All she wrote: our obituaries editor reflects on 2021
From Prince Philip to Desmond Tutu, from an anti-racism campaigner and member of the Auschwitz Girls’ Orchestra to a war surgeon focused on civilians to an impoverished Ethiopian whose school for the ...
30 Dec 202125min
A few bright spots: our country of the year
Each year The Economist selects its country of the year: a place that has improved the most. Improvement, though, was damnably rare in 2021. We run through our nominations and the shortlist, and take ...
29 Dec 202120min
You bet your dollar-bottomed: Erdogan’s next gambit
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s idea for saving the lira by backing deposits with dollars means the Turkish taxpayer will end up bailing out the Turkish depositor. Our correspondent finds striking in...
28 Dec 202123min
Beginning of the endemic? Omicron’s spread
The lightning-fast spread of a seemingly milder coronavirus variant may represent a shift from pandemic to endemic; we ask how that would change global responses. Concern about video-game addictivenes...
27 Dec 202122min
No safety in numbers: security in Haiti
The security situation is hopeless, following violent unrest and a presidential assassination—as one family’s epic and ultimately failed attempt to leave reveals. The sum total of the missing banknote...
23 Dec 202124min
Relocation, relocation, relocation: America’s internal migration
The flood of people out of cities is unlike anything since the suburbanisation of the 1950s; we examine the inevitable economic and political consequences. After years of reporting our correspondent c...
22 Dec 202124min
All about that base: Japan’s security policy
In recent years the country has found itself in a sharply different geopolitical environment, responding by building bases and security-partner ties as never before. Our correspondent meets perhaps th...
21 Dec 202124min
Back to the USSR: Russia and Ukraine
As border tensions continue to build, our Russia editor looks back to the fall of the Soviet Union to explain why Russia has never accepted Ukraine’s independence. Eating out has only become more expe...
20 Dec 202123min
