Switzerland is seeing more cases of malaria

“YE SHUL hav a fevere tertaine,” a line from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, is probably a reference to malaria, which was rife in swampy areas of medieval England. (“Tertaine” refers to the fever’s tendency to recur every three days, a hallmark of the variety known as Plasmodium vivax.) The parasite was once endemic throughout Europe, not just in southern countries like Greece but as far north as Finland. In Italy in the late 19th century it used to kill 15,000 people each year. But by the end of the last century public-health programmes had rid the continent of the disease. Today, even in Africa and Asia, the war on malaria is going well: between 2000 and 2015, the World Health Organisation reported a 37% drop in the global incidence rate, and a 60% fall in the death toll.

One might thus think that in Switzerland, of all places, doctors would have little need for anti-malarial treatments. Yet data from the Swiss...Continue reading

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In the Czech Republic, almost everyone ran against the system

THE ANO (“Yes”) party, led by Andrej Babis, an agro-industrialist billionaire, won a clear victory in the Czech general election on October 21st. Like other populist politicians, Mr Babis attacked established political parties as a cartel of insiders, despite himself serving as finance minister from 2014-17. “Traditional parties play this game of left and right, but they are not left and right,” Mr Babis says. “They have the same programme: power and money.” The message worked. ANO took 29.6% of the vote and 78 of 200 seats.

But as in many European countries, Czech politics is fragmenting. Nine parties will enter parliament, including everything from communists to far-right xenophobes, and there is no obvious coalition. Czech unemployment is low, the economy is growing and wages are rising. Yet voters seem more focused on fears that the European Union will force their country to accept refugees, and the sense that corrupt insiders have cornered the gains from the...Continue reading

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The new Czech leader is not leading an anti-Europe uprising

WHY does it keep happening? Consider some events of the past week. Andrej Babis, a tycoon with a populist bent, sweeps aside the old guard in a Czech election. Fresh from his own electoral success, Sebastian Kurz, the boy wonder of Austrian conservatism, opens coalition talks with a far-right party that harbours former neo-Nazis in its ranks. Dozens of deputies from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party take their seats in a Bundestag that was supposed never to find space for their kind, while Viktor Orban, the father of Hungary’s illiberal democracy, declares central Europe a “migrant-free zone”.

It is tempting to seek a single explanation for these disparate phenomena. Perhaps Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy of 2015 is to blame. Maybe this is the rage of those left behind by the uneven distribution of globalisation’s booty. Or it could be that the central Europeans have had enough of the overbearing bully-boys of Brussels. Worse, if these outcomes stem from...Continue reading

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Ksenia Sobchak fills out the cast of Russia’s electoral circus

A model candidate

KSENIA SOBCHAK first gained fame in Russia as the host of Dom-2, a raunchy reality-television show where contestants compete for love while building a house. Since then, Ms Sobchak, whose father was Vladimir Putin’s political mentor, has cycled through a variety of roles, including talk-show host, opposition leader, journalist, restaurateur, model and actress. Her latest part may be her biggest yet: candidate for president of Russia.

Ms Sobchak acknowledges that the election, due in March 2018, is not a real contest, but a “high-budget show”. She knows that she has no chance, but says she represents voters who are “against everyone”. Ms Sobchak insists her role has not been approved by the powers that be, but few in Moscow politics believe her. Many recall the bid in 2012 of Mikhail Prokhorov, the oligarch who owns the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, which was widely seen as a Kremlin ploy to absorb the protest...Continue reading

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Spain prepares to intervene in Catalonia

Independent thinkers

MANY Spaniards have long hoped that an all-out confrontation between the government and the pro-independence leaders of Catalonia could be avoided. But this week time all but ran out.

On October 21st Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister, asked the Senate to grant him the constitutional power to dismiss the Catalan regional government, impose direct rule and call a fresh regional election within six months. With Catalan leaders pledging resistance, it is unclear whether this heralds the start of a solution or a worsening of Spain’s constitutional crisis.

