America’s housing market is so far unfazed by recession
Jul 4th 2020AMERICA’S HOUSING market is behaving oddly. Residential property—worth $35trn, slightly more than America’s stockmarket—seems strangely oblivious to the economic carnage around it. House prices in May were 4.3% higher than a year earlier. That rate of growth is only marginally below the average since the end of the housing crash a decade ago.…
As foreign banks circle, China plots an “aircraft-carrier” defence
CHINA PUT its first domestically built aircraft-carrier into service last December, the culmination of three decades of work. The government hopes for a faster return on efforts to create what it calls an “aircraft-carrier-class securities firm”—ie, an investment bank powerful enough to prevail amid intensifying competition in the country’s capital markets. It is poised to…
America is rapidly pulling troops from Afghanistan
FAIZA IBRAHIMI is too young to remember when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan as a theocracy. She can scarcely believe her parents’ stories about it. She is a radio presenter in the western city of Herat. The idea that gun-toting zealots from the countryside used to forbid women to leave home unless fully veiled and accompanied…
As Arab rappers challenge the old ways, despots hit back
Jul 4th 2020“I’M A WOMAN in a land of dicks,” raps Khtek, a Moroccan student, whose first single, “KickOff”, went viral in February. Her lyrics criticise the country’s gaping inequality and stifling political, social and sexual hierarchies. Her tattoos and blue hair defy the kingdom’s traditions. “My rap is a voice for those who don’t…
Locusts have hit east Africa hard
Jul 4th 2020VAST SWARMS of locusts have swept through Kenya and Ethiopia since January, devastating fields, pastures and livelihoods. Governments have struggled to suppress them. They have continued to breed in their billions, threatening whole economies, which are also being battered by the covid-19 pandemic.Last month Fitch, a credit-rating agency, issued its first-ever warning that…
The State of Restaurant Dining in the Post-COVID World
The coronavirus has disrupted our way of life more than one can imagine. The quarantine and social distancing life that we’ve all been forced into out of necessity has kept us generally safe from the pandemic. However, its effects on the food industry have also been damning. Restaurants relish on the concept of people in…
6 Labels that are ‘Rebranding’ due to Recent Racism Issues in the US
The existence of racism in brands had been an ongoing issue for decades. It is a widely known fact that multiple brands have monetized images and names with racial undertones for hundreds of years. However, the current rise in protests against racism has forced multiple brands to ‘prove’ that their products do not impose any…
Pandemic-proofing the planet
Jun 25th 2020Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hubIN FEBRUARY 2018 a panel of experts convened by the World Health Organisation (WHO) put together a list of diseases that posed big public-health risks but…
Why zero interest rates might lead to currency volatility
Jul 4th 2020A GENERATION OF English cricket fans know the Aussies are loth to surrender a lead. For much of the past two decades, Australia has been a high interest-rate economy. But not any more. In March the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut its benchmark cash rate to 0.25%. That is the lowest interest…
A Latin American economic tragedy
Jul 4th 2020Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our coronavirus hubWHERE COVID-19 strikes, it reveals hard truths. In recent weeks Latin America has become the centre of the pandemic, responsible for over half of daily…