Bottling hipness

LANETTE FIDRYCH knew that people in Portland, Oregon, were obsessed with the tacky carpet at the city’s airport. Enraptured hipsters snap up everything from mousepads to underpants emblazoned with its dated 1980s design. But she had no idea that the carpet was almost as well known in Japan. When she landed in Tokyo carrying a water bottle bearing the same pattern, she was stopped by a dozen strangers on the street who, recognising the carpet, asked if she was from Portland. On hearing that she was, they went on to list the restaurants in Portland they most wanted to visit or the beers from Oregon they most liked.

In America, Portland is shorthand for trendiness run amok. In Japan, it is simply trendy. Ms Fidrych is the founder of Cycle Dog, a company which sells dog collars, leads and other paraphernalia made from recycled bicycle parts (the collars all have bottle openers attached). She was visiting Tokyo to participate in the third annual “Portland Popup”, at which Tokyoites can buy goods from Portland and learn about Portland’s way of life. Speeches this year included “Creative Entrepreneurs of Portland” and “What Tokyo Can Learn from Portland”. Yokohama and...Continue reading

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Breeding bluefin

THE Kindai University Fisheries Laboratory might not be the most enticing name for a fancy restaurant, but its customers are undeterred. On weekdays they line up in Ginza, a ritzy shopping district in Tokyo, to sample the fish. Diners appear satisfied with the quality of the sashimi, including the juicy slices of bluefin tuna, one of the most prized species of all. But the tuna in the restaurant differs from that available elsewhere in one crucial respect: it was not caught in the wild, but farmed.

Japanese call bluefin tuna “the king of fish”. They eat about 40,000 tonnes of it a year—80% of the global catch. Demand is also growing rapidly elsewhere. Yet Pacific bluefin stocks are down by 97% from their peak in the early 1960s, according to a recent report from the International Scientific Committee, an intergovernmental panel of experts. (Japan disputes its findings.) In some places, fishing is three times the sustainable level, the committee says.

Japan did agree to halve its catch of juvenile bluefin (fish too young to reproduce) in the northern Pacific last year. But it has resisted more stringent measures,...Continue reading

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Taking the rap

NAMEWEE is a Malaysian rapper with a penchant for extravagant eyeware and a dangerous interest in politics. Police picked him up at the country’s main airport in August, when he flew home from a spell abroad. A score of touchy groups had complained that an early cut of his latest video—which featured performers dressed as religious leaders gadding about a church, a mosque and a Chinese temple—insulted the dignity of Islam, a charge punishable by two years in prison. Authorities talked about asking Interpol to help them question his collaborators, a three-piece band based in Taiwan.

In gentler times Namewee’s only offence might have been crimes against music. But Malaysian Islam is gradually growing sterner, and its promotion by the state more aggressive. These trends are getting a boost under the government of the prime minister, Najib Razak. Tormented by claims that a national investment firm has been looted, his party is keen to change the subject. So it is recasting itself as a defender of Islam, the religion of its ethnic-Malay supporters. All this is souring race relations and worrying neighbours, who fear the shift will nurture...Continue reading

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A ham-fisted hegemon

IT IS already being described as the moment when America’s “pivot” to Asia was seen to have gone awry. Not the shock when Rodrigo Duterte, the new president of the Philippines, an American ally, caused titters by calling Barack Obama the “son of a whore”—but when he called a few days later for an end to American military assistance, including joint patrols in the South China Sea. “China is now in power,” he declared, “and they have military superiority in the region.”

China is chuffed. The Philippines, after all, had brought a landmark case against China’s activities in the South China Sea to an international tribunal at The Hague. In July the tribunal rubbished China’s territorial claims and criticised its construction of artificial islands. Outraged, China swore to ignore the ruling. America insisted it must be binding. Its interest in the South China Sea, it has always said, is in upholding international law. So imagine its embarrassment now. The vindicated plaintiff appears to be saying to China, “Go ahead, help yourself.”