As The Economist went to press, Carles Puigdemont, the president of the Generalitat, as Catalonia’s devolved government is known, was due to address his parliament. Many in his coalition, which holds a bare majority of seats, want him to declare independence. Since no European government will recognise this, it would be purely symbolic. Over the...Continue reading

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Forecasting the opioid epidemic

OPIOID abuse is a national emergency, and the president is expected to declare it so officially. That will help free up funds for agencies to treat the problem. As part of this effort, researchers will try to determine when the opioid epidemic will peak, and how many more people are likely to die before it fades. The answer to that second question can vary by half a million deaths over the next decade.

The epidemic appears to be gathering pace. Of the 65,000 drug-overdose victims in the 12 months to March 2017, 80% died from opioids (coroners’ reports may undercount that figure). The death toll now exceeds the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1995. Donald Burke, dean of public health at the University of Pittsburgh, points out that the number of fatal drug overdoses has doubled every eight years for the past 37. Unabated, a continuation of that trend would see annual opioid deaths rising to 90,000 by the middle of the next decade.

That analysis may be too simplistic. Mr Burke’s forecast is “plausible if nothing changes”, but it is “insane if it actually happens”, according to Michael Barnett, a professor of health policy and management at Harvard University. A more nuanced model would try to capture the fact that the opioid epidemic is not a singular event but a set of intertwined ones taking place in different places. Mr Barnett forecasts that...Continue reading

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America’s love affair with uniformed men is problematic

A POIGNANT feature of American bases in Iraq were their walls of Thank You cards sent by American schoolchildren. Often displayed outside the chow-hall, where the troops gathered to eat, they typically thanked them for “being over there to keep us safe”. Hardly any of the soldiers Lexington spoke to, during several trips to Iraq, believed that to be the case. Their Iraqi enemies were fighting a defensive war, not trying to launch one against America. Yet the soldiers accepted the sentiment unblushingly. No soldier expects the beloved chumps back home to understand what he gets up to. He just needs to feel appreciated.

This paradoxical tendency among soldiers, to hunger for the approval of civilians whose views they otherwise set little store by, came to mind during chief of staff John Kelly’s recent presentation in the White House briefing room. The retired marine general’s boss, President Donald Trump, had got himself into hot water after it emerged that he had not written to the...Continue reading

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Preventing ex-convicts from working is silly

BUT for the heroic work of state prisoners, the wildfires that recently swept through northern California would have been even more destructive. Around 4,000 low-level felons made up 30% of the forest firefighters battling the raging flames, carrying chainsaws and other heavy equipment. Some risked their lives. Last year Shawna Lynn Jones, a 22-year-old who had less than two months of her three-year sentence left, died while fighting a fire. By all accounts, Ms Jones took great pride in her work, for which she was paid less than $2 an hour, and would have liked to continue firefighting once released.

Yet California, like many other states, makes it virtually impossible for former prisoners to get a firefighter’s licence. The state requires nearly all firefighters to be certified as an emergency medical technician (EMT), an approval usually denied to convicted felons. That is why only a handful of former prisoners managed to get a job with Cal Fire (the California Department...Continue reading

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How Robert Mueller’s investigation could end

GEORGE W. BUSH, the former president, earned headlines with a recent speech that—while it did not name President Donald Trump—unmistakably rebuked his Republican successor for degrading America’s national discourse with divisiveness and even “casual cruelty”. Yet his weightiest words came moments later, when Mr Bush urged America to secure both its electoral infrastructure and democratic system against subversion by foreign powers. This time he named names. “According to our intelligence services, the Russian government has made a project of turning Americans against each other,” the 43rd president said. He added that foreign aggressions—including cyber-attacks, the spreading of disinformation via social media or financial influence—“should not be downplayed or tolerated”.

Almost a year after his victory, and despite numerous revelations of Russian-funded attempts to stoke racial, religious and ethnic conflicts during the 2016 election, downplaying the attacks remains...Continue reading

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Jeff Flake breaks free

Jeff Flake breaks

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona’s junior senator, is among the upper chamber’s more reliably conservative members, as conservatism was once defined. FreedomWorks, an organisation that scores members on their votes for low taxes and less regulation, gives him a 95% lifetime rating, higher than all but four other senators. The National Rifle Association endorsed him, as did the Club for Growth, a low-tax advocacy group. But he not only declined to endorse President Donald Trump last year, he wrote a book condemning Mr Trump’s influence on conservatism. For someone as indifferent to policy and demanding of personal loyalty as Mr Trump, that proved unacceptable. The president repeatedly lambasted Mr Flake and praised Kelli Ward, his highest-profile primary challenger, whom Stephen Bannon, Mr Trump’s former chief strategist, has endorsed. That augured a bruising campaign that Mr Flake decided was best avoided.

