Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
CDU later? Germany’s topsy-turvy election
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The party of Angela Merkel, the outgoing chancellor, is flailing in polls. We ask why the race has b...
Banks note: the Jackson Hole meeting
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The message for central bankers at the annual jamboree: relax a bit about inflation and be loud and ...
The terror of their ways: Kabul and global jihadism
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The suicide-bombings that have killed scores of people signal how the Taliban will struggle to rule ...
To all, appearances: Israel’s PM in Washington
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Naftali Bennett’s first face-to-face meeting with President Joe Biden will look calm and co-operat...
Delta‘s force: Australia’s covid plans crumble
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For a while, closed borders and strict contact-tracing held the coronavirus at bay. What lessons to ...
How you like them: Apple’s decade under Tim Cook
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The tech firm has ballooned under his leadership, but Mr Cook’s next ten years will not be as rosy...
Annexed question, please: Ukraine’s summit on Crimea
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to draw attention to Russia’s continued occupation of Crimea, a...
Value-free investing: China and Afghanistan
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Taliban’s takeover is a boon for China’s propaganda machine: America is tired, its policies ...
Fits and starts: SARS-CoV-2’s origin
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the end, the World Health Organisation’s report in March revealed little. We ask why the corona...
Stymie a river: the American West dries up
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first-ever water shortage declared for the Colorado River is just one sign of troubles to come; ...
It rains, it pours: Haiti’s tragedy compounds
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A president’s assassination, a cratered economy and now this: a tropical depression that will hamp...
Nothing to break the fall: Afghanistan
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The fall of Kabul, the capital, sealed the country’s fate: after 20 years, the Taliban are back in...
Thicket and boarding pass: travel’s tangle of rules
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Restrictions are opaque, fickle and often illiberal—and it is not even clear how much they help cu...
Bridges and divides: America’s infrastructure push
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Senate has passed the first part of President Joe Biden’s mammoth plan, which is now tied to a...
Blazed and confused: Turkey’s raging fires
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Across the Mediterranean and beyond, flames are consuming the landscape. Our correspondent says Turk...
Shots or fired: America’s vaccine mandates
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Inoculation or testing requirements are spreading nearly as fast as the Delta variant. But it is not...
Hot prospects: a sobering IPCC report
09 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The UN climate body’s latest doorstopper report is unequivocal: climate change is human-caused, an...
Coming in harder: Iran’s new president
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ebrahim Raisi takes office as the country is blamed for multiple attacks in the region; a more mistr...
No consent of the governed: Andrew Cuomo on the brink
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After a damning report into sexual-harassment allegations, support for New York’s governor has cra...
No port, still a storm: Lebanon a year after the blast
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The explosion at Beirut’s port was a symptom, not a cause, of the country’s malaise. We find mor...
Block off the old chips? Nvidia’s fraught merger
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The semiconductor giant wants to acquire ARM—a British firm that is more complement than competito...
No-sanctuary cities: the Taliban’s latest surge
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sweeping rural gains made as American forces have slipped out are now giving way to bids for urban a...
Neither borrower nor renter be: America’s coming foreclosures
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
America’s pandemic-driven measures granting relief on mortgages and rent arrears will soon expire,...
Good news, ad news: Facebook’s big bucks and bets
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The social-media behemoth revealed huge profits and stressed even bigger plans: to become an e-comme...
Borderline disorder: the UN’s refugee treaty at 70
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An international convention devised after the second world war is ill-suited to the refugee crises o...
Alight in Tunisia: a democracy in crisis
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The president has sacked the prime minister and suspended parliament. It is clear that the country n...
The blonde leading: Britain’s two years under Boris Johnson
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the country tests a bold reopening strategy in the face of the Delta variant, our political edito...
A dangerous games? A muted start to the Olympics
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tokyo is under a state of emergency; covid-19 cases are piling up. But for Japan, a super-spreader e...
Three-degree burn: the warmer world that awaits
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It seems ever more certain that global temperatures will sail past limits set in the Paris Agreement...
Changing horses mid-streaming? Netflix’s next act
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the face of it, the streaming giant’s quarterly results were lacklustre. But our media editor e...
Joint pain: a rare rebuke of China’s hackers
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The European Union, NATO and the “Five Eyes” intelligence partners have all joined America in ac...
In a flash: floods devastate Europe
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Disaster-recovery efforts continue, even as heavy rains continue in many places. The tragedy brings ...
A pounder of a quarter: American banks report
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bank bosses are jubilant: revenues were down but profits way up. We look at the pandemic-driven reas...