The intention of the pivot was to reassure America’s allies in the region. Admiral Harry...Continue reading

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Guns and ghee

TO MANY Indians, their country’s strategic position looks alarming. Its two biggest neighbours are China and Pakistan. It has fought wars with both, and border issues still fester. Both are nuclear-armed, and are allies with one another to boot. China, a rising superpower with five times India’s GDP, is quietly encroaching on India’s traditional sphere of influence, tying a “string of pearls” of alliances around the subcontinent. Relatively weak but safe behind its nuclear shield, Pakistan harbours Islamist guerrillas who have repeatedly struck Indian targets; regional security wonks have long feared that another such incident might spark a conflagration.

So when four heavily armed infiltrators attacked an Indian army base on September 18th, killing 18 soldiers before being shot dead themselves, jitters inevitably spread. The base nestles in mountains close to the “line of control”, as the border between the Indian and Pakistani-administered parts of the disputed territory of Kashmir is known. Indian officials reflexively blamed Pakistan; politicians and pundits vied in demanding a punchy response. “Every Pakistan post through which...Continue reading

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Think before you clink

ILONA SPURE sighs with regret when she recalls how, in Soviet times, a thief could get two years in prison for pilfering a jar of jam. Now the director of Latvia’s prison service, she says that even after the country regained independence in 1991 it kept the Soviet habit of putting a lot of people behind bars. In 2004, when it joined the EU, Latvia still had its highest rate of incarceration: 337 people per 100,000, compared with the EU average of 122.

“We thought there was no alternative to prison,” says Ms Spure. No longer. In recent years judges have been handing out ever more “community work service”, in which offenders perform unpaid jobs like sprucing up shabby buildings or cleaning parks. Last year such punishments were applied in 53% of convictions, up from 28.5% in 2011 and none at all before 1999.  

In this way Latvia is part of a broader pattern. The use of alternative sentences, such as community service and electronic monitoring, has been rising across Europe. In the early 1990s few countries bothered to collect data on what were then rare sentences. By 2010, however, 17 out of 29 countries...Continue reading

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Scissor and tongs

The sharp end of the campaign

IT IS a rite of passage for any French politician seeking high office to linger at the annual Paris agricultural fair, petting heaving bulls and nibbling regional charcuterie. This bestows on besuited city types essential national virtues, linked to the land, earthy muscularity and la France profonde. Last week, though, saw a parade of male would-be candidates for next year’s presidential election pressing the flesh in a less traditional setting: amid the heat tongs, hair extensions and tubs of cream peroxide at the Paris hairdressing fair.

Hair, it seems, is a new political battleground. At the Mondial Coiffure et Beauté on September 11th-12th Bruno Le Maire, a centre-right would-be candidate on his way to a lesson in lissage brésilien (Brazilian hair-straightening), bumped into Emmanuel Macron, an aspirant from the left, fresh from a barber’s shave. Even Alain Juppé, another centre-right hopeful, turned up, though the balding former prime minister conceded wryly that his own needs were minimal. In July it emerged that the Elysée palace...Continue reading

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Hash and burn

IT IS peak season and dozens of sweat-drenched men are labouring in the fields near the Albanian town of Tragjas, harvesting a bumper crop of cannabis. Overseeing them are policemen with submachine-guns and face masks. Saimir Tahiri, Albania’s interior minister, swoops down in a helicopter to observe the destruction of the plantations. Piles of two-metre high bushes are set on fire. Mr Tahiri admits the choking fumes can be a problem for the policemen but adds that this is the least of their concerns. Europe’s drug war is being fought here, he says, and billions of euros are at stake.

Albania is a major entrepot of the European drugs market. The country has long been a base from which criminal gangs smuggle everything from cigarettes to heroin, cocaine, cannabis resin and other illicit substances into the rest of Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Europe’s drug agency. Increasingly, Albania has also become a big outdoor producer of the cannabis herb, which is distributed with the help of a complex network of Albanian organised-crime groups.