In an emotional speech on October 24th, he...Continue reading

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Republican congressional committees and whataboutism

Meanwhile on Fox

AMERICAN politics has no superior practitioner of the old Soviet art of “whataboutism”, which aims to deflect criticism by pointing out that other people elsewhere have done bad things, than President Donald Trump. At a now-infamous press conference, when asked about the murderous violence of far-right marauders in Charlottesville, Virginia he snapped, “What about the alt-left”? When an interviewer noted that Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Trump said he respected, killed political opponents, Mr Trump responded, “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?”

Congressional Republicans are following their leader. On October 24th Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy, chairmen respectively of the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees, announced they would open joint investigations into actions taken by the Justice Department during the 2016 campaign, including James Comey’s decision to publicise its investigation...Continue reading

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America’s tech giants have no political party to protect them

THE tech giants have suddenly found themselves without a political party to protect them, just when they most need one. On November 1st executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will testify before the House Intelligence Committee about how their platforms were used by Russia’s government during last year’s election. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, though they see eye-to-eye on very little, seem to agree that giant internet companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google may pose a threat to society. “If data is the new oil, is [Amazon’s Jeff] Bezos the new Rockefeller?” asks Bruce Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist, in a report called “Navigating the New Gilded Age”, which is circulating in Washington.

Democrats, long backers of the tech sector’s innovative products, are no longer the allies they used to be. When Barack Obama was president techies got plum jobs in his administration, and the party’s supposedly superior data analytics seemed destined to help lock in...Continue reading

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Celgene's Health Scare Is a Wake Up Call for Biotechs

Celgene shareholders got some chilling news Thursday morning, sending its shares plunging 18% when trading opened—the stock’s worst decline in more than a decade.

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Trading Places: Why Barclays Is Falling Behind Deutsche Bank and Everyone Else

Barclays is achieving something that long seemed impossible in European banking: it is making Deutsche Bank look good.

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Big Beer's U.S. Problem Just Got Bigger

Anheuser-Busch InBev bought SABMiller in a $103 billion deal that reshaped the global brewing industry. History is often cruel to mega-mergers, but with U.S. tastes shifting, SABMiller looks like it was worth every cent.

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The fall of a wacky mayor shows Turkey’s president is worried

EARLIER this year, Melih Gokcek, the veteran mayor of Ankara and a member of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, hosted a group of foreign journalists at an estate on the capital’s outskirts. Mr Gokcek began by clicking his way through a gruesome PowerPoint presentation on the previous summer’s failed coup, mixing images of bodies mangled by tanks with the soundtrack from the film “Requiem for a Dream”. He finished by claiming that Western powers had been involved in the bloodbath, that the Obama administration had created Islamic State, and that American and Israeli seismic vessels were deliberately setting off earthquakes near Turkey’s Aegean coast. A bewildered reporter asked where Mr Gokcek was getting his information. “I have the world’s best intelligence service at my disposal,” the mayor responded. “It’s called Google.” He did not seem to be joking.

Mr Gokcek’s career as Turkey’s leading conspiracy theorist, a title fought over by many members of...Continue reading

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Line's Shareholders Aren't Getting the Message

The Japanese app is making more money from its users. Trouble is, its user base isn’t growing.

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Express Scripts Only Looks Cheap

The pharmacy-benefits manager has a low valuation but that masks challenges including growth, regulation and competition.

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How AMD Can Hurt Intel

Intel Corp. is so big that rival Advanced Micro Devices can hardly dent its business. But good news at AMD can make investors question their optimistic outlook for the chip giant.

