In emerging markets, short-term panic gives way to long-term worry
Aug 1st 2020FATIGUE. SHORTNESS of breath. Frayed nerves. Lungs mottled by scars. Months have passed since early survivors of covid-19 recovered from the disease. But some still report lingering after-effects. The disease, it seems, can inflict lasting damage, even in cases that did not prove critical. The same may be true of the pandemic’s impact…
The fear of robots displacing workers has returned
Jul 30th 2020COVID-19 PRESENTED employers with a simple choice: find ways for workers to do their jobs safely, or shut down. At least some have chosen a third option, of dispensing with humans altogether. Among the many breathless headlines prompted by the pandemic are those warning of a new wave of job-destroying automation. The pace…
Demand for land in Singapore is bad news for golfers
CLOCKS ABOVE the reception at Singapore Island Country Club show the hour in Augusta, Georgia, and St Andrews in Scotland—both places with famously wonderful golf courses. But time may be running short for golf in Singapore. The government is forcing some courses to shrink or close. Greens will give way to cranes; irons to concrete…
Atomic-bomb survivors seek new ways to keep their memories alive
Aug 1st 2020HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKIFOR SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Takeoka Chisako, August 6th, 1945 was supposed to be a day off. She had planned to meet two girlfriends at 8:15 that morning, at a train station on the west side of Hiroshima. She was running late, and as she stepped outside her house she lifted a pocket mirror…
Africa’s skies are badly polluted
Aug 1st 2020GORĂ©E ISLAND, a former slave-trading hub, is so close to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, that hundreds of amateurs swim out to it every year. Yet some days it disappears from sight, lost in a haze of pollution and dust. In the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, part of its oil-producing region, black soot settles…
Turkey is wielding influence all over the Arab world
AZAZ HAS experienced quite the turnaround. The city in northern Syria was once controlled by Islamic State (IS), which continued to terrorise it even after leaving in 2014. That is when other jihadists and rebels swooped in. Today, though, Turkey is calling the shots. It keeps the lights on and supplies the local shops. The…
What the million-mile battery means for electric cars
Aug 1st 2020AS EVERY MOBILE-PHONE owner knows, after a year or so the battery starts to fade and the beast needs recharging more frequently. That is a nuisance, but a phone’s batteries can be replaced fairly cheaply—or the whole handset traded in for the latest model. An electric car, however, is a much bigger investment.…
The SPAC hack
Aug 1st 2020IN AN EPISODE of “The Phil Silvers Show”, a 1950s TV comedy, Ernie Bilko (played by Silvers) discovers that his fellow army sergeants have fleeced a new recruit in a poker game. His plan to get the money back involves leasing a shop. “It’s just an empty store,” he insists. The others fear…
Has India’s moratorium on loan payments delayed the pain for banks?
Aug 1st 2020SOON AFTER India went into a strict lockdown in March, its central bank allowed borrowers to put off loan repayments for three months. That moratorium has since been extended by a further three months, and another extension is reportedly being considered. It appears to have been a boon to borrowers. But top financiers,…
A second covid-19 wave is worrying Australia, Japan and Hong Kong
Aug 1st 2020YOUNG AUSTRALIAN returnees in quarantine hotels made whoopee with the security guards who were supposedly supervising their isolation. Presumably they were not thinking of how the 6.6m inhabitants of Victoria state might react. They know now. Some guards took the virus home, from where, in July, it spread fast, just weeks after the…