Hong Kong’s regulators try to push back against Chinese market practices
HONG KONG is where China meets the outside world. The territory has long been a training ground for mainland Chinese bankers hoping to take on the planet. But recently it is Wall Street banks that are being schooled in Chinese practices. As companies from the mainland have come to dominate initial public offerings (IPOs) and…
A global corporate-tax deal takes shape
Jul 2nd 2021FOUR WEEKS ago the finance ministers of the G7 countries, meeting in London, trumpeted that they had sealed a “historic” and “global” deal to reform the taxation of multinational companies and thus to curb tax avoidance. In fact, that was just the precursor to an agreement struck on July 1st, after fraught negotiations…
Indians of different religions are more alike than they may think
Jul 1st 2021ON THE AFTERNOON of June 29th Zee News, a Hindi-language television channel, aired a sensational exposé. Against a backdrop of scowling mullahs and spiky minarets, a breathless presenter lauded the brave police of the state of Uttar Pradesh for busting a ring of foreign-financed jihadists. Their devilish mission: to entice vulnerable Indians into…
Japan’s dying sento are becoming cool again
VISITORS LEAVE their clothes and their worries at the wooden entrance to Inari-yu, a sento, or public bathhouse, in northern Tokyo. Inside they join the parade of bathers ambling beneath a mural of a snow-capped Mount Fuji. While perched on small stools, they scrub themselves with soap and rinse off with water poured from cypress-wood…
Tigrayan forces have routed the Ethiopian army
Jul 1st 2021ONCE THE history of Ethiopia’s latest civil war is written, the battles of June could well be recounted as one of the great rebel victories of recent years. For it will explain how a group of insurgents in the mountains of Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray routed two of Africa’s largest armies, Ethiopia’s…
The meaning of Jacob Zuma’s 15-month prison sentence
IN 1995, A YEAR after his election to the presidency had brought an end to white rule, Nelson Mandela spoke to the assembled judges at the opening of South Africa’s Constitutional Court. “We expect you to stand on guard not only against direct assault on the principles of the constitution,” he said, “but against insidious…