Leave them in no peace: America’s Afghan exit
Passport queues are lengthening; ad-hoc civilian militias are strengthening. As foreign powers bow out, Taliban militants take district after district—and the fear of the people is palpable. The pande...
5 Jul 202121min
Repetitive strains: SARS-CoV-2 variants
The coronavirus’s Delta variant accounts for ever more infections; we ask about mutational surprises yet to emerge, and what can be done about them. The ousting of Ethiopia’s army from the Tigray regi...
2 Jul 202123min
Party piece: China’s Communists at 100
Pomp and rhetoric marked the centenary of what are arguably the world’s most successful authoritarians. We sit in on the celebrations, tinged with paranoia; we look back to 1921 and how the party came...
1 Jul 202122min
No day in court: Jacob Zuma’s jail sentence
South Africa’s embattled former leader will be imprisoned for failing to show up to trial—a sign that, for all the rot in South Africa, its Constitutional Court still has teeth. Our environment editor...
30 Jun 202120min
Bear necessities: learning to handle Russia
As both summitry and military near-misses proliferate, some want measured dialogue while others want markedly tougher talk. Our defence and Russia editors discuss world leaders’ diverging views on han...
29 Jun 202121min
Third time’s the harm: Africa’s crippling covid-19 wave
Hopes that the continent had escaped the worst of the pandemic have proved too hasty; our correspondent describes a slow-rolling tragedy with little hope of respite. Reading scores in America are shoc...
28 Jun 202120min
Iraq to its foundations: a chance to remake the state
With elections looming, there is an opportunity to remake a state ravaged by war and riven by power struggles. We ask how to take Iraq out of a hard place. Fires are raging again in the American West;...
25 Jun 202121min
Bench marks: weighing recent SCOTUS rulings
The court’s term is not quite over, with contentious rulings still pending. We examine the latest decisions to gauge how its new conservative justices have affected its ideological bent. As a former M...
24 Jun 202122min
