Bidenomics: The good, the bad and the unknown
The world this week
Leaders
America’s election
Bidenomics: the good the bad and the unknown
Joe Biden should be more decisive and ambitious about America’s economy
The house party returns
Booming house prices spell more trouble for the social contract
Low interest rates and changing preferences explain housing’s strength during the pandemic
An avoidable tragedy
Famine in Yemen need not happen
Millions of people are on the brink of starvation. Yemen’s warring parties can save them
The sleeping giant wakes up
Thirty years after reunification, Germany is shouldering more responsibility
But it has a lot more to do
Mass destruction
China is demolishing villages and forcing people into bigger ones
The suffering of millions far outweighs any benefits
Letters
On working from home, land reform, scientific management
Letters to the editor
Briefing
Europe
The reluctant hegemon
Germany is being forced to take a leadership role it never wanted
Bad blood in the Caucasus
War returns to Nagorno-Karabakh
Taking on Viktor Orban
A by-election shows why Hungary’s opposition struggles
Dancing with death
Spain’s poisonous politics have worsened the pandemic and the economy
Balkan balladeers
What do Dua Lipa, Rita Ora and Ava Max have in common?
Charlemagne
The revenge of strategic yogurt
Britain
Ethnic minorities
Britain’s mixed-race population blurs the lines of identity politics
Cars in the capital
The battle over London’s road closures
Wheels within wheals
Cornish miners hope to profit from the shift to electric cars
Middle East & Africa
No contest
How big firms rip off African consumers
Outcasts united
Somaliland and Taiwan establish diplomatic ties
A king of co-operation
The death of Kuwait’s emir robs the Gulf of a real diplomat
The good ship Safer: unsafe
A possible oil leak in the Red Sea adds to Yemen’s crises
The most infected Arab state
Iraq is too broken to protect itself from covid-19
United States
Courting votes
Would the Supreme Court hand Donald Trump a second term?
Rashomon, with ballots
Why do voters in Georgia face so many hurdles to voting?
Render unto Donald
Priestly guidance on voting is dividing the Catholic church in America
Lexington
The end of the debate
The Americas
Justin’s timing
Life is about to get harder for Canada’s minority government
Tabascan onomastics
A Mexican state with a tradition of giving children odd names
Patient, don’t heal thyself
Self-medication increases pandemic deaths in Peru
Asia
India v Pakistan v covid-19
Is Pakistan really handling the pandemic better than India?
Colourless, odourless, buyerless
Unable to export its natural gas, Uzbekistan tries using it itself
No time for details
Myanmar’s government makes life difficult for Western investors
China
The peddle betel battle
A risky stimulant thrives in China’s capital of chewing
International
Technology Quarterly
Virtual realities
Computer-generated realities are becoming ubiquitous
Health care
Health care is already benefiting from VR
The future
The Metaverse is coming
Business
Endangered species
Can Tata Sons regain its footing?
Storing up trouble
The Epic-Apple courtroom battle commences
Shelling out on shale’s sale
Why Devon Energy wants to buy WBX Energy
Letting go lightly
Why the rocky engagement between Tiffany and LVMH might survive
Bartleby
Why we need to laugh at work
Schumpeter
How good a businessman is Donald Trump?
Finance & economics
The three pillars
Why, despite the coronavirus pandemic, house prices continue to rise
Not forever grand
Is China’s biggest property developer truly too big to fail?
If you can’t bill ’em
Mastercard and Visa seek to get the most out of the digital-payments boom
Nature v nurture
Why east and west German women still work vastly different hours
Sticking plaster
Foreign capital helps ease India’s credit drought
Buttonwood
Lessons from the endowment model
Science & technology
Match and mix
How hybrids have upturned evolutionary theory
Culture
Latin American letters
Mexico’s chroniclers tell the other half of history
Water all around
The magical allure of islands
I don’t belong here
The author of “Convenience Store Woman” returns
Economic & financial indicators
Graphic detail
Obituary
Attacking the devil