One of the biggest destinations is Italy, where dope is smuggled in on...Continue reading

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Nobel, unprized

But the design is dynamite

FEW Swedes have been as influential as the bearded chemist and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel. Yet his countrymen appear reluctant to promote him. And this is not because they think it outrageous that Leo Tolstoy and Mark Twain never won the Nobel Prize for literature, but Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson (who just happened to sit on the Nobel panel) did. Rather, it is more a question of indifference to history.

Take the kerfuffle over a plans for swanky new centre in Stockholm, the Nobel Centre or Nobelhuset. Since 2011 the city of Stockholm and the Nobel Foundation, the non-profit group which administers the prizes, have been discussing a sea-front edifice to serve as a new prize-giving venue and research centre. In April Stockholm’s municipal council approved its construction; the county council will decide later this year, with building due to start in 2017.

David Chipperfield, a British architect, won the commission over several Swedish bidders. His design is a shimmering block of copper, glass and stone in Blasieholmen, an area which faces the Baltic...Continue reading

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The hollow election

Only one name matters

ON THE face of it, Vladimir Putin got everything he wanted. On September 18th his United Russia party won a thumping three-quarters majority in the parliamentary elections. There were no protests of the sort that marred its last victory in the Duma five years ago. The president called this a sign of stability and trust in his party.

It is anything but that. The Kremlin made every effort to ensure the elections were as sterile and low-profile as possible. It banned and harassed genuine opposition parties and their leaders. And it persuaded many that nothing depended on voters. The official turnout was 48%—the lowest ever in the history of Russian elections. This average included several ethnic regions, such as Chechnya and Dagestan, where the turnout was an improbably high 80% or more. In the largest cities, such as Moscow and St Petersburg, only a third of voters cast their ballots, down from two-thirds five years ago. Alexei Navalny, an opposition politician who led the protests in 2011 and was barred from taking part in this election, told his followers: “You have not lost because this was not an...Continue reading

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The parable of Ticino

FOR the European Union’s high priesthood in Brussels, the right of people to live and work anywhere in Europe is sacred. But free movement is a worldlier concern for Franco Puffi, who runs Precicast, a high-tech metal foundry in Ticino, a Swiss canton next to the Italian border. Fully 90% of those who toil in its workshops are Italian, as are the engineers who design its moulds and the managers who seek new export markets for aerospace and biomedical components. Mr Puffi would like to employ more locals, but says the Swiss prefer banking and public-sector jobs. Northern Italians, by contrast, value industrial work and have the technical skills he needs. Their country’s economic woes make them “hungrier”. And there are a lot more of them.

For others, that is precisely the problem. “Ticino is confronted with Italy,” says Norman Gobbi of the Ticino League, a local party that backs immigration curbs. “And Italy is an example of the non-functioning of the EU.” Switzerland, a small, federal construct that protects its sovereignty furiously—it became a full UN member only in 2002—is in many respects a curiosity. Its relationship with the EU,...Continue reading

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Sunlight diplomacy

Truth at last

ON THE morning of September 21st 1976, Orlando Letelier, a Chilean dissident, was at the wheel of his Chevrolet Malibu on his way to work at a think-tank in Washington, DC. A former foreign minister in Salvador Allende’s government, he had been jailed by the military regime that took power in 1973. After his release, he went to the United States and became one of the junta’s most prominent critics. He wrote letters and lobbied Congress to withdraw military aid to the generals. His work had not gone unnoticed in Santiago, Chile’s capital. As his car rounded Sheridan Circle a bomb beneath his seat exploded, killing him and Ronni Moffitt, a colleague sitting beside him. The murder is the only state-sponsored terrorist attack to have struck the United States’ capital.