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The financial markets are not the whole economy

DONALD TRUMP is fond of pointing out that the stockmarket has reached many record highs under his Presidency. It is a capricious measure to boast about, and one that may not fully reflect the concerns of those who voted for him and probably care more about real wage growth. And a look at the ratio of stockmarket capitalisation relative to GDP shows that this measure is close to a record high. And that led me to reflect on a sentence I wrote a few years ago: we are better at creating new claims on wealth than at creating wealth itself.

That sentence was written in the context of the huge rise in debt in the 40 years leading up to the 2008 crisis, and on the multiplication of obscure financial instruments that preceded it. It reflected the huge rise in the economic role of  the finance sector, and the wages of those who work within it. But it also relates to the way that the...Continue reading

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Scott Pruitt seeks to weaken independent scientific review at the EPA

YESTERDAY, October 24th, three scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were to present at a conference on the health of the Narragansett Bay estuary (pictured). They were to unveil a 500-page report, which found that “stressors associated with climate change are increasing rapidly”—but the agency abruptly cancelled the presentation without explanation. Critics pointed to it as the latest example of meddling and muzzling by the agency’s new leadership. Scott Pruitt, the industry-friendly administrator, is sceptical of the scientific consensus on climate change. The agency has also furiously scrubbed references to climate change from its website, and encouraged the creation of a “red team” to play devil’s advocate to established climate science. Mr Pruitt is set to continue his campaign against science he does not much like, by upending several critical advisory boards that the EPA relies on for independent scientific advice.

Mr Pruitt is expected to announce today that scientists who currently receive...Continue reading

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Surprise Capital Demand Signals Uncertainty for Banks

Any investor who thought British banks had escaped demands for higher capital just got a shock, with Lloyds told by U.K. regulators to boost its buffer.

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India's Big Bank Boost Can't Afford to Fail

India has finally sent its flailing state-owned banks the big lifeboat they need. Investors should jump aboard cautiously.

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The Crisis in Spain: Why Are Markets So Calm?

Catalonia’s bid for independence has held Spanish stocks and bonds back rather than being outright damaging so far.

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Get Ready for an Imperial China

Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, has failed to anoint a clear successor in a sharp break from previous convention.

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Jeff Flake says he will not seek re-election to the Senate

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona’s junior senator, is among the upper chamber’s more reliably conservative members. His record in this Congress earned him  a 100% rating from Freedomworks, an organisation that scores members on their votes for low taxes and less regulation. He received a 98% rating from Americans for Prosperity, a similarly conservative advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers, and a staunch endorsement in his last race from the National Rifle Association for votes expanding concealed-carry rights and opposing the creation of a federal firearm-owner database.

But Mr Flake is also thoughtful, decent and the author of a book opposing Donald Trump and his “affection for authoritarians and strongmen”. For a president as unprincipled, ignorant of policy and demanding of personal loyalty as Mr Trump, Mr Flake proved stylistically and substantively unacceptable. The president lambasted Mr Flake, up for re-election next year, as “weak on crime & border” [sic], and praised his highest-profile (so far) primary...Continue reading

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WeWork's Lord & Taylor Deal: Savvy Move or Top of the Market?

Real estate startup WeWork is buying Lord & Taylor’s flagship New York City location for $850 million and intends to convert the landmark building into its office headquarters. Heard on the Street examines the pros and the cons of the deal.

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GM Keeps Investors' Robotaxi Hopes Alive for Now

General Motors will soon outline plans for a hugely ambitious road trip from its Midwestern home to America’s tech-savvy coastal cities. They need to be impressive to live up to investor expectations.

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A 17-year-old immigrant fights to have an abortion

ON SEPTEMBER 11th, a 17-year-old girl was apprehended as she illegally crossed into America from Mexico. Now nearly 16 weeks pregnant, the girl—known as Jane Doe or J.D. to protect her privacy—would like to have an abortion. But her custodian at a detention centre in Brownsville, Texas—the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—is refusing her request. The government will "protect the well-being of this minor and all children and their babies in our facilities”, an HHS spokesman explained. “[W]e will defend human dignity for all in our care." On October 18th, a federal judge instructed the federal government to grant J.D.’s wish, but two days later, a three-judge panel on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit froze that order until October 31st by a 2-1 vote. If by that date the authorities have not found a sponsor “capable of providing for the child’s physical and mental well-being” who could help her procure an abortion, the court held, J.D. may return to court to plead her case...Continue reading

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How non-disclosure agreements can protect workplace abusers

IN RECENT days, as numerous actresses have described harrowing encounters with Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer, attention has turned to the vehicle that helped keep these episodes quiet for years: non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). “We did not know we were working for a serial sexual predator”, thirty or so of Harvey Weinstein’s former employees write in an unsigned letter published in the New Yorker on October 19th. “We knew that our boss could be manipulative”, they go on. “We did not know that he used his power to systematically assault and silence women”. 

