A new phase in the financial cycle
Jun 24th 2021GROWING UP IS hard to do but growing old is harder. As the business cycle matures and ages, it goes through phases, just as people do. These are mirrored in financial markets. Strategists like to talk in terms of early-, mid- or late-cycle investing. It is tricky to say when one stage ends…
Three corporate giants are posing a stiff test for Chinese banks
NOT LONG ago the conventional wisdom was that China would do whatever it took to save its biggest companies from failing. Times have changed. Three corporate giants—Evergrande, the country’s biggest property developer; Huarong, its biggest investor in bad bank assets; and Suning, a retail giant—are all suffering from financial distress.Listen to this storyYour browser does…
We’re hiring: a news assistant in Tokyo
Jun 24th 2021The Economist is seeking a news assistant for the Tokyo Bureau. This is an exciting, multifaceted job that encompasses conducting research, arranging interviews, interpreting, reporting, and, on occasion, writing. The successful candidate will work closely with the Tokyo bureau chief and other correspondents to cover Japanese politics, foreign policy, society, business, finance and…
Myanmar’s civil war is becoming bloodier and more brutal
MOUNTED ON A bicycle, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a corporate logo, Kyaw Tin Tun could pass for one of the many food-delivery couriers zipping through Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. But his bag contains no food and his phone no instructions. His getup is there to provide cover for the slow speed at which he…
Can America and Iran revive their nuclear deal?
Jul 5th 2021THE GRAND HOTEL on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, the city’s elegant boulevard, is a felicitous spot for nuclear diplomacy. It is not just the opulent surroundings or the unlimited coffee. The hotel was also the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog, for 22 years. Yet the diplomats that have…
Micro-organisms play a bigger part in tea-making than was realised
Jul 5th 2021TEA IS FAMILIAR stuff. The world sips more than 2bn cups of it every day. Even so, it can pull surprises, as Mallano Ali Inayat and Jeffrey Bennetzen of Anhui Agricultural University, in China, have just shown.Tea producers long assumed that the flavours of the most widely drunk varieties of this beverage, so-called…
Europe’s biggest neobank wants to take over the world
Jun 24th 2021THE PANDEMIC could have been terminal for Revolut, a firm set up in 2015 to help travellers avoid hefty foreign-exchange fees. Instead its latest annual results, released on June 21st, suggest the London-based digital bank is thriving. Despite slashing its marketing budget, it gained 4.5m customers in 2020, bringing the total to 14.5m.…
An anniversary for free traders
Jun 24th 2021ABOUT HALF of most British people’s income in the 1830s and 1840s was spent on food. Hunger was commonplace, occasionally sparking riots. Contributing to the high cost were tariffs on imported grain, called the Corn Laws, which soared as high as 80%. The system enriched aristocratic landowners when most Britons were not allowed…
A rare investigation into a police killing in the Philippines
THE RASHOMON stories recounting the death of Jhondie Maglinte Helis are typical of the Philippines’ war on drugs under President Rodrigo Duterte. The police claim that officers found Jhondie (pictured), 16 years old, in the company of an adult drug suspect, Antonio Dalit, when they went to arrest Mr Dalit on June 16th in Laguna,…
Australia mulls biowarfare against unwanted critters
FOR SIX months a plague of rodents has infested Australia’s south-eastern farmlands. Mice are still “running around like they’re training for Tokyo”, says Xavier Martin, a grain farmer in New South Wales, the worst-hit state. The vermin devour crops, burrow into hay bales, climb into beds and pollute drinking water. That has set off a…