For decades people suspected that Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s military dictator, was behind the murder. Evidence of that came to light only in October 2015, when John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, gave Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s president, a pen drive containing hundreds of newly declassified documents. One of them, a memo in 1987 from George Shultz, an...Continue reading

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Polka lessons

MANY visitors to Paraguay never get beyond Ciudad del Este, the second-largest city. Brazilian day-trippers cross the Paraná river on the Friendship Bridge, shop in grungy malls and return laden with cheap electronics, Chinese-made blankets and Armani jeans, some of them genuine. The law limits the bargain-hunters to $300-worth of duty-free goods a month; they, and the border guards, ignore it.

Brazil’s recession has dented this tacky trade. “Normally, you couldn’t pass through here because of the crowds,” sighs a taxi driver on Monseñor Rodríguez, the main thoroughfare. Sales at SAX, the city’s swankiest mall, fell 90% last year. Other sources of export earnings are also suffering; the price of soyabeans has halved since 2012. Only electricity, powered by the massive Itaipu dam near Ciudad del Este and sold to Brazil, is doing well.

And yet this landlocked, sparsely populated country is coping better than many in the region. Its GDP grew by 6.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2016. It will expand by around 3% this year and next, forecasts the IMF. That would place it in the top tier among South American economies (see...Continue reading

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Of growth and globalisation

“FROM Argentina to the World” is the slogan. This month President Mauricio Macri welcomed 1,600 business leaders to Buenos Aires, inviting them to invest in and trade with his country. That marked a big change. During 12 years of rule by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her late husband, Néstor Kirchner, Argentina cut itself off from the world, nationalising foreign businesses, curbing imports and severing normal ties with the IMF. The Kirchners once stood up Carly Fiorina, the boss of Hewlett-Packard, an American computer giant, when she went to visit them at the Casa Rosada.

Some countries in Latin America, especially those on the Pacific seaboard, like Mexico, Chile and Peru, never turned their backs on globalisation. Others did. Boosted by record prices for their commodity exports, they turned inward and subjected their economies to state controls, repeating on a smaller scale the model that failed the region in the 1970s.

Mr Macri’s initiative is not the only sign of a renewed desire to connect with the world. Brazil’s congress is poised to roll back a law that gave Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, a monopoly over...Continue reading

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Sangfroid city

“INSHALLAH the sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression.” So wrote Ahmad Khan Rahami in a bloodstained journal found after his arrest for planting bombs in Manhattan and in New Jersey. “Attack the Kuffar [non-believers] in their backyard,” he also wrote.

That is exactly what Mr Rahami did. Rather than attack a landmark, such as Times Square, which had been unsuccessfully targeted in 2010, he is accused of placing bombs in Chelsea, a bustling Manhattan residential neighbourhood with lots of lively restaurants and bars. Thirty people were hurt in the bomb that exploded on the evening of September 17th. A second bomb, found four blocks away, was discovered and removed before it could harm. Earlier that day a bomb went off at a 5k fun-run for a military charity at the New Jersey Shore. No one was hurt. Bombs were also placed at a transport hub in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They were found by vigilant locals before the devices could explode.

The mayor of New York promised that the police presence, already increased because of the United Nations General Assembly, which draws 135 heads of state, would be...Continue reading

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Bear on bear

Fancy meeting you here

THE breach of Democratic Party computer systems attracted plenty of headlines this summer. What has attracted less attention is that two separate teams of Russian hackers were at work, evidently unaware of each others’ activities. One of them—nicknamed Fancy Bear by the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike—is thought to be linked to Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Its aim was to steal information and leak it. Dmitri Alperovitch of Crowdstrike, which was hired by the victims, terms this “active measures”: spy parlance for direct intervention in a foreign country’s affairs.

