ACL injuries are a growing problem
Jun 18th 2021AS THE COVID-19 pandemic abates and athletes around the world prepare to return to the sports field, new light is being shed on one of the gravest risks of injury they face. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four that hold the knee together. Tearing it, as at least 2m people…
India’s prime minister is down but not out
THE STORY of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has been a fable of extraordinary good fortune. From running a railway tea-stall in provincial Gujarat he rose to lead his state and then his country, the world’s biggest democracy. Yet no one’s luck lasts forever. And for Mr Modi the current monsoon season is not the…
A new weapon in the war against SARS-CoV-2 has been found
Jun 16th 2021Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.AN ANTIBODY THERAPY from Regeneron, a firm in upstate New York, improves the survival of patients with covid-19 and offers renewed hope for the treatment of those most seriously ill with the disease. A study in…
Why China has learned to relax about its currency
Jun 19th 2021IN A WORLD in which transparency has become a fetish, it is refreshing to try to get a read on the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Its various nods and winks give market analysts something to interpret—or over-interpret. On May 31st it announced that it would increase the proportion of foreign-currency deposits that…
Will America’s housing boom lead to another financial crisis?
Jun 19th 2021BEND, OREGONA FAVOURED PASTIME for city dwellers on holiday to quainter towns and villages is to peruse the windows of local property firms and dream of swapping their cramped two-bedroom flat for an entire house and garden. Your correspondent is not immune to the appeal: she gazed wistfully at a pretty house near…
Mongolia’s ruling party secures a thumping victory
UNLIKE THE shenanigans that came before it, the result was remarkably clear. Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh romped to victory in Mongolia’s presidential elections, held on June 9th. He became the first candidate in recent history to snaffle more than two-thirds of the vote. His Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) already holds a supermajority in parliament. After Mr Khurelsukh…
Singapore’s migrant workers have endured interminable lockdowns
IT IS MORE than a year since Mohammad Sharif Uddin leafed through a book at the National Library or wandered beneath Singapore’s skyscrapers, two of his favourite pastimes. Since early 2020 migrant workers such as Mr Sharif, a Bangladeshi who oversees safety on construction sites, have endured lockdowns far stricter and longer than those imposed…
Few things are harder than building a state in Iraq
AROUND NOON on June 9th, a sudden hubbub echoed through the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala. Qassem Musleh, a militia boss who had been arrested two weeks earlier on suspicion of murder, was free and visiting one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites. A happy crowd surged around him as he walked out into the blazing…