India’s population will start to shrink sooner than expected
WHEN SOMETHING happens earlier than expected, Indians say it has been “preponed”. On November 24th India’s health ministry revealed that a resolution to one of its oldest and greatest preoccupations will indeed be preponed. Some years ahead of UN predictions, and its own government targets, India’s total fertility rate—the average number of children that an…
Omicron latest: What the Omicron variant means for the world economy
Dec 2nd 2021FacebookTwitterLinkedInWhatsAppIF THERE IS one lesson the covid-19 pandemic has taught the world, it is that acting early pays off. So when news emerged on November 25th in South Africa of a worrying new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, countries immediately began scrambling to tighten the rules on international travel. By November 29th suspected…
How piecemeal carbon pricing affects cross-border lending
IN JUNE THE IMF made the latest of many calls from economists for a market-oriented policy to tackle climate change. “Carbon pricing…is the least-cost option to deliver deep emission cuts,” it argued in a paper written ahead of a meeting of the leaders of the G20 group of large economies. Carbon taxes, as this newspaper…
Three threats to growth in emerging markets
Dec 1st 2021WASHINGTON, DCTHE NEWS, as the second anniversary of the pandemic nears, could be better. The emergence of a covid-19 variant, labelled Omicron, has sparked a wave of selling on financial markets, seemingly on concern that a new highly transmissible strain of the virus could set back economic recoveries worldwide. With luck, Omicron may…
Busan, a South Korean city, plans a floating neighbourhood
Dec 4th 2021FOR YEARS some libertarians have dreamed of creating floating settlements. Fans of “seasteading” talk of setting up self-governing hamlets in international waters, which would charge little or no tax. In 2019 Chad Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet, an American and a Thai, spent time living in a small cabin floating some 12 miles off…
An election in Kyrgyzstan is cleaner than usual
THE LAST time Kyrgyzstan had a general election, just over a year ago, the consequences were, by any democratic criterion, far from orthodox—and even by the eccentric and sometimes violent standards of the mountain republic they were unusual. When the incumbent president wangled a parliamentary majority with copious vote-buying, protests erupted that led to his…
Africa’s ties to China and the West are starting to look more alike
WHEN PRESIDENT XI JINPING of China meets African leaders, grandiose claims abound. On this count, at least, the triennial diplomatic jamboree known as the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), held recently in Senegal, did not disappoint. China and Africa have “forged unbreakable fraternity”, declared Mr Xi, who spoke from China by video. Mr Xi painted…
The Omicron variant and travel bans are hurting southern Africa
SOUTH AFRICA had a rotten 2021. Corrupt politicians plundered covid-19 relief funds, deadly riots took more than 330 lives and rolling power cuts hobbled the economy. Yet South African scientists have deservedly won praise this year. It was local virologists and epidemiologists who had honed their skills studying another virus, HIV, who discovered the new…