Will violence flare again in Kenya?

WHAT does it say about the fairness of a vote when a senior election official is murdered a week before polling day? On August 8th Kenyans will pick a president, governors, MPs and senators. Yet instead of being excited about the chance to elect a new government, many are terrified. On July 31st Chris Msando, the chief technician in charge of the electronic voting system, was found dead in Nairobi, the capital, his arm broken and his body displaying signs of torture.

Who killed Mr Msando is far from clear. The opposition blames the government, and several analysts suspect they are right. The killing removes one of the few people trusted to ensure that the voting system works. It also sends a message to other electoral officials that they, too, are at risk.

Kenya’s democracy is one of the most vibrant and competitive in Africa. But that comes at a price. Elections are bitterly fought and often violent. The results are nearly always disputed. This murder suggests...Continue reading

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How climate change might affect the Nile

TO THE untrained eye, the satellite photos of north-west Ethiopia on July 10th may have seemed benign. They showed a relatively small pool of water next to an enormous building site on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile river. But the project under construction is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is more than halfway complete. And the water is why it is so controversial.

Since Ethiopia announced its plan to build the dam, it has inspired threats of sabotage from Egypt, which sits downstream and relies on the Nile for electricity, farming and drinking water. Egypt claims that it is entitled to a certain proportion of the Nile’s water based on colonial-era treaties. Ethiopia dismisses those agreements. The pool of water in the photos suggested that it was beginning to fill the reservoir behind the dam, reducing the river’s flow.

That turns out not to have been the case. The pool was deemed by Egypt to be a result of construction and seasonal Nile flooding....Continue reading

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Israeli spy shows are conquering the world

What’s “Allahu akbar” in Chinese?

THERE are only about 9m Hebrew-speakers, yet Netflix, an online video service, now offers a dozen Hebrew-language shows to its subscribers. Most Hebrew-speakers will have already seen them on Israeli television, but Netflix is betting that, subtitled, they will attract viewers around the world. Like other television companies, it is excited about drama from Israel. As well as investing in television series, it is behind a new Israeli film, “The Angel”, based on the life of an Egyptian spy run by Mossad. Most of the Israeli shows on offer deal with terrorism, espionage or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is irony here. While Israeli politicians grumble that their country is unfairly portrayed by the media, its television producers are cashing in on Israel’s reputation for spymastery.

The best-known Israeli series to date is “Prisoners of War”, which lasted only two seasons on Israeli screens, but was remade...Continue reading

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The fertile world of Nigerian patois

NO COMPLIMENT was too flowery at the launch in May of “Antidotes for Corruption”, a book by Dino Melaye, a Nigerian senator who has fended off numerous allegations of graft. “What is being launched today is, ipso facto, a new potent Intercontinental Ballistic-cum-Cruise missile—an unassailable Assault weapon against, arguably, Mankind’s Enemy Number One: Corruption,” read the opening sentence of a leaflet handed out at the event. The 43-year-old politician was described as a “unique, strong-willed, opinionated, stubborn, determined, intelligent, prolific and even sexy young man in his prime”.

It is not just Nigerian politics that is prone to verbal flourishes. In December Arik Air, an airline, blamed flight cancellations on the “epileptic” supply of aviation fuel (it was bailed out by the government soon after). Nigerians have taken English, the former colonial language, and made it their own. Many switch back and forth between standard English and Pidgin, peppering...Continue reading

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How developers deal with “hijacked” buildings in Johannesburg

A column of Red Ants prepares for battle

BACK in 2010, Gerald Olitzki could only survey his new building from a safe distance across the street. He bought the downtown property for redevelopment, even though criminals still controlled it, extorting rent from poor tenants. Squatters peered warily out of broken windows; inside, a warren of shacks faded into the gloom. At that time, he did not dare approach to give your correspondent a closer view. Fast-forward seven years, and Mr Olitzki now strides proudly towards a building that, like many in Johannesburg’s inner city, has been transformed. What was a vertical shantytown is now a bright, clean shopping arcade bustling with small businesses—a nail salon, a bridal shop, a penis-enlargement clinic—along with floors of office space.