Loot cause: South Africa’s unrest
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Widespread looting and the worst violence since apartheid continue, exposing ethnic divisions and th...
Texas hold-’em-up: a voting-rights standoff
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The state’s Democratic lawmakers have fled to Washington, stymieing a voting-rights bill. We exami...
Flight attendance: airlines after the pandemic
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Which carriers will thrive? Long-haulers or short-hoppers? The no-frills or the glitzy? The bailed-o...
Hasta la victoria, hambre: rare protests rock Cuba
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Food shortages are nothing new. But it has been decades since shelves have been so empty—and since...
A decade decayed: South Sudan
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The world’s youngest state was born amid boundless optimism. But poverty is still endemic and ethn...
Assassins’ deed: Haiti’s president killed
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jovenel Moïse presided, in an increasingly authoritarian way, over a country slipping toward failed...
Dropped shots: Russia’s third wave
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite registering the world’s first coronavirus vaccine, the country is being lashed by covid-19...
Taken for a ride: why China is leaning on Didi
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Just after the ride-hailing giant made a splashy stockmarket debut, Chinese regulators came down har...
Leave them in no peace: America’s Afghan exit
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Passport queues are lengthening; ad-hoc civilian militias are strengthening. As foreign powers bow o...
Repetitive strains: SARS-CoV-2 variants
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The coronavirus’s Delta variant accounts for ever more infections; we ask about mutational surpris...
Party piece: China’s Communists at 100
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pomp and rhetoric marked the centenary of what are arguably the world’s most successful authoritar...
No day in court: Jacob Zuma’s jail sentence
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
South Africa’s embattled former leader will be imprisoned for failing to show up to trial—a sign...
Bear necessities: learning to handle Russia
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As both summitry and military near-misses proliferate, some want measured dialogue while others want...
Third time’s the harm: Africa’s crippling covid-19 wave
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hopes that the continent had escaped the worst of the pandemic have proved too hasty; our correspond...
Iraq to its foundations: a chance to remake the state
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With elections looming, there is an opportunity to remake a state ravaged by war and riven by power ...
Bench marks: weighing recent SCOTUS rulings
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The court’s term is not quite over, with contentious rulings still pending. We examine the latest ...
Hunger strikes: North Korea’s food shortages
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An admission that the country’s food situation is “tense” is a rare glimpse into the compoundi...
Drop it when it’s hot: the Fed’s consequential hint
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The merest mention of future interest-rate rises from America’s central bank sent markets into a t...
A vote with no confidence: Ethiopia’s untimely election
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The northern region of Tigray, consumed by war and facing famine, will not vote today. It is all a f...
Press to exit: Hong Kong’s media arrests
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The raid of an outspoken pro-democracy newspaper, carried out under the city’s newish security law...
A hardline act to follow: Iran’s presidential election
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The supreme leader is consolidating theocratic power and ensuring a hardline legacy. Voters know the...
Present, tense: Biden and Putin meet
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have much to hammer out today—but don’t expect it to be genial. We ...
Patrons’ taint: Brazil’s pork-barrel politics
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
President Jair Bolsonaro campaigned on a promise to overturn the country’s political patronage, bu...
Promises, promises: the G7’s fuzzy climate pledges
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Where they are clear, the summit’s commitments do not add much to existing targets; mostly, though...
Staying powers? The G7’s changing role
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For the seven world leaders meeting in Britain the immediate crises are clear. But a broader questio...
An exit wounds: America’s Afghanistan retreat
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Air bases have been handed over; America’s remaining troops are shipping out and NATO forces are f...
You don’t say: Indonesia joins Asia’s digital censorship
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As governments across South-East Asia crimp online freedoms, the region’s healthiest democracy mig...
Criminal proceedings: America’s spike in violence
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Piecemeal criminal-justice reforms following last year’s protests are coming up against hard numbe...
Ballots and bullets: Mexico’s elections
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The run-up to the country’s largest-ever election has been bloody; the aftermath will set the tone...
Peace out: from bad to worse in Yemen
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Saudi-backed government is hobbled; separatism is spreading; a humanitarian crisis grows by the ...
Catch-up mustered: Europe’s vaccination drive
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The bloc seems at last to have a firm hand on inoculation and recovery—but efforts to engineer eve...
Swiping rights: Republicans’ vote-crimping bids
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A walkout in the Texas legislature is just the most dramatic of broad efforts to restrict voting rig...
