Why east and west German women still work vastly different hours
Oct 3rd 2020SCHOLARS ARE often greatly excited by “natural experiments”, events that end up separating two groups of people, allowing wonks to compare their subsequent behaviour. Much like the study of twins adopted into different households, the postwar division and eventual reunification of Germany could be seen as such an experiment. A report by the…
JPMorgan Chase faces a fine of $920m for market manipulation
MANY OF THE big market-manipulation scandals over the past decade have much in common: huge fines for the investment banks, criminal charges for the traders and an embarrassing paper trail revealing precisely what bank employees got up to. Interest-rate traders who manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) messaged each other with pleas to put…
Is Pakistan really handling the pandemic better than India?
IN STATISTICS IF not in cricket, India tends to trump its perennial rival Pakistan. It is four times larger in area, seven times in population and ten times in GDP. Yet in the dismal realm of covid-19, bigger numbers are nothing to boast of. According to both countries’ official tallies, every week of the past…
Politics is spreading covid-19 in Indonesia and the Philippines
Aug 29th 2020IN THE FACE of covid-19, world leaders have fallen into four camps. The first group denies there is a problem: think of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, who fined his subjects for wearing face masks before ordering everyone to don them as a protection against “dust”. The second group recognises the threat and counters…
The death of Kuwait’s emir robs the Gulf of a real diplomat
HIS LAST role was as a monarch, but it was his longest, as a diplomat, that defined him. Before he ascended the throne in 2006, Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah (pictured) spent decades as Kuwait’s foreign minister. Rather than letting Kuwait slip into the undertow of Saudi Arabia, its larger neighbour, he helped turn a small country—with…
Borat praises President Trump on Twitter ahead of new movie
In promotion of the approaching Borat sequel, a spoof Twitter account tuned to represent the Kazakhstan government has praised President Trump. The kudos reads: “Congratulation to great friend of the Kazakh people @realDonaldTrump for winning debate today! Impressive and amazing result for a strong premier who always put America and Kazakhstan first!” An explanatory video,…
A fairy-tale election result beckons for New Zealand’s prime minister
JACINDA ARDERN’S staff ran into a problem after she declared New Zealand free of the coronavirus in June. It was impossible to keep the prime minister on schedule, they griped, because she was constantly mobbed by supporters. Patrons jumped up to applaud her when she went out for dinner. Passers-by hung out of car windows…
Unable to export its natural gas, Uzbekistan tries using it itself
UZBEKISTAN, AS ANY pub-quiz regular can attest, is doubly landlocked: landlocked itself, and surrounded by landlocked countries. That is unfortunate, given that one of its main exports, natural gas, is increasingly traded by sea. What is more, the trend to liquefy gas and ship it around the world in giant tankers has given importers much…
Somaliland and Taiwan establish diplomatic ties
Oct 3rd 2020ONE IS A small, surprisingly successful and relatively democratic country bullied by a larger, dictatorial neighbour which considers it to be part of its own territory. The other is Taiwan. On September 9th Somaliland, a breakaway republic in the north of Somalia, opened a “representative office” in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. It…
How big firms rip off African consumers
KOKO MINGI VIII, king of the Nembe people, had a vigorous approach to trust-busting. In 1895 he led a pre-dawn raid on the headquarters of the Royal Niger Company, a British firm that had monopolised the palm-oil trade in the Niger delta. Koko captured 60 hostages and demanded to be allowed to trade freely. The…