The Intelligence from The Economist
Episodes
Another matter: the Breonna Taylor verdict
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A grand jury’s decision has re-energised months-long protests. We ask how much another tragic death at the hands of police may spur meaningful refor...
Winter is coming: covid-19’s next phase
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Soon the pandemic will have claimed a million lives. We take a broad look at what has been learned—and the deadly mistakes still being made. Our cor...
America’s next top chamber, modelled: the Senate battle
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Congressional elections will decide the direction of America’s governance irrespective of the presidential pick; we reveal our statistical model of ...
Stumbling block: the battle over WeChat
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration’s bid to block the Chinese app has been stymied—for now. The tussle reflects a change in how America does business, and h...
Judge dread: the fight for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a liberal icon. Her death last week opens a Supreme Court vacancy for Donald Trump to fill, which could tip the court further ...
Uneasy lies the head: Thailand’s under-fire king
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thailand is bracing for a large anti-government protest, with some of the anger directed at the usually-revered monarchy. Some fear that the establish...
Conviction politics: Florida’s disenfranchised felons
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
More than a million former felons in Florida regained the right to vote in 2018. Last week, many of them lost it again. We look at the barriers to vot...
Sanctuary in Sochi: Belarus’ dictator clings on
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, has travelled to Sochi amid major protests at home to ask Vladimir Putin for help. We examine whether he will ...
After Abe: Japan’s new prime minister
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Japan’s new prime minister will be Yoshihide Suga, the son of a strawberry farmer from the country’s rural north. We look at whether he can step i...
Homework: the future of the office
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic has been a giant experiment in working from home. We examine whether workers are happier and more productive using Zoom in their pyjamas ...
Great walls of fire: America’s west coast burns
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Relentless climate change will make devastating blazes more likely; urbanisation in woodland areas will make them more costly. Prevention measures cou...
Genocidal intent? Deserters recount Rohingya atrocities
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two Burmese soldiers have described in harrowing detail what has long been alleged: that the army targeted Muslim-minority Rohingya in a programme of ...
Unpicking the thread: forced labour in Xinjiang
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sanctions are tightening around the Chinese province amid suspicions of forced labour. Western firms that are reliant on the region’s cotton and oth...
Subcontinental drift: India’s covid spike
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A hurried lockdown early in the pandemic has cratered the country’s economy, and infection rates are now shooting up. More suffering lies ahead, on ...
Pact unpacked: wobbly Brexit talks
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Negotiations on Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with Europe were floundering—even before revelations it may essentially rewrite parts of the la...
Back to the future-planning: France
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Alongside a green-minded, 100bn-euro stimulus, President Emmanuel Macron’s recovery plan borrows ideas from the post-war past to imagine a post-covi...
Rough seas and safe seats: Caribbean elections
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The outcome of Jamaica’s election isn’t much in doubt. What’s uncertain is how the wider Caribbean can handle rock-bottom tourism and looming hu...
In a class, by themselves: pupils head back to school
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of schoolchildren are heading back to classes, many of them online. We examine the evidence on virtual learning and how it deepens inequaliti...
Integration, differentiation: migrants in Germany
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Five years ago, a vast wave of migrants and refugees began to spill into the country. We examine their fates amid a tangle of bureaucracy. Even for th...
Ill be going: Abe Shinzo’s legacy
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Japan’s longest-serving prime minister leaves behind a mixed bag of policy successes and shortcomings. We examine his legacy and ask what his succes...
Shot down, in flames: Kenosha, Wisconsin
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Another shooting of an unarmed black man by police has reopened wounds still not healed after George Floyd’s killing—and, like all else, the unres...
Team-building exercise: America’s Middle East diplomacy
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
American officials hope more Arab states will follow the United Arab Emirates in normalising relations with Israel; the groundwork for that has been q...
The grande scheme of things: corruption in Mexico
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The former head of the state-owned oil firm has presented stunning claims of high-level graft. Are they credible, and will the president pursue them? ...
Insecurity services? Alexei Navalny’s poisoning
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors believe Russia’s opposition leader was poisoned, and suspicion naturally falls on the Kremlin. Why might the country’s leadership have tak...
