Bitcoin crosses $50,000
Feb 20th 2021ANYONE WHO bought bitcoin a year ago must feel vindicated—and rich. The price of the cryptocurrency crossed $50,000 for the first time on February 16th, a five-fold increase over the past year. Wall Street grandees including BlackRock, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley are mulling holding some for clients. Last week…
Amsterdam’s financial centre gains an edge over continental rivals
THOUGH MANY exchanges are run by multinational companies, they are still often seen as the financial equivalent of a national football team. When Amsterdam ousted London as the largest share-trading centre in Europe last month, it made headlines in both countries. “The EU wins first battle for stock trading over Britons,” said Het Financieele Dagblad.…
Kids in the Philippines have not left their homes for a year
OFELIA ABO has not left home for 11 months. In the mornings the six-year-old attends school online. The rest of the time she eats lots of snacks, plays Uno with her mother or, when it isn’t raining, runs around on the roof of her building. She doesn’t mind: “I can play all day.” Then again,…
A French Pacific territory gets a pro-independence government
GOVERNMENTS COME and go in New Caledonia, a French territory of 270,000 in the south Pacific. There have been 16 since 1998, when the French government and local politicians signed the Nouméa Accord, a power-sharing deal that aimed to end violent agitation for independence. The new government named this week, however, stands out. It is…
João Lourenço’s reforms in Angola are pleasing the IMF
Feb 20th 2021JOHANNESBURGJOSÉ EDUARDO DOS SANTOS ruled Angola for 38 years. During his presidency Angola fought an on-off civil war that ended in 2002, just as an oil boom was starting. As the price of black gold soared, Luanda, the capital, became one of the world’s most expensive cities, a place where developers imported palm…
Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s new chief prosecutor
BORIS JOHNSON’S government was cock-a-hoop. The election on February 12th of Karim Khan, a British barrister, as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was surely a sign that Britain still had diplomatic heft post-Brexit. Mr Khan’s appointment would be “pivotal in ensuring we hold those responsible for the most heinous…
Lucid dreamers may be able to talk to the outside world
Feb 20th 2021DREAMS ARE clearly important. All humans have them, as do animals from cats to elephants. Neuroscientists believe they are involved in the processing of memories. Yet studying them is limited by the fact that dreamers themselves cannot talk to anyone while they are asleep. Researchers must rely on the unreliable recollections of people…
Little is known about the effects of puberty blockers
Feb 20th 2021GENDER DYSPHORIA—the miserable feeling of being at odds with one’s sex—is one of the fastest-rising medical complaints among children. America had one paediatric gender clinic in 2007. It now has at least 50. The sole paediatric gender clinic for England and Wales, known by its acronym, GIDS, has seen referrals rise 30-fold in…
What market break-evens do and don’t tell you about inflation fears
Feb 20th 2021IF YOU HAD to pick an emblem of the wild ride that financial markets have been on, it would be Carnival. When the pandemic took hold, its cruise ships were regarded as floating petri-dishes. Yet last April it was able to raise capital, as the corporate-bond market thawed. More recently it raised $3.5bn…
The WTO has a new chief. Is it time for new trade rules too?
Feb 20th 2021WASHINGTON, DCFIXING THE World Trade Organisation (WTO) is not enough for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and first African to lead it. On February 15th, the day she was appointed as director-general, she announced that she wanted to help bring an end to the pandemic, too. The two are related; she hopes to…