What could break Hong Kong’s property market?
PLANES NO LONGER land in Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s old airport. But nostalgists can stroll along the new “sky garden”, an elevated walkway lined with frangipani, myrtle and acacia, that passes above the old runway. By scanning a QR code along the route, visitors can “augment reality” by superimposing an image of a landing plane…
South Korea’s cultural spats with China are growing more intense
ASUPERNATURAL DRAMA about evil spirits trying to bring down a medieval dynasty is not, you might think, to be taken too seriously. Yet when “Joseon Exorcist’‘ hit South Korean screens earlier this year, it provoked apoplexy on social media. The show was historically inaccurate, fumed pedants. Not because it showed ancient Korean royals battling the…
Covid’s unequal effect on companies
Jun 5th 2021IN ITS LATEST Economic Outlook, the OECD argues that economies are likely to diverge, as some (America and China) recover from the pandemic faster than others (many poor countries). Covid-19 has also struck different sectors differently: tech and pharmaceutical firms prospered; transport and energy firms suffered. Despite such disparities governments’ policies successfully put…
The Chinese state is pumping funds into private equity
STATE CASH is burning a hole in the pocket of Shenzhen’s Communist Party secretary. Wang Weizhong told angel investors late last year that if they set up a fund in the south China tech hub, the government would bear 40% of their losses. For the monstrous 400bn-yuan ($62bn) state fund backing such activity, an investment…
India’s government goes after Twitter and its ilk
Jun 5th 2021WITH HIS 68.7m Twitter followers Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, nestles comfortably between the American celebrities Selena Gomez and Kim Kardashian in rankings of popularity on the service. This is not by accident. Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) have been early and avid exploiters of social media. Whether to lure…
India plans to remake Lakshadweep for tourism
THE BROCHURE writes itself: a scattering of coral ringlets, each encircling its own turquoise lagoon within the Arabian Sea, Lakshadweep is India at its most alluring. These 36 islands, together totalling just 32 square kilometres of land, are peopled by a matrilineal, mostly Muslim society where families make their living through seafaring and coconut harvests.Listen…
France tries to reset policy in Africa
F RANCE “MUST look history in the face and recognise the share of suffering that it inflicted on the Rwandan people”. So declared President Emmanuel Macron at the genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, on May 27th (pictured). “In ignoring the warnings of the most clear-sighted observers,” he said, “France bore damning responsibility in a…