Will poorer countries benefit from international tax reform?
Jun 5th 2021INTERNATIONAL TAX reform pits tax-hungry governments against giant multinational companies and their armies of tax advisers. It sets high-tax jurisdictions against low-tax havens. And it requires rich- and poor-country governments to somehow reach agreement. The 139 countries haggling at a forum run by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, have yet…
What are the limits to government borrowing?
Jun 5th 2021THE SCALE of Joe Biden’s plans is hard to exaggerate. Where the American president’s former boss, Barack Obama, pivoted quickly to deficit-cutting after the trials of the global financial crisis, Mr Biden’s first budget, which he unveiled on May 28th, will borrow unapologetically. The plans assume that annual fiscal deficits will exceed 4%…
Indonesia adds another weapon to its speech-suppressing arsenal
AFTER A SLOW start, citizens of South-East Asian countries have in recent years taken to the internet with gusto, using it, like their counterparts everywhere else, to shop, to chat with their friends, to watch movies and to listen to music—and to criticise their governments. And as in many parts of the world, governments have…
The impulse behind Japan’s decision to go on with the Olympic games
Jun 5th 2021F EWER THAN 50 days remain before the apparently unstoppable opening of the 2020 summer Olympic games in Tokyo. The pandemic led to their postponement last year. Today the clock is ticking down against a backdrop of resurgent infections of covid-19 in Japan, a state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other prefectures,…
Thousands of Congolese have fled Goma, fearing lava and deadly gas
THEY GRABBED blankets, clothes and mattresses and rushed out of their houses at dawn on May 27th. In their tens of thousands, they streamed out of the city of Goma, in eastern Congo, terrified of what its volcano might do next. Some fled east towards the border with Rwanda (see map). Others hurried west to…
Jordanians wake to an irritating tune blared from gas trucks
EVERY DAY many groggy Jordanians are woken by the sound of Beethoven blasted down the street. Trucks selling gas cylinders drive around playing a tinny electronic version of “Für Elise” in the early hours of the morning, alerting customers in the style of an ice-cream van. Residents in need of gas flag down the van…
Composing by computer
Concerts may soon feature music written by artificial intelligenceJun 2nd 2021THESE DAYS, anyone with a computer can be a composer. Sort of. Give a piece of commercial software such as Magenta, developed by Google, the first few notes of a song, and it will make something merrily tuneful out of them. Tuneful, but not sophisticated.…
As oil demand picks up, OPEC’s discipline will be tested
Recovering demand pushed prices above $70 a barrel for the first time since 2019“THE DEMAND picture has shown clear signs of improvement.” So declared Abdulaziz bin Salman, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, at a virtual gathering of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on June 1st. The cartel and its allies, chief…
Binyamin Netanyahu’s opponents reach a deal to replace him
But the prime minister won’t give up without a fightISRAEL is used to governments made up of disparate parties. But the coalition deal agreed on June 2nd, which would end Binyamin Netanyahu’s 12-year reign as prime minister, would be the most diverse in history.On the far right are Yamina—led by Naftali Bennett (pictured), once one…