The authors of the letter say they want to end the enforced silence in which they have been held. “We know that in writing this we are in open breach of the non-disclosure agreements in our contracts”, they write. “But our former boss is in open violation of his contract with us—the employees—to create a safe place for us to work”. They ask the Weinstein Company to “let us out of our NDAs immediately” and to “do the same for all...Continue reading

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Northern Italy votes for more autonomy

MORE than 5m Italians took part on October 22nd in two referendums on granting autonomy to the rich, northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto, which drew inevitable comparisons to the independence ballot three weeks earlier in Catalonia. Few in Italy travelled as far to cast their votes as Maurizio Zordan. The 53-year-old executive recently moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to run the American subsidiary of his family firm, which sells shop fittings for luxury-brand stores. But he felt so passionately about the referendum that he flew back to vote in his home town of Valdagno.

The governments of the two regions staged the ballots ostensibly to give themselves a popular mandate to open negotiations with Rome (even though they could have demanded talks without a vote). Both administrations are dominated by the Northern League, which once advocated secession for the richer north.

As in Catalonia, few people opposed to more autonomy bothered to vote against it, so the...Continue reading

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Insurers Unload Problems Into Private Equity's Arms

With plenty of ready buyers looking to pounce, insurers’ struggling with promises from a high-rate past may soon get help.

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Martin Shkreli's Legacy Upends a Creative Financier

Martin Shkreli’s old company has turned into a dud investment for a financier who gained notoriety for​the wild ride taken by shares of DryShips.

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China's Latest Fintech Offering Looks Overpriced

Shares in Alibaba-backed Qudian have been on a wild ride since they floated in the U.S. last week. Investors should shop elsewhere.

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Xi Jinping’s thinking is ranked alongside Mao’s

 

THE constitution of the Chinese Communist Party defines what it means to be a party member and lists the organisation’s core beliefs. On October 24th a new principle was added to it: “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”—quite a mouthful. Xinhua, a government news agency, said the change was approved at the end of a weeklong party congress, an event that takes place every five years. Party leaders had been parroting the cumbersome phrase for several days since Mr Xi, who is the party’s general secretary as well as president, first mentioned it (albeit without his own name attached) on the opening day of the gathering. Bill Bishop, an American China-watcher, says he writes it as XJPTSCCNE “to avoid getting carpal tunnel syndrome”.

Talk of theory and whether someone is named in a document might sound recondite. But this has huge implications because it invests Mr Xi with more power than any Chinese leader since Mao...Continue reading

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A New CEO Isn't the Cure for BHP's Ills

Big BHP shareholder Elliott is agitating for a board review of management—but the miner’s current leadership isn’t really the problem.

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Japan’s ruling coalition retains a supermajority in snap election

LIKE him or, as some Japanese do after five years in office, loathe him, Shinzo Abe has proved a savvy political operator. Having already led his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to four successive electoral victories, the Japanese prime minister risked bringing an end to his long winning streak when he decided last month to dissolve the lower house of the Diet (parliament) 14 months early.

Mr Abe’s reputation had recently suffered as a result of his alleged links to two scandals (in which he denies any involvement). Right after he announced the snap poll, the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, formed a new political party that looked as if it might pose a serious challenge. Instead, Mr Abe won a big victory in the election on October 22nd. He will probably remain four more years at the country’s helm. Serving only half of this new term would make him modern Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

The LDP took 284 of the 465 seats contested, the same number that it held...Continue reading

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Allergan: That $15 Billion Sure Went Fast

Last year Allergan PLC did one of the best deals in drug industry history. The drug company has been busily squandering the benefits ever since.