But another group, code-named Cozy Bear, was also inside the Democratic Party’s computer networks. It was engaged in traditional espionage, quietly collecting information about the party’s inner workings—a high-priority target for any foreign government, but particularly the Kremlin. Its interests, and the more sophisticated technical means it used, suggest that it was working for another part of Russia’s intelligence apparatus. Don Smith of Dell Secureworks, another cyber-security company, reckons that the subtler...Continue reading

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Chicago schools

Nearly 400,000 public-school students made their way through the streets of Chicago to attend their first day of school on September 6th. For some, the journey can be perilous. As these students walked through streets plagued by gang violence, they were joined by 1,300 security guards in yellow vests stationed along predefined routes in the city’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.

These “community watchers” are part of a programme designed to protect Chicago students as they travel to and from school. The initiative began in 2009, after a 16-year-old honour-roll student was beaten to death in the street. This school year 142 schools with a total of 75,000 students have safe routes. Since the start of 2016 Chicago has recorded over 500 murders, more than New York and Los Angeles combined and a 50% increase over the same period last year. Figures compiled by the Chicago Tribune reveal 33 of these victims were under 17.

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Re-education

AT THE University of Minnesota, some 5,700 new students arrived on campus for orientation earlier this month. Each one of them has taken a course on campus sexual assaults. A new law, which came into effect on August 1st, made it mandatory for all university freshmen in the state of Minnesota to be given training within the first ten days of the school year. Minnesota is unusual for the breadth of its decree, but students, parents and university administrators across the country are asking the same questions about how widespread campus rape is and what to do about it.

California was the first state in the country to pass a law colloquially referred to as “Yes means yes”, which requires affirmative consent for sex to be considered legal. New York followed suit in 2015. Last year George Washington University became the first to make training on sexual assault compulsory for new students. The White House has its own task force on protecting students from sexual assault.

Crime statistics suggest universities are no more dangerous in terms of sexual violence than other places where men and women both congregate, but that is not much solace. Statistics on sexual...Continue reading

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Money’s the conversation

FISCAL policy has tumbled from the top of the political agenda with remarkable speed. For most of Barack Obama’s presidency, controlling the national debt, which spiked from 35% of GDP to over 70% after the recession, was a priority for Republicans. Democrats were less worried, but still saw the need for America to fix its long-run challenge: soaring spending on Medicare (public health insurance for the over-65s) and Social Security (public pensions). Mr Obama set up a doomed bipartisan commission with the task of doing just that. Yet in this election, the Republicans have abandoned their fiscal hawkishness. And the long-run barely gets a look-in.

That is not all down to Donald Trump. The economic recovery, combined with sharp cuts to spending (triggered by the failure to reach a deficit-reduction deal) have reduced borrowing significantly, from 9.8% of GDP in 2009 to 2.5% in 2015 (in 2016 it will be a little higher). Republicans in Congress—which, unlike the president, actually writes the budget—have also had a change of heart. Their economic priority is now to boost growth by cutting taxes and red-tape, which they blame for the...Continue reading

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Heard on the trail

Soul searching
“He asked me about the painting. I said, ‘I paint souls, and when I had to paint you, I asked your soul to allow me.’ He was touched and smiled.”
Artist Havi Schanz, on the portrait of Donald Trump that the candidate purchased at a charity auction. Washington Post

Best laid plans
"Plans you don’t even know about will be devised because we’re going to come up with plans—health-care plans—that will be so good."
Mr Trump tells Dr Oz about his replacement for Obamacare.

Gun-free zone
"I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm immediately. Take their guns away, let’s see what happens to her."
Mr Trump has advice for Hillary Clinton’s security detail.

J’accuse
“I think that “Veep” has torn down the wall between comedy and politics, our show started out as a political satire but it now feels more like a sobering documentary. So I certainly do promise to rebuild that wall and make...Continue reading

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President Trump?