Isle take it: Turkey’s adventures in the Med
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The considerable oil and gas reserves beneath the eastern Mediterranean have sparked Turkey’s interest—as well as a number of disputes in the regi...
In over its head of state: Mali’s coup
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The military has again ousted the president, after months of protests and years of ethnic violence. Fresh elections or no, whoever comes out on top fa...
Not free, not fair, not finished: Belarus’s election
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Huge protests following a rigged election reveal that the people have had enough of “Europe’s last dictator”, Alexander Lukashenko. How long can...
Blast from the past: a long-awaited verdict in Lebanon
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For 15 years, the truck-bomb killing of a former prime minister went unpunished. But an even more devastating recent blast overshadowed a court’s ru...
From Chapo to Mencho: Mexico’s cartels
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mexico’s new top cartel, led by a kingpin called El Mencho, has taken the country’s shocking violence to a terrifyingly brazen new level. In Tunis...
Insufficient postage: the fight over America’s mail service
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The US Postal Service is one of America’s most popular and necessary public institutions. Now it is at the centre of a battle over November’s elec...
To a concerning degree: dire climate assessments
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Recent reports paint a dark picture, from heatwaves to hurricanes to high-water marks. But some promising trends—and pandemic-era economics—provid...
Youngish, gifted and black: Kamala Harris
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden’s choice of running mate is simultaneously groundbreaking and conventional, and reveals much about the state of the Democratic party. In C...
Therein Lai’s a tale: Hong Kong’s revealing arrests
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The dramatic arrest of Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy newspaper owner, reveals just how enthusiastically Beijing’s new security law will be deployed to ...
Buy now, save later: financing vaccine candidates
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As clinical trials progress, policymakers must determine how heavily to fund the pre-emptive manufacture of candidate vaccines, and how to distribute ...
Bytes and pieces: America’s Chinese-tech attack
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
First it was Bytedance’s app TikTok, now it’s Tencent’s WeChat: the Trump administration’s fervour to ban or dismantle wildly popular Chinese ...
That history should not repeat: Hiroshima’s storytellers
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are now in their eighties. A new generation is learning to tell their tales, in hopes of preventing m...
A broken system, a broken city: Beirut
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some 300,000 people are homeless after an explosion of unthinkable size. The culprit appears to be sheer negligence, brought on by a broken system of ...
One nation, under gods? India’s divisive temple
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Consecration at Ayodhya, the country’s most contested holy site, is another tick box in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda. I...
Going old Turkey: a regional power spreads
04 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the Arab spring the country has vastly expanded its military and diplomatic efforts—filling an evident power vacuum and harking back to the da...
Ballot blocks: the squeeze on Hong Kong
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The territory’s elections have been postponed, its activists barred from running—police are even targeting them abroad. What next for the democrac...
Living larger: Google’s challenges
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Enormous growth over 22 years has brought challenges, both from within and from outside; we examine the tech behemoth’s prospects. Wealth has always...
Barriers to entry: covid-19 and migration
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The crisis has disproportionately squeezed migrants and has given many leaders an excuse to tighten borders. Will the restrictions outlast the pandemi...
One mightily damaging backstory: 1MDB
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Five years ago a $4.5bn hole in a development fund scrambled Malaysia’s politics. Now the inquiry has claimed its first scalp: that of Najib Razak, ...
Feds up: Trump orders troops on America’s streets
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Camouflaged personnel with no insignia, protesters bundled into unmarked vans: the President Donald Trump's plan to put federal officers into American...
Bat out of elsewhere? Tracing SARS-CoV-2’s origins
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists are looking to South-East Asia to find how the virus got its start in humans. Knowing that could head off future pandemics. It is often har...
For old timers’ sake: covid-19 and care homes
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic has taken its greatest toll in the world’s nursing homes—but the systemic problems surrounding elderly care long predate covid-19. Ec...
Without a trace: Israel’s covid-19 spike
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has gone from boasting about progress to battling protests as the country’s contact-tracing programme has been ove...
Full-meddle racket: Britain’s “Russia Report”
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It remains unclear whether influence and misinformation campaigns have had significant effects on Britain’s institutions, or its elections—but onl...