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Natural Gas Prices May Surprise This Winter

After nine years of booming production of natural gas, this winter could be one of the rare instances supply and demand conspire to drive up prices.

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Chinese Banks in Need of a Stiff Quality Check

When Chinese banks start reporting their third quarter earnings this week, investors should pay particular attention to their asset quality.

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Feeding Babies in China Is a Booming Business Again

The world’s largest infant-formula market is surprisingly volatile. Investors shouldn’t expect the good news for Western consumer groups to last.

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What Will the Next Fed Chief Do About Stocks?

With the Federal Reserve likely to be under new leadership next year, investors are asking how the central bank will approach the economy. They should also be asking how the Fed will deal with asset prices.

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Spain moves to dismiss Catalonia’s secessionist government

THE hesitation is over. On October 21st Mariano Rajoy (pictured, left), Spain’s prime minister, announced that his government will ask the Senate to give it powers to dismiss the administration in Catalonia and to call a regional election there within six months. Whether this leads to a solution to the six-week stand-off over Catalan independence, or to an intensification of Spain’s constitutional crisis, depends on how much resistance the government will now face in one of the country’s most important regions.

Mr Rajoy acted after Carles Puigdemont (pictured, right), the president of Catalonia’s devolved administration, refused a formal request to clarify or revoke an ambiguous declaration of independence which he made and then “suspended” on October 10th. The government has opted to activate Article 155 of the 1978 constitution, which gives it the power to compel a region to obey the law but has never before been used. The Senate is expected to approve the...Continue reading

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Spain moves to dismiss Catalonia’s secessionist government

 

THE hesitation is over. On October 21st Mariano Rajoy (pictured, left), Spain’s prime minister, announced that his government will ask the Senate to give it powers to dismiss the administration in Catalonia and to call a regional election there within six months. Whether this leads to a solution to the six-week stand-off over Catalan independence, or to an intensification of Spain’s constitutional crisis, depends on how much resistance the government will now face in one of the country’s most important regions.

Mr Rajoy acted after Carles Puigdemont (pictured, right), the president of Catalonia’s devolved administration, refused a formal request to clarify or revoke an ambiguous declaration of independence which he made and then “suspended” on October 10th. The government has opted to activate Article 155 of the 1978 constitution, which gives it the power to compel a region to obey the law but has never before been used. The Senate is expected to approve...Continue reading

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Britain seeks friends at Europe’s top table

THERESA MAY, Britain’s prime minister, arrived in Brussels on October 19th for an EU summit with a cacophony of voices in her ears. Hardliners in her Conservative Party were urging her to stick two fingers up to the intransigent Europeans and walk away from the deadlocked Brexit negotiations. Business groups and Philip Hammond, her chancellor, were growing increasingly fretful over the urgent need to agree a “transitional” deal to avoid a regulatory cliff-edge once Britain leaves the EU in March 2019. As if to rub it in, soon after Mrs May arrived Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, tweeted mischievously that after Brexit he expected to spend a lot more time in Frankfurt, a European rival to the City of London, Britain’s financial heart.

This week’s summit was once supposed to mark the moment when the EU would agree that the Brexit divorce talks—focused on the rights of European citizens in Britain after Brexit, the status of the Irish border and a settling...Continue reading

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The Downside of Big Profits at Google and Facebook

Google, Facebook and Twitter face serious questions about their outsize influence. Strong earnings reports won’t help that.

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P&G Does Itself No Favors Post-Peltz

Life isn’t getting easier for Procter & Gamble after its unconfirmed victory in the proxy fight with activist Nelson Peltz.

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Catastrophes Everywhere, but Big Insurers May Do Alright

Much uncertainty remains around the costs from recent storms and earthquakes that will fall on investors. But for the big traditional groups like Swiss Re and XL, the storm damage may not be that bad.

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General Electric's Kitchen Sink May Still Have Holes

General Electric left its investors unhappy once again. At least management seems to be getting the message this time.

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How the Stalled Aramco IPO Could Hamper Hong Kong's Dreams

An Aramco listing in Hong Kong would stoke the city’s ambitions to become the place where Chinese capital meets international companies.

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