture
Economic & financial indicators
Graphic detail
Obituary
Intention and accident