Downtown Johannesburg remains pockmarked with dangerous, dilapidated “hijacked” buildings, where armed gangs have wrested control from legitimate owners. The living...Continue reading

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Square: Don't Overpay for Payments Hype

Payments company Square turned in a solid quarter, but its shares are just too expensive.

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Immigrants do not need to speak English before they arrive

DONALD TRUMP’s young administration is adept at one particular manoeuvre. Whenever the president is having a terrible time in the press, for some embarrassing statement, interview or imbroglio, the White House announces a far-reaching policy designed to stoke up his nationalist base while infuriating his opponents. In February it was the proposed ban on visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries. Last month it was the announcement on Twitter that he would not let transgender soldiers serve in the military.

In each case, the new policy tends to hurt people who can be portrayed as threatening outsiders to ordinary Americans who work hard and pay their taxes. Yesterday’s announcement to back a months-old plan to overhaul America’s immigration rules falls in the same category. If implemented, it would reward applicants with sought-after job skills who already speak English, at the expense of low-skilled workers without language skills.

This may seem perfectly sensible: after all, skilled immigrants are a good thing....Continue reading

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No Cure in Sight for Teva

Don’t be fooled by the low valuation. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is a dangerous stock to own.

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A Ferrari SUV? Investors Should Hope So

Ferrari is speeding toward a fork in the road. It shouldn’t hesitate to take the more ambitious path.

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China's Latest Bubble Is Its Most Serious Yet

The problem for Beijing isn’t just the asset-management industry’s sheer size, it is the evolving relationships between key players and the ever-changing nature of the products they sell.

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Unproductive entrepreneurship is increasingly common in America

Is America encouraging the wrong type of entrepreneurship? Yes, argue Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway, two economists, in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. In their view, unproductive “rent-seekers”, who exploit special relationships with the government to secure public spending, or gain regulatory protection from competition at everyone else’s expense, are on the rise. On the other hand, productive entrepreneurship, which generates wealth by creating new and better products and services for everyone, is flagging.

Their charge feels timely: since he was elected president last November, Donald Trump has paid more than 40 visits to Trump corporation properties. His Mar a Lago club in Florida makes twice as much profit as it did two years ago. Family friends fill...Continue reading

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Is pregnancy in America much deadlier than in other rich countries?

FEW things are more tragic than the death of a woman in pregnancy or childbirth. In America, as in other rich countries, such deaths are extremely rare. An American woman is more likely to be struck by lightning than to die in childbirth. Nonetheless, 700-800 pregnant women and new mothers die each year. By some measures, America’s maternal mortality is several times higher than in rich European countries. By other measures, however, America has the same rate as Britain.

One bit of the puzzle is what counts as a maternal death. The standard definition used in international comparisons, such as those published by the World Health Organisation, is a death from complications of pregnancy if the death occurs between the time a woman becomes pregnant and six weeks after her pregnancy ends.

In rich countries, these deaths are tallied from vital-registration systems which in turn compile data from death certificates. These, however, are known to undercount maternal...Continue reading

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Cutting taxes will not be easy

STEVE MNUCHIN, the treasury secretary, once expected to have passed tax reform by now. The Republicans’ tortuous and ultimately doomed struggle to reform health care put paid to that goal. Yet the Trump administration still promises to cut taxes in 2017, and Republicans in Congress are desperate to show that their control of the legislature is worth something. On July 27th leaders from Congress and the White House announced they had agreed on the “principles” of tax reform. Four days later, the White House set out an “aggressive” timetable to pass a bill through the House in October and the Senate in November. Yet Republicans are not as united as they seem on tax policy. Their plans will probably go the way of Mr Mnuchin’s earlier schedule—and could even meet the same fate as their health-care bill.

Tax “reform” is probably a misnomer. The last true reform, in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, reduced tax rates without losing revenue by eliminating swathes of tax...Continue reading

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The Department of Justice targets affirmative action

What quotas?