Bibi, it’s cold outside: Israel’s improbable coalition
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The only thing that unites the parties of a would-be government is the will to oust Prime Minister B...
From the head down: rot in South Africa
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jacob Zuma, a former president, at last answers to decades-old corruption allegations. But graft sti...
Caught in the activists: oil majors’ shake-ups
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Activist investors installed green-minded board members at ExxonMobil; Chevron’s shareholders push...
On the origins and the specious: the SARS-CoV-2 lab-leak theory
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The suggestion that the virus first emerged from a Chinese laboratory has proved stubbornly persiste...
From out of thin air: Belarus dissidents' fates
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The regime got its quarry—a widely read, dissident blogger and his girlfriend—but faces internat...
To protect and serve: police reform one year after George Floyd
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Protests have followed police killings in America with saddening regularity, but the scope of demons...
From a tax to attacks: Colombia’s unrelenting unrest
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Protests that began last month show no sign of abating; our correspondent speaks with Iván Duque, t...
The dust settles: ceasefire in Gaza
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After 11 days of fierce fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire beginning in the ...
Game on: the Tokyo Olympics
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Tokyo Olympics are due to begin in just over two months. But with coronavirus cases climbing in ...
Populists poised: Italian politics
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, has been cheered by the markets since taking on the job in F...
Hot air: emissions reduction
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The International Energy Agency has published a report explaining what needs to happen if the world ...
Feast and famine: vaccine supply
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Though over 10bn doses of covid-19 vaccine may be produced this year, much of the poor world will se...
Home front: Israel’s war within
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As Israel's war with Hamas has intensified, mob violence between Arabs and Jews within the country h...
Purged: Liz Cheney’s sacking
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Cheney had been a rising Republican star. Now the staunch conservative has been purged by her ow...
Baby bust: China’s census
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
China just unveiled the results of its first census in over a decade. The results are striking, if n...
Rockets over Jerusalem: Israeli-Palestinian violence
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tension in the holy city of Jerusalem has been rising for weeks, amid the attempted eviction of Pale...
North poll: Boris Johnson’s election victory
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, is celebrating a wave of election victories for his Conse...
Down to brash tax: Colombia’s protests grow
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Demonstrations initially against tax reform have bloomed—and turned violent. The reforms have been...
Who’s to say? Facebook, Trump and free speech
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The social-media giant’s external-review body upheld a ban on former president Donald Trump—for ...
Cache and carry: American states’ gun-law push
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today another state will enact a “permitless carry” law—no licence, checks or training require...
Strait shooting? The growing peril to Taiwan
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A decades-old policy of “strategic ambiguity” is breaking down; we ask about the risks and the s...
The turn at a century: Northern Ireland’s anniversary
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The province’s largest party aligned with Britain has lost its leader; in the 100 years since the ...
Illiberal-arts degrees: Hungary’s universities seized
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s proudly “illiberal democracy” has nobbled nearly every instituti...
A word in edgewise: Turkey, Armenia and genocide
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In calling the 1915 campaign against Armenians a genocide, President Joe Biden has rekindled tension...
A great deal to be desired: Europe-Britain trade
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Europe’s parliament has overwhelmingly voted to extend a stopgap trade agreement. But the rancour ...
SPAClash: the buzz and the bust
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Special-purpose acquisition companies offer a novel way for companies to list on stockmarkets. We lo...
Extremist prejudice: rebranding Navalny
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Russian courts’ bid to designate opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s movement as a terrorist orga...
Carbon date: Biden’s climate summit
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
President Joe Biden laid out ambitious emissions targets yesterday, but in order to be taken serious...
Growth negligence: India’s covid-19 failings
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mass gatherings and in-person voting continue, even as new case numbers smash records and fatalities...
Insuperable: Europe’s football fiasco
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A “Super League” plan wrong-footed fans, clubs, even governments. We examine what the failed bid...
A case rests, a city does not: Derek Chauvin’s trial
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The former police officer involved in George Floyd’s death awaits a verdict. What would conviction...
Lai of the land: Hong Kong’s democrats quashed
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the territory’s most outspoken activists—from media mogul Jimmy Lai to “father of demo...
The path of increased resistance: Myanmar
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Protests against February’s military coup are only growing, even as the army becomes more murderou...
Boots off the ground: America’s Afghanistan drawdown
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Few believe President Joe Biden’s withdrawal plan is wise; it is already prompting allied forces t...
Arms’ reach: Russia flexes at Ukraine border
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The troops and hardware piling up at the border are probably just posturing. But look closely: Russi...