Why the stalemate in Myanmar persists
SUSPENDED IN THE air, several feet above Aung San Suu Kyi’s head, was an image of a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Ms Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader, was delivering her opening remarks at the “21st Century Panglong Conference”, a series of talks designed to end the numerous ethnic insurgencies that have ravaged…
Why African countries issue stamps celebrating English cricketers
LEN HUTTON was an accomplished cricketer. English fans cherish the record 364 runs he racked up in a Test match against Australia in 1938. It would not be unreasonable to surmise, however, that this feat is less remarked on in the Central African Republic (CAR), a former French colony with no cricketing pedigree. So it…
Can Dubai enter the premier league of financial centres?
Aug 22nd 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 hubTHE DEAL to normalise relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced on August 13th, was a diplomatic coup. Might it be a commercial…
America’s fiscal federalism is less superior than you might think
Aug 20th 2020QUICK: WOULD you rather face the worst economic crisis in history as a resident of America’s fiscal union, or Europe’s? An easy choice, surely; a decade ago, the euro area’s skeletal economic institutions turned an American-made panic into a near-collapse of the European project. By 2013 euro-zone output was 3% below its peak…
Audacious student protests are rocking Bangkok
IT WAS THE largest demonstration since Prayuth Chan-ocha, the prime minister, seized power in a coup in 2014. On August 16th more than 10,000 protesters flocked to the Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. Student unions and youth groups have led protests for more than a month across the country. They want the government to…
South Korea’s liberal rulers unleash their inner authoritarians
Aug 20th 2020SOUTH KOREA has a proud history of noisy opposition to the powers that be. Japanese colonisers found their subjects unruly. Homegrown military dictators, who brutally suppressed their citizens’ democratic yearnings for decades, eventually yielded to widespread protests. Even democratically elected leaders have incurred the wrath of civil society. Park Geun-hye, the predecessor of…
The United Arab Emirates has become a force in the Middle East
Aug 22nd 2020ABU DHABI AND BEIRUTIT WAS NOT quite Anwar Sadat speaking before the Knesset, or King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin clutching hands in the Rose Garden. That would not have been Muhammad bin Zayed’s style. The agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced on August 13th, was hashed out quietly by…
An oil spill off Mauritius threatens protected ecosystems
Aug 20th 2020IT SEEMED as if the worst of 2020 was over for Mauritius. The island state has done a better job than most other African countries in quelling covid-19. It was planning to restart the tourism industry that accounts for 9% of GDP and employs nearly a fifth of the workforce. Then on July…
Resident tests positive for the plague, first case in CA in 5 years
Health officials in California have confirmed that a person has tested positive the plague — the first case in the state in 5 years. According to a statement released by El Dorado County, health officials in El Dorado County were contacted by the CDPH (California Department of Public Health) that a South Lake Tahoe rested…