Potemkin polls: Russia’s elections

After last year’s vote was marred by fraud allegations, the electorate is split ahead of Sunday’s poll: will the country return the socialist MAS party of exiled leader Evo Morales to power? A private...

16 Okt 202021min

Angry protests following an alleged police killing continue, even after a hated police unit was shuttered. That exposes far-deeper discontent. Banks’ earnings this week show that belt-tightening earli...

15 Okt 202022min

Rhetoric and sabre-rattling from mainland China are rapidly ramping up; we examine the risk of an invasion that would have global consequences. A decision by World Rugby to ban trans women from the wo...

14 Okt 202023min

The country yet again faces widespread starvation as a civil war grinds on, and both sides are to blame for the misery visited upon civilians. With the stroke of a pen, Argentina recently doubled in s...

13 Okt 202022min

By the numbers to date, Sweden's light-touch covid-19 measures may not seem successful. But its pragmatism takes an instructively long view of the pandemic. China’s high-level party machinery brooks n...

12 Okt 202023min

Citizens are furious after a poll seemingly tainted by vote-buying; its annulment leaves a power vacuum that may yet draw in China and Russia. An author’s journey through the history of America’s raci...

9 Okt 202021min

That a housefly could steal the show at America’s only vice-presidential debate is telling, but a discussion with more substance than bombast was a welcome respite. Cuba is experiencing its worst food...

8 Okt 202023min

A pilgrimage that is sure to become a covid-19 hotspot is a sign of how much the country’s government is losing legitimacy to its clergymen and tribal leaders. Social-media giants’ efforts to scrub vi...

7 Okt 202019min