Grant them strength, or loan it: Europe’s historic deal
21 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After days of gruelling debate, European leaders have agreed a recovery plan. It includes, for the first time, taking on collective debt—to the tune...
Cheques imbalances: America’s partisan stimulus battle
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As Congress reconvenes and covid-19 rages largely unabated, the biggest question is how much to prop up the economy—and how to get past partisan ran...
Laughing all the way: banks’ pandemic windfall
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pandemic panic has subsided, and economic pain deferred—so far. But never mind investment banks’ recent triumphs; uncertainty still abounds. Brazi...
No school, hard knocks: developing-world students hit hard
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For many of the 1.5bn pupils affected by school closures, fewer lessons just means more labour—or worse. That spells a lifetime of lost earnings, an...
Eastern exposure: Russia’s telling protests
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The arrest of a popular governor in the country’s far east has sparked unrest that reveals President Vladimir Putin’s waning legitimacy—and hint...
Crude awakening: the Arab world after oil
14 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Historic price fluctuations are hastening a post-oil transition that many Arab countries were already contemplating. That could foment plenty of unres...
Binary choice: a tech cold war looms
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tensions between China and America are hastening a global technology-industry split. That is not just inefficient; it will have far-reaching geopoliti...
Return to centre? Poland’s presidential run-off
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Integration or isolation? Conservative family values or liberal ones? The knife-edge election will decide Poland’s direction for years, and will sen...
Centrifugal force: attacks on Iran
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Another strike, evidently on a nuclear-fuel centrifuge facility, is being blamed on Israel—and, by extension, America. It is just the kind of tactic...
In front, and centred: Joe Biden
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The former vice-president has shifted leftward with his party, but it is his centrist tendencies that make him electable—and could permit him to eff...
Off like a shot: the race for a covid-19 vaccine
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A British team is leading the race for the one innovation that could, in time, halt the coronavirus crisis. But once a vaccine is approved, who would ...
Attention deficit: China’s campaign against Uighurs
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Unparalleled surveillance, forced labour, even allegations of ethnic cleansing: atrocities in Xinjiang province carry on. Why are governments and busi...
Into left field? America's chief justice
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Recent Supreme Court rulings might seem like a leftward shift. But Chief Justice John Roberts is leaving loopholes for future conservative challenges....
Unsettled question: Israel’s annexation threat
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A once-fringe position on annexing the West Bank is now a real prospect. But both international support and opposition are lukewarm; not even Israelis...
Two systems go: a new law grips Hong Kong
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A sweeping new national-security law deeply undermines Beijing’s “one country, two systems” approach in the territory; under it, arrests have al...
The next threat: confronting global risks
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Six months on from the first reports of the coronavirus, this special episode examines the catastrophic and even existential risks to civilisation. Wo...
States of alarm: America’s covid-19 surge
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An entirely predictable pattern is playing out: the states quickest to exit lockdowns are being hit hardest. Can the country get the virus reliably un...
Council insecurity: the UN at 75
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The founders of the United Nations expected it would move with the times. It hasn’t. Can reforms keep all those nations united? The global focus on ...
Rush to a conclusion: Latin America’s lockdowns
25 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After scattershot enforcement of lockdowns, the region has become the pandemic’s new focal point. But many countries are opening up anyway. America’...
Leave in peace: Afghan-Taliban negotiations
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Past its Prime? Amazon comes of age
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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. Throu...
Isle be damned: Britain ravaged by covid-19
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cosmopolitan, overweight, multi-ethnic: the country’s makeup has made the pandemic more deadly. But the government has repeatedly played a bad hand ...
Syria’s condition: Bashar al-Assad
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 no...
Painting the red towns: covid-19 in America
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 P...
Himalayan assault: India and China clash
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first deaths at the contested border in 45 years signal broader geopolitical shifts—and mark an escalation that will be difficult to reverse. “...
No port in a storm: the world’s stranded sailors
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
A shifting alliance: NATO
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the organisation’s defence ministers meet this week we look at two of its principal challenges: China’s rising influence and America’s declin...