IF A week is a long time in politics, then a month is an eternity. In mid-August, Hillary Clinton had opened up a seemingly unassailable polling lead of eight percentage points over Donald Trump. Quantitative forecasting models pegged her odds of victory near 90%, and betting markets approached an 80% probability. Mrs Clinton’s cushion has now all but deflated. By Labour Day, Mr Trump had trimmed her lead in half. And just when the race appeared to be stabilising, the underdog had another growth spurt, picking up about three more points over the past two weeks. Mrs Clinton is now barely clinging to a one-point lead. That puts a man who calls for “unpredictability” in America’s use of nuclear weapons in a near-tie for a presidential election just six weeks away.

Barack Obama held a similarly slim edge in national polling over Mitt Romney on the eve of an election he won comfortably in 2012. But the president had plenty of breathing room in state-specific polls, which turned out to be a better predictor of the outcome. By contrast, Mrs Clinton has lost even more ground in many state polling averages than she has nationally. Iowa, which Mr Obama...Continue reading

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Millennial falcon

IT IS hard to know whether Hillary Clinton should be cheered by the lightning visit that she paid on September 19th to Temple University, a large, publicly funded college in Philadelphia—or plunged into gloom. On the upside for Team Clinton, it was easy to find students won over by her half-hour speech, a strikingly personal appeal to young voters that painted Donald Trump as a bigot and herself as a lifelong advocate for progressive causes. The candidate pandered on policies, but also sought to recruit the young as partners in a mission to fix the country. “I need you,” Mrs Clinton pleaded at one point, adding a promise that “young people will always have a seat at any table where any decision is being made”—a pledge which, depending on how the Clinton White House defines the meaning of “young”, “seat” and “at”, should enliven meetings with the joint chiefs of staff.

One convert was Michelle Ferguson, a 20-year-old linguistics major who, like many Temple students, backed Mrs Clinton’s leftist rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, during the Democratic presidential primary. “She earned my vote today,” Ms Ferguson enthused...Continue reading

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Samsung's Fires Unlikely to Warm Apple

Samsung’s Galaxy Note recall is unlikely to heat up sales for Apple’s latest iPhone.

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How to not spend it

TWO decades after Norway’s government paid a first deposit into its sovereign-wealth fund, the country is learning how to manage a behemoth. The vehicle, which is used to invest abroad the proceeds of Norway’s oil and gas sales, has amassed a bigger fortune than anyone expected, thanks to bumper oil prices. As the direct benefits of oil decline—around 46% of Norway’s expected total haul of oil and gas is gone—the relative importance of the fund will grow. The annual revenues it generates now regularly exceed income from oil sales.

This week the “Pension Fund Global” was worth Nkr7.3 trillion ($882 billion), more than double national GDP. No sovereign-wealth fund is bigger. It owns more than 2% of all listed shares in Europe and over 1% globally. Its largest holdings are in Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Nestlé, among 9,000-odd firms in 78 countries.

In designing the fund, Norway got a lot right. Its independence is not constitutionally guaranteed, but it is protected as a separate unit within the central bank, overseen by the finance ministry and monitored by parliament. It is run frugally and transparently; every investment it makes is detailed...Continue reading

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Japan's New Special Relationship With the Federal Reserve

What matters for the yen, the dollar and interest rates in both the U.S. and Japan, is what the Fed does next.

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Investors Stuck Between Two Central Banks

The Federal Reserve will tighten as the Bank of Japan loosens, potentially disrupting markets.

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Allister Sparks: A fighter for justice in South Africa

 

WITH the death of Allister Sparks on September 19th in Johannesburg at the age of 83, South Africa mourns the passing of one of its most fearless, dogged and influential liberal journalists. A relentless critic of apartheid from the moment it was formally enacted in 1948, when he was but a boy, Mr Sparks never stopped telling truth to power, even after democracy was achieved in 1994. He remained a thorn in the flesh of governments until weeks before his death.

