Leaders
Climate change
Why the COP26 climate summit will be both crucial and disappointing
Such global gatherings remain the best forum to force change
With a putsch and a shove
The army’s takeover in Sudan highlights a worrying trend
Jihadism and great-power competition are behind the rise in coups
Capital pains
Why Democrats’ tax plans are such a mess
It is not just a fragile majority. It is also a lack of vision and leadership
Clouds over the sky
China says it defends women’s rights. So why attack feminists?
If women are not allowed to organise, they will struggle to achieve equality
Our NFT auction
The fun in non-fungible
Our auction reveals the promise of decentralised finance—and some big problems
Letters
On food technologies, Top Glove, malarial bed nets, Poland, liberals, email
Letters to the editor
Briefing
African odyssey
Many more Africans are migrating within Africa than to Europe
Some governments are trying to make moving easier
Europe
Autumn of the patriarch
As the lira tanks, so does the stock of Turkey’s president
A Balkans arms race
Serbia is on a shopping spree for weapons
Lenin would be baffled
Russia’s once-tame Communist Party is becoming an opposition force
Britain
Farewell to austerity
Rishi Sunak’s budget marks a turn to big-state Conservatism
Taking on the taxman
An attempt to stop Britain sharing expats’ data with Uncle Sam
Middle East & Africa
The men with guns strike back
Sudan’s democratic transition is upended by a second coup in two years
Expatonomics
How UN staff are reshaping African cities
Diplomacy by other means
Israel again rattles its sabre at Iran
Bibi’s long bye-bye
Netanyahu’s shadow starts to recede in Israel
United States
America’s entrenched political divide
The Democrats’ disadvantage
Predicting America’s elections
The message from our model for Virginia’s gubernatorial race
Police v vaccine mandates
Cops hate vaccine mandates, and the city leaders imposing them
Prostitution in America
How to bring sex work out of the shadows
Lexington
No one loves Joe Biden
The Americas
Fuelling the flames
Chile, once considered Latin America’s Finland, is in trouble
Red, white and blue tape
Cuba’s communist regime is trying to control crypto
Asia
David 1, Goliath 0
Rebels fighting Myanmar’s junta are doing better than expected
The next crisis
Afghanistan’s economy is collapsing
The sun, the moon and the ponytail
A long-delayed royal wedding reveals awkward truths about Japan
China
All the news that’s fit to reprint
China’s state-controlled media are put on an even shorter leash
International
Special report
Stabilising the climate
The agenda for the COP 26 summit
The state of play
What the Paris agreement of 2015 meant
The Asian century’s emissions
How Asia is crucial in the battle against climate change
Economics and energy
The economics of the climate
Negative emissions
Why the world needs negative emissions
Veils and ignorance
Governing the atmosphere
Business
Cloudy with a dearth of chips
How the pandemic has changed the weather in the technology industry
Poison-pill popping
Will Japan’s new prime minister continue to reform corporate governance?
Trouble brewing
Worries ahead for American firms
Thinking outside the box
The rapid growth of retail subscription services could be coming to an end
Splitting time?
An activist investor targets Shell
Schumpeter
The three unknowns of the modern ad age
Finance & economics
Through the looking glass
The market for non-fungible tokens is evolving
Alice’s adventures
How our NFT auction went
Corporate minimum tax
The Democrats target companies with giant profits but tiny tax bills
Perverse but persistent
As energy prices spike, governments reach for the dirtiest tool in the box
Progress and procrastination
China’s long wait for a tax everyone loves to hate
Free exchange
Remote-first work is taking over the rich world
Science & technology
Placing perches in the sky
Private space stations will soon be in orbit
Avian parthenogenesis
No sex please, we’re condors
Solar-cell census
An accurate tally of the world’s solar-power stations
Culture
Xinjiang blues
Two new books shed light on the plight of the Uyghurs
Earthy delights
The Van Gogh Museum showcases a rejected early masterpiece
Crisis management
Geert Mak takes stock of the past 20 years of European history
British fiction
“Making Nice” is a gratifying satire of the internet age
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail
Obituary
Say cheese, America!