UNDER Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general, Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DoJ) has abandoned voting-rights litigation, tried to punish sanctuary cities, cracked down on undocumented immigrants, revoked sentencing reforms and argued that civil-rights laws do not protect gays and lesbians from employment discrimination. Now the DoJ is entering the fray on affirmative action. It is recruiting lawyers to investigate a complaint that Harvard University’s pursuit of campus diversity comes at the expense of Asian-Americans.

After whites, who constitute about half of Harvard’s student body, Asians are the largest demographic group, accounting for 22% of the class arriving on campus later this month. But a lawsuit filed in 2014 by Edward Blum—architect of six race-tinged Supreme Court cases—says their share should be higher. He claims that Harvard’s “holistic” admissions policy disguises “the fact that it holds Asian-Americans to a...Continue reading

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Most Republicans trust the president more than they trust the media

IT IS long-standing Republican tradition to deride the national media for its liberal tendencies. Despite that, the words of Lamar Smith, a Republican representative from Texas, delivered four days into Donald Trump’s presidency on the floor of the House of Representatives, managed to stand out. “Better to get your news directly from the president,” he told his colleagues. “In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” Across the country Republicans seem to be taking the edict to heart.

The Economist asked YouGov, our pollster, to survey 1,500 Americans about the trust they placed in the president compared with national media outlets. When Republicans were asked whether they trusted Mr Trump more than the New York Times, the Washington Post or CNN, at least 70% sided with the president each time. Less than 15% chose the...Continue reading

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The federal government may inadvertantly be helping MS-13 to recruit

Guilty until proven innocent

ON THE evening of April 11th, two women associated with MS-13, a criminal gang with a large presence in the United States and Central America, lured five teenage boys to a wooded park in Suffolk County, New York, where a dozen MS-13 gangsters with nicknames such as “Antichrist” were waiting. On their arrival, the gang members surrounded the boys, who they thought belonged to a rival gang, and attacked them with knives, machetes and wooden clubs. One of the boys managed to flee; the corpses of the other four were so badly mutilated that the police refused to show their families the murder scene.

President Donald Trump often uses MS-13 to prove the need for stricter immigration policies. Many of the gang’s members in America are immigrants; some are undocumented. Their motto is “Kill, rape, and control”. In a speech to police officers on July 28th in Suffolk County, a largely suburban area where MS-13 has murdered 17 people...Continue reading

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John Kelly’s impossible job at the White House

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI’S tenure as White House communications director lasted just ten days—shorter than anyone other than the German-born John Koehler, whose admission that he took part in a Hitler Youth programme he described as “the Boy Scouts run by the Nazi Party” triggered his resignation about a week after Ronald Reagan had appointed him. Mr Scaramucci was also the last of three White House aides to leave in ten tumultuous days. Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary rather than report to Mr Scaramucci who, unlike Mr Spicer, had no previous experience in political communication. A week later President Donald Trump replaced Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, with John Kelly, a retired Marine general who had been serving as homeland security secretary.

Many in Mr Trump’s orbit have welcomed all three departures. Mr Trump likes relatives and people personally loyal to him, while Messrs Spicer and Priebus rose through Republican Party ranks. Mr Priebus, a dogged, earnest...Continue reading

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A Republican senator revolts

SENATOR JEFF FLAKE of Arizona has written a brave book. It states aloud a truth that other Republicans voice only behind closed doors: that the American conservative movement is in crisis. He regrets that a demagogue, President Donald Trump, has lured Republicans into a “Faustian bargain”, offering power if they forget everything they believe about free trade and individual freedom, about leading global alliances against tyranny, and even about personal honour. Republicans succumbed as rapidly as a “tranquilised elephant”, he writes in “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle”. Now they languish in an “unconservative stew of celebrity and authoritarianism,” spiced with conspiracy theories.

Bang on cue, Mr Flake’s book has been denounced by Mr Trump’s enablers in the world of conservative celebrity. Strikingly, such critics as Laura Ingraham, an anti-immigrant tribune reportedly sounded out for the post of...Continue reading

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A tale of two markets

America’s new economic sanctions may hurt Russia’s recovery

IN LATE June Daimler, a German carmaker, broke ground on a new Mercedes-Benz plant north-west of Moscow. “We are confident in the long-term potential of Russia,” Markus Schäfer, a board member, said at the ceremony. The €250m ($296m) factory marked the first investment by a Western carmaker since America and the European Union slapped sanctions on Russia as punishment for its aggression in Ukraine three years ago.

After more than two years of recession, Russia is projected to return to growth this year. Until recently, the chill that sanctions put on the investment climate seemed to be thawing. “People had begun to forget about them,” says Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory, a Moscow-based consultancy. But in late July America’s Congress voted to expand the sanctions. Vladimir Putin responded by demanding that America reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia by some 750 people. (Most of those affected are likely to be Russian employees.) He also shut down the American diplomatic...Continue reading

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Brazil’s congress decides not to put Michel Temer on trial

How many thumbs will Temer need?

BRAZILIANS care little for Michel Temer, their scandal-plagued president. More than a month after the chief prosecutor, Rodrigo Janot, indicted him for accepting bribes, his approval rating stands at 5%. But Mr Temer retains support where it counts most: in congress. On August 2nd lawmakers in the lower house voted not to refer the case against him to the supreme court, which has the power to try him. A vote the other way would probably have led to Mr Temer’s suspension from office. After an uproarious debate, to which anti-Temer deputies brought suitcases stuffed with fake cash, the president won a comfortable victory: 263 deputies voted against referring the case to the supreme court while 227 voted in favour. Mr Temer needed just 172 votes to block the motion.

But his troubles are not over. Mr Janot is expected to bring at least two more indictments against him, which may be put to a similar vote in the lower house. The more...Continue reading

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What comes after a farcical “election” in Venezuela

IT IS to be the dawn of “a new Venezuela”, proclaimed the president, Nicolás Maduro. He was celebrating the election on July 30th of a constituent assembly, which will now become the supreme power in the country. A day later Venezuelans got a taste of what the new Venezuela might look like. Before first light, agents of Sebin, the state security agency, swooped into the houses of two opposition politicians and hauled them off to prison. Leopoldo López, the country’s most prominent political prisoner, had been transferred to house arrest in July. He expected re-incarceration: he had recorded a video urging supporters to “fight for” Venezuela, to be released when it happened. Antonio Ledezma, the former mayor of Caracas, was still in his pyjamas when agents forced him into a car. Someone took a mobile-phone video of the arrest, in which a woman can be heard screaming “dictatorship” at the abductors.

To Venezuela’s opposition, a large share of its citizens and...Continue reading

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Cash Gets More Precious at Tesla

The electric-car maker will have a tough task to get to a profitable future.

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New CEO Needs to Solve AIG's Old Problems

Insurer wants to boost growth but needs to address high losses in commercial insurance first.

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The Department of Justice wants to end race-conscious university admissions

THE mission of the Department of Justice (DoJ) is “to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans”. That is a rather tall order—and it’s open to interpretation. Under Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, Donald Trump’s DoJ has abandoned voting-rights litigation, tried to punish sanctuary cities, cracked down on undocumented immigrants, revoked Obama-era sentencing reforms addressing America’s sky-high incarceration rate and argued that civil-rights laws do not protect gays and lesbians from employment discrimination. On August 1st, another priority was uncovered by the New York Times via a DoJ...Continue reading

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Bitcoin divides to rule

COMPARED with Brexit, Bitexit seems a piece of cake. On August 1st, without much agonising or awkward negotiation, a group of Bitcoin activists and entrepreneurs managed to create a second version of the crypto-currency. It immediately gained a following: in less than a day of existence, the value of a unit of “Bitcoin Cash” jumped to over $600, and tokens worth more than $10bn were in circulation (although that is still much smaller than Bitcoin classic, which stood at about $2,700 and nearly $45bn).

This “fork”, as such events are called, came earlier than foreseen. But it is broadly how insiders had expected a two-year-old conflict over the future of Bitcoin to end. At the heart of this “civil war” was the question of how to increase the capacity of the system, which can only handle up to seven transactions per second. The new version is able to process 56 per second, but otherwise works much like the original one.

Will Bitcoin Cash be more than just another “altcoin”, as the many existing clones of the crypto-currency are called? It is backed by Chinese “miners”, firms that provide the computing power to confirm payments and mint new digital coins. They have been unhappy with how the original system has been managed by its developers—and made some further technical tweaks to ensure that the new Bitcoin survives. The followers of...Continue reading

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Thank the Foreigners for Dow 22000

Americans cheering the U.S. stock market’s latest milestone should pause to thank the rest of the world for making it possible.

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Airline Dealmaking Won't Cure Europe's Profit Problem

Restructuring at Alitalia and Air Berlin and a revamped trans-Atlantic alliance are helpful but not transformative for the European airline industry.

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Surprising Growth for Apple, Even Before New iPhone

Rumors of an iPhone delay this year may be greatly exaggerated, as Apple’s forecast strongly suggests new smartphones are coming in the normal September launch window.

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Morocco and Algeria keep building more barriers

Not the best way to enhance trade

HAD Algeria and Morocco honoured their agreement back in 1989 to form an economic union, along with Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, they would be among the Middle East’s largest economies. Their poor border regions would be booming crossroads. Over the decade to 2015, reckons the World Bank, their two economies would each have almost have doubled in size.

Instead, Algeria grew only by 33% and Morocco by 37%, as both governments instead reinforced their barricades. Their north-west corner of Africa remains “the most separated region on the continent”, says Adel Hamaizia, an Algerian economist. While sub-Saharan countries agree common currencies and trade zones, Algeria digs deeper ditches. Morocco revamps its berms and renews its razor wire. Concrete walls rise on both sides. Frustrated families shout greetings across the divide. Tantalisingly, both have built hundreds of kilometres of east-west highways which stop short of...Continue reading

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The perils of lobbying in Africa

THE first rule for public-relations firms is not to become the story. In South Africa Bell Pottinger, a British firm, has done just that. In May, e-mails between one of the firm’s employees and Duduzane Zuma, a son of President Jacob Zuma, were leaked to South African newspapers. Bell Pottinger had been hired by a company owned by the Gupta family, a trio of Indian businessmen brothers who are chummy with the president, to bolster their image.

One can see why they might seek such help. A report by a former public protector last year accused them of orchestrating “state capture” on behalf of the president, and their names have become a campaign slogan for the opposition. The e-mails showed how the firm had proposed to push the idea that criticism of the president—and the Gupta family—was intended to perpetuate “economic apartheid”, an incendiary claim in South Africa.

After a barrage of criticism, on July 6th the firm apologised and said it had sacked one of its...Continue reading

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After conquering Benghazi, what will Libya’s new strongman do next?

STUBBORN and self-serving, Khalifa Haftar has long been seen as a spoiler of efforts to end the conflict in Libya. The forces under his command in the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) have mostly added to the chaos, not helped to resolve it. Yet General Haftar was greeted like a statesman by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in Paris on July 25th. There he encountered Fayez al-Serraj, a rival who leads the UN-backed government based in Tripoli, the capital. Their first meeting, three months earlier, produced nothing. So it came as something of a shock when the two leaders announced a ceasefire and their intention to hold elections in 2018.

“The cause of peace has made great progress,” declared Mr Macron. In fact, the deal is but a small step. More agreements are needed before elections can be held and the fighting, which now involves myriad groups, is likely to continue. As it is, the LNA, which backs a separate government in the east, rarely battles the forces aligned with...Continue reading

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How to tackle one of Africa’s nastiest problems

Incurable, but preventable

IN A clearing close to the entrance of Kenya’s Meru National Park, a bronze statue of a buffalo can be seen standing on a plinth. Despite the best efforts of local elephants who occasionally mistake it for a real buffalo and attack it, it is there to commemorate the site of the final outbreak of rinderpest, a cattle disease similar to measles, which was eradicated in 2011.