The high point of his combative career was his editorship of the Rand Daily Mail, torchbearer of liberal South Africa, from 1977-1981. During this time he famously exposed the truth behind the murder in custody of a charismatic black activist, Steve Biko. Mr Sparks also exposed the scandal known as “Muldergate” after an information minister, Connie Mulder, who had secretly overseen the transfer of state funds to finance a pro-government newspaper, the Citizen. This led to the resignation of the prime minister, John Vorster, and his replacement by P.W. Botha, who began cautiously to embark on reforms that led to the unravelling of apartheid a decade later. He incurred the authorities’...Continue reading

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Tim Kaine’s makeover

TWO months into his candidacy for vice president and with less than two months remaining until election day, Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate, remains unknown to nearly one in five voters. A poll this month by CNN/ORC International showed that 19% of voters had never heard of him. But perhaps this should not come as a surprise in 2016. 

The major party nominees for president—Mrs Clinton and Donald Trump—are dominating media coverage of the campaigns and absorbing voters' attention to an unusual degree in this election. Indeed, Mr Kaine and his opponent, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, seem bit players in the drama, drawing the spotlight only during their nominations in the summer. Their next chance at centre stage—and their only face-off—will come at the vice-presidential debate on October 4th. That will take place at Longwood University, a small taxpayer-supported school in Virginia, the state that elected Mr Kaine governor in 2005 and sent him to the Senate in 2012.

Mr Kaine has not been entirely overlooked, however. In particular, he has generated closer scrutiny as he has changed his views to accommodate those of Mrs Clinton. This...Continue reading

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Big Pharma's Big Checkbooks Drive Biotech Resurgence

Big Pharma’s thirst for growth is a biotech investor’s dream.

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A resumption in fighting signals even darker days for Syria

AFTER months of diplomatic wrangling America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, hoped he had finally struck a deal with Russia that would help end the war in Syria, which has killed perhaps half a million people. For the plan to work, both sides needed to lay down their weapons for one week and allow aid into besieged parts of the country. If that happened the truce would then be extended, paving the way for Russia and America to launch joint military action against Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a terrorist group and former al-Qaeda offshoot.

But the plan never got that far. Although the fighting ebbed, the Syrian government blocked most aid deliveries into rebel-held areas, and stripped vital medical supplies from the few that it did allow across the front lines. On September 19th the Syrian regime refused to extend the seven-day ceasefire, accusing rebels of failing to uphold their side and citing an air strike by American and coalition forces that mistakenly killed 62 Syrian soldiers.

But the real breach came soon after Russian and Syrian warplanes went back into action, pounding rebel-held neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo. A UN aid convoy...Continue reading

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The European Union is pushing for more military co-ordination

TERRORISM, Russian adventurism, chaos in the Middle East and the possibility of a President Donald Trump: it is hardly surprising that the European Union wants to put defence and security at the top of its agenda. As the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, put it in his “State of the Union” speech on September 14th: “Europe needs to toughen up. Nowhere is this truer than in our defence policy.”

Although personally devoted to the federalist vision of a European army, Mr Juncker was careful not to raise its spectre on this occasion. Instead, he rattled off a number of ostensibly more achievable goals, some of which had been floated a few days before in a paper prepared by the French and German defence ministers for discussion. It was discussed at last week’s informal summit of European leaders in Bratislava; next week, EU defence ministers will be back there to take the talks further. The goal is to have a set of proposals agreed by the time of the next summit in December.

Most of the ideas are fairly old ones to enhance co-operation between the armed forces of willing EU members; they are being dusted off to meet the new mood of anxiety. The...Continue reading

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Zara's Success Shrouded in E-Commerce Secrecy

A lack of e-commerce data makes it impossible to know quite why Inditex, parent of Spanish retailing giant Zara, is performing so well

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UniCredit: Italy's Biggest Bank on High Wire to Redemption

Italy’s UniCredit is making headway with plans to shore up its balance sheet but problems at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena could hinder progress.

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Bank of Japan Makes Yield Curve Maneuvers in the Dark

The BOJ’s moves alter the calculus for investors—there is no longer a willing buyer of bonds, