How economically damaging will new lockdowns be?
COUNTRIES NOTCHED up absurdly high growth rates in the third quarter. America’s GDP rose by 7.4%, compared with the second (an annualised rate of 33%). Output in the euro area grew by 12.7%. But there is little reason for cheer. The resurgence of covid-19, and lockdowns to contain the virus, seem likely to stop the…
Aung San Suu Kyi was supposed to set Burmese democracy free
Nov 7th 2020THE MEMORY of Myanmar’s most recent election, in 2015, still cheers Kyaw Zayya. Even if he had not been covering the results as a journalist, he would have gone to the headquarters of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which swept the polls, to celebrate the end of more than 50 years of…
New Zealand allows assisted dying, among other progressive steps
Nov 5th 2020UNTIL THIS week, Asia’s most famous ministerial tattoo belonged to the Indonesian former fisheries minister, Susi Pudjiastuti. But you had to know where to look—the birdlike form lived on Ms Susi’s shin. In contrast, New Zealand’s new foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, sports a Maori tattoo known as a moko kauae on her lips…
Bobi Wine, the pop star who would be president of Uganda
SUIT TORN, tie askew, eyes half-shut, Bobi Wine stood on his veranda and addressed a crowd. That morning, on November 3rd, the Ugandan pop star had handed in his nomination papers to run for president in elections in January. Moments later, police smashed the window of his car, arrested him and pepper-sprayed his face before…
Robert Fisk, a voice on the Middle East, died on October 30th
Nov 5th 2020ROBERT FISK, who died in Dublin on October 30th, aged 74, was one of the most influential correspondents in the Middle East since the second world war. For the past 30-odd years he wrote mainly for the Independent, a left-of-centre British newspaper with dwindling circulation and influence at home, but his reach extended…
Regulators spoil Ant’s party less than 48 hours before it starts trading
The world’s biggest IPO is now the world’s biggest suspended IPONov 3rd 2020HONG KONG AND SHANGHAIJACK MA WAS in a triumphant mood shortly after Ant Group, his Chinese fintech firm, priced its initial public offering—set to be the world’s biggest ever, with almost $40bn worth of shares sold. Speaking at a summit in Shanghai on…
Christmas Season Postponed due the Coronavirus?
Published on Nov 4, 2020 by Anne Everyone thought that COVID-19 will disappear in a few months and we could once again enjoy our normal lives by the end of 2020. But, we can’t be any more wrong. It would even seem that the Christmas Season will be postponed due to the Coronavirus. Quarantine restrictions…
Movies that educate us about US Election history
Published on Oct 30, 2020 by Anne Over the years, there had been so many movies that educate us about voting and US election history. It may be about a fictional candidate. Sometimes these movies could also be about any historical events about US elections, or a biopic of a famous US political figure. We…
Why the bond market might keep America’s next president awake at night
THE TREASURY market has long been able to strike fear into the hearts of the powerful. Frustrated by worries in the 1990s that bond yields would spike if Bill Clinton, then America’s president, pushed through economic stimulus, James Carville, his adviser, joked that he wanted to be reincarnated as the bond market, because “you can…
Ethiopia lurches towards civil war
Nov 4th 2020ADDIS ABABA AND MEKELLEFOR SEVERAL days the warning lights had been flashing red. Early in the morning of October 29th a general in Ethiopia’s federal army had flown to the northern region of Tigray to take up his new position as deputy commander of forces in the region. He was refused entry. In…