Heavy lifting: India’s lockdown tradeoffs
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the world’s largest lockdown loosens, we examine how it went wrong and the challenges ahead for a health-care system pushed to its limits. As sta...
Spend, sometime: Germany’s economic shift
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After decades as the continent’s penny-pincher, the country seems to be splashing out. That isn’t just a covid-19 response; a big thrift shift was...
Haftar be going now: the balance shifts in Libya
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tripoli has long been under siege by Khalifa Haftar, a warlord bent on toppling the internationally backed government. At last he has been pushed back...
Cops, a plea: police reform in America
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
George Floyd will be laid to rest today; our obituaries editor reflects on his life and untimely death. His murder has fuelled a long-overdue discussi...
Say his name, and others’: American protests spread globally
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Far beyond America’s shores demonstrators are calling for justice in their own countries. It’s an awkward time for America’s allies, and a fortu...
Not everything in moderation: Twitter v Facebook
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The seemingly similar social networks have quite different business models—and that goes some way in explaining why they choose to police their cont...
This, too, shall impasse: Brexit talks resume
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic has made negotiations more difficult and changed the political calculus on both sides. Prospects for a deal before year’s end are dimmi...
Forgoing the distance: covid-19 spreads in Brazil
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Even those who can distance themselves are unsure whether to do so—in part because President Jair Bolsonaro mocks the science and rails against lock...
An epidemic of hunger: covid-19 and poverty
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic is driving up the number of impoverished people for the first time in more than two decades. Lockdown-policy calculations are simply diff...
The flames spread: protests in America
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Demonstrations against police violence have only amplified. We ask why George Floyd’s death touched a nerve, and why these events keep happening in ...
Crying foul, again: Black Lives Matter
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Protests have broken out in Minneapolis and far beyond, following another black man’s death at the hands of a white policeman. Can the once-mighty B...
Checking their privilege: Beijing’s threat to Hong Kong
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
China’s parliament voted today to draft legislation that would utterly undermine the territory’s independence. What now for protesters, for Wester...
Leading nowhere: assessing Trump’s covid-19 response
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump’s failures of leadership have compounded the crisis. But America’s health-care and preparedness systems have problems that ...
Shot chasers: big pharma’s covid-19 boost
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic has caused a shift in how drug firms are viewed: their capacity for big-money innovation will give them immunity in the crisis. Widesprea...
Clear skies with a chance: covid-19’s green opportunity
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emissions have plummeted as the pandemic slowed the world. It could be a mere blip—but it is an unprecedented opportunity for a greener, more sustai...
Systemic concerns: China’s party congress
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Legislation signalled at the annual meeting undermines the “one country, two systems” approach to Hong Kong’s rule—and may inflame rather than...
Swimming against the currency: Turkey
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A central bank struggling for independence, dwindling foreign reserves to prop up the currency and a president who just hates rates: Turkey’s econom...
Politics trumps co-operation: the WHO’s annual meeting
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rhetoric and posturing at the World Health Organisation’s annual assembly reveal an agency under geopolitical stresses just when global co-operation...
Extreme measures: America’s far right
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Extremists are cropping up at protests and expanding their reach online. They see the pandemic as proof of their worldview, and as an opportunity to s...
Carriers and the disease: the airlines set for hard landings
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Which firms will fly above the covid-19 clouds? Big, low-cost carriers with strong finances seem likeliest, but either way consolidation is inevitable...
Continental divides: covid-19 strains the EU
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What started as a public-health crisis is developing into an existential one. The most fundamental question to be addressed is: what is the European U...
Bibi steps: Israel’s long-awaited government
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After three elections and 16 months, the unity government between sworn rivals Binyamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz gets to work tonight. Can it withsta...
Fool Britannia? A covid-19 response under scrutiny
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After a series of government missteps, people in Britain—and, increasingly, outside it—are lambasting the covid-19 response. That has great reputa...
Moveable feast: a global food system adapts
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The vast network moving food from farm to fork has shifted gears mightily in response to covid-19. But some will still go hungry; governments must res...
Back to the furore: protests set to reignite
11 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic overshadowed a striking spate of uprisings around the world. In Lebanon economic conditions have only worsened since—and the protesters...