Rinderpest has plagued Africa and other parts of the world ever since cattle were domesticated. In the 1980s an outbreak, originating in Sudan, killed millions of bovines across the continent. Eradication was a triumph of veterinary medicine, as rinderpest became only the second disease, either animal or human, to be wiped out, the first being smallpox.

It is exciting, therefore, that a team of scientists at a research institute in Kenya think peste des petits ruminants, or “goat plague”, could be eradicated too, thanks to...Continue reading

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Israel’s submarine scandal

The more the merrier

IN A police guesthouse somewhere in Israel, a retired naval captain is writing his explosive memoirs. Michael Ganor’s story will not dwell on his exploits on the high seas. It will talk of bribe-trousering generals and politicians. Mr Ganor was the representative in Israel of ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial firm, and the middle-man in some of the largest arms deals in recent years between Israel and Germany. On July 21st he signed a state’s witness arrangement with Israel’s justice ministry, agreeing to serve a reduced sentence of a year in prison and to pay a 10m-shekel ($2.8m) fine in return for disclosing all that he knows.

Corruption in public life is far from unknown in Israel. A former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, went to prison last year for accepting bribes. Yet this case is different. The Israel Defence Forces (the IDF) come first in surveys of Israel’s most respected institutions, and IDF commanders are household names....Continue reading

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Mexico becomes a destination for migrants

THE Suchiate river is the southernmost stretch of Mexico’s border with Guatemala. At Ciudad Hidalgo there are two ways to cross it. You can use the bridge, which guarantees an encounter with an immigration official. Or you can walk down to the river bank, hire a raft (planks tied to the inner tubes of two tractor wheels) and get yourself punted across. Many passengers are Guatemalans who want to shop in Ciudad Hidalgo, where goods are cheaper. The Mexican border guards ignore the flotilla below them and its duty-dodging cargoes; they bring the town a lot of business.

Such rafts are also popular with Central Americans heading farther north, to the United States. But their number has dropped in recent months, says Alexander, who has piloted a raft for four years. Occupancy at the Casa del Migrante in nearby Tapachula has fallen by more than a third since 2016, says Julver Gordillo, who works at the hostel. Immigration police are catching far fewer Central Americans without the right...Continue reading

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Colombia’s banks open accounts for fighters who once robbed them

DURING their decades-long war against the Colombian state, the supposedly pro-peasant guerrillas of the FARC were fond of bombing and torching branches of Banco Agrario in remote parts of the country. A state-owned bank lending to farmers and rural-development projects, it was a tempting target on two counts: attacks were a blow against the state, and they often yielded sackfuls of cash.

With the ratification of a peace accord between the government and the FARC last year, the terrorist-target relationship is becoming more of a customer-company one. After laying down their arms, more than 7,000 FARC guerrillas are opening bank accounts and picking up debit cards, many for the first time. As part of their integration into law-abiding society, they are to receive from August a monthly stipend of 663,945 pesos ($220). Each person will also get a one-time payment of 2m pesos to start a business. The government has designated Banco Agrario, which has reopened dozens of bombed-out branches over...Continue reading

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The justice department says people can be fired for being gay

WHEN the Supreme Court opened marriage laws to gays and lesbians nationwide in June 2015, Barack Obama celebrated by illuminating the White House in the rainbow colours of the gay pride flag. Two years later, such a gesture from the president seems inconceivable. On July 26th, Donald Trump tweeted that transgender soldiers would no longer be allowed to serve in America’s military. On the same day, the Department of Justice (DoJ) unexpectedly took a stance on a case in New York regarding employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The nation’s civil-rights laws, it said, do not protect people against anti-gay bias in the workplace.

