The horrible housing blunder: Why the obsession with home ownership is so harmful
The world this week
Leaders
The horrible housing blunder
Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake
It is an obsession that undermines growth, fairness and public faith in capitalism
Glued to the throne
How Vladimir Putin is preparing to rule for ever
The details are murky, but Putin’s plan for constitutional change looks like a long-term power grab
Dethroning the dollar
The search to find an alternative to the dollar
China, Russia and others don’t want to rely on American high-finance
Backs on the rack
Vast sums are wasted on treatments for back pain that make it worse
Most patients should be prescribed exercise and patience, not invasive surgery
Letters
On Iran, hormone therapy, Ireland, Dominic Cummings
Letters to the editor
Briefing
The burden of back pain
Back pain is a massive problem which is badly treated
Why are better approaches to helping sufferers so slow to spread?
Dethroning the dollar
America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
Its rivals and allies are both looking at other options
Europe
The angel of the north
Italy’s second city shows up the rest of the country
A small Afghanistan
France weighs up its thankless mission fighting jihadists in Africa
L’industrie, c’est eux
Europe is rediscovering its penchant for statist intervention
Colonic irritation
The hopeless struggle to make German gender-neutral
Charlemagne
For Europe, geopolitics starts at home
Britain
Anglo-American relations
Johnson, Trump and the future of the Atlantic alliance
Turkish delight
Why Turkish barbers are taking over Britain’s high streets
What’s going wrong here?
Britain’s 20,000 new cops won’t get the justice ministry celebrating
Airlines
Keeping Flybe aloft
Tax and benefits
Greggs and the vegan sausage roll bonus
Bagehot
Harry, Meghan and Marx
Middle East & Africa
What comes after Qaboos?
The new sultan of Oman hopes to lead as well as the last one
It’s all in your head
Ethiopia embraces the power of positive thinking
Follow the bottle
How to get beer around Congo, a country with hardly any roads
United States
The world intrudes
The Democrats’ debate in Iowa covers foreign policy at last
City critters
Unpacking the rise of urban coyotes
Weapon of choice
Old export regulations get a new use
Well documented
America’s guest-worker boom
Lexington
The Senate’s coming test
The Americas
Asia
Bring me a nightmare
Asia’s hunger for sand is harmful to farming and the environment
Pen, sword and scales
Criticism of the army or government lands many Burmese in court
A major modern general
India’s armed forces get their biggest shake-up in decades
China
Hope for myopes
Most 12- to 14- year-olds in China are short-sighted
The year of the rat-fink
Some people in China help the party police the internet
The digital divide
Different views of AI fuel distrust between China and America
International
You might as well do the white line
Painting lines on roads saves lives
Special report
Housing finance
A decade on from the housing crash, new risks are emerging
Better off renting?
Owner-occupation is not always a better deal than renting
Home ownership
Home ownership is in decline
Housing for the poor
Governments are rethinking the provision of public housing
Business
A tour of the Magic Mountain
Can the World Economic Forum keep its mojo?
Driving nowhere fast
Aston Martin is stuck in neutral
Finance & economics
Not just a first-world problem
Emerging economies are experiencing a prolonged productivity slowdown
Crude calculus
Oil markets shrug off tension in the Middle East
Between the lines
The new US-China trade deal marks an uneasy truce
Science & technology
Missile technology
Iran’s attack on Iraq shows how precise missiles have become
Emerging diseases
A new human coronavirus has appeared in China
Biological robots
A research team builds robots from living cells
Palaeontology
What really killed the dinosaurs?
Culture
Pictures at an exhibition
As violence spreads across Mali, artists in the capital resist
The second world war
The heroic women partisans of Turin
Beneath the waves
Loneliness and longing in Beijing
Johnson
Who do they think they are?
Economic & financial indicators
Graphic detail
Obituary
Defender of the right