Leave in peace: Afghan-Taliban negotiations
A withdrawal agreement struck with America has been damnably hard to implement, but the two sides may at last start talks to crimp nearly two decades of conflict. Wirecard, once the darling of Germany...
24 Jun 202020min
Past its Prime? Amazon comes of age
The pandemic has been great for sales; for profits, not so much. We examine the e-commerce giant’s prospects as it adapts to a changing world. Throughout history pandemics have helped to shape human c...
23 Jun 202024min
Isle be damned: Britain ravaged by covid-19
Cosmopolitan, overweight, multi-ethnic: the country’s makeup has made the pandemic more deadly. But the government has repeatedly played a bad hand badly. Native American communities are being hit har...
22 Jun 202020min
Syria’s condition: Bashar al-Assad
The country’s dictator has spent nearly half his time in power waging war on his own people. His patchwork support network is fading, but he will not go easily. America’s racial unrest has put reparat...
19 Jun 202022min
Painting the red towns: covid-19 in America
Coronavirus cases are easing in Democrat-held jurisdictions and rising in Republican-held areas. What is behind the shift, and what will it mean for President Donald Trump? Ireland at last has a coali...
18 Jun 202021min
Himalayan assault: India and China clash
The first deaths at the contested border in 45 years signal broader geopolitical shifts—and mark an escalation that will be difficult to reverse. “Mercenary” is less and less a dirty word in Africa; i...
17 Jun 202020min
No port in a storm: the world’s stranded sailors
Pandemic policies seem to have overlooked the key workers who keep the global trade system afloat: merchant seamen. More than a quarter of a million are at sea unwillingly. Misinformation was a plague...
16 Jun 202021min
A shifting alliance: NATO
As the organisation’s defence ministers meet this week we look at two of its principal challenges: China’s rising influence and America’s declining interest. After more than three decades, a grand mur...
15 Jun 202021min