The case, Zarda v Altitude Express, involves a sky-diving instructor who says his sexual orientation cost him his job. In 2010, after Donald Zarda told a female customer he was gay—to lessen...Continue reading

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Rio Tinto Can't Just Mine The Current Rich Vein Forever

Rio Tinto’s results were impressive, but the current favorable environment won’t last forever.

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The Calm Before the iPhone Boosts Wireless Industry

Judging by second-quarter earnings of wireless companies, it might appear like the industry has turned a corner after a couple of dismal years. The truth is, the industry benefited from an Apple-induced calm as customers waited for the new iPhone before dumping their carriers.

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Indexers Push Back Against Wall Street

Give a small cheer to the index nerds at S&P. Their decision to ban companies that have different classes of stock is a rare instance of Wall Street protecting investors.

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Auto Lender's Risks Larger Than They Appear

Subprime lender Credit Acceptance Corp. doesn’t offer many details on how its loans are performing.

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Big Oil Bites the Low-Price Bullet

Shell is betting the house on natural gas while Chevron and Exxon still see a far off peak for oil.

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How Risky Loans Are Kept Afloat in Alphabet Soup

Corporate borrowers are relying on credit products from pre-crisis days known as collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, more than they realize.

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Rolls-Royce Investors Stop Believing in Turbulence

Aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce is flying high—and its stock even higher.

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Reality Bites for Discovery and Scripps

Today was supposed to be the happy ending in the Discovery and Scripps Networks story. Actual reality sullied the result, as weak performance by the two companies highlighted their tough positions in a tightening market.

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The ousting of Anthony Scaramucci will not restore order to the White House

In the 64 years during which American presidents have appointed national security advisers, nobody had less time in the post than Donald Trump’s first pick: Michael Flynn, who left in February after just 24 brutal, scandal-filled days. In the 71 years since Harry Truman made John Steelman the first White House chief of staff, nobody except Pete Rouse—an interim choice of Barack Obama’s—had a shorter stint than Reince Priebus, who resigned last Thursday after just over six months.

Even by those standards, Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure as White House communications director was brief: he was ousted in the afternoon of July 31st, his eleventh day.

Mr Priebus’s dismissal seemed almost inevitable. He is a mild-mannered Wisconsinite unrelated to the president who rose through Republican party ranks and urged Mr Trump to drop out of the presidential race after a tape surfaced in which the then-candidate boasted that he grabbed women’d genitals. But Mr Scaramucci is much Trumpier. A nattily-dressed, self-made millionaire...Continue reading

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Heineken vs. Bud: Investors Should Choose Wisely

The world’s two largest brewers, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Heineken, both sold more beer than expected in the second quarter, helped by warm weather in Europe as well as a late Easter but investors were much more excited about AB InBev’s results.

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Ukrainian immigrants are powering Poland’s economy

POLAND’S most literal labour market begins shortly after dawn. About 30 women and a similar number of men wait in separate groups beside a road half an hour’s drive south of Warsaw. The eager crane their necks to search for cars, the more resigned pace and smoke. When a Volvo pulls up they dash towards it, awaiting offers of work. The youngest is 20, the oldest a gap-toothed 53-year-old. All are Ukrainian.

The number of Ukrainians in Poland has soared since fighting began in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Around 1m are estimated to be working in Poland at any time. Most did not flee the war but its economic consequences: a recession that lasted two years, unemployment and a plunging currency.

They can earn five times more than at home, picking tomatoes, mixing cement or driving for Uber, the ride-sharing firm. Companies can register them to work for six months at a time, but some, like those at the roadside, work illegally. Ivan, 28, glugs an energy drink as he waits...Continue reading

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HSBC Is a Cash Machine With Plenty Left to Give

HSBC promised a new slug of buybacks, and there could be more where that comes from.

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Chinese Banks' Dash for Capital Gets Under Way

Ping An Bank said last week that it plans to issue $3.9 billion of convertible bonds, and it is unlikely to be the last bank seeking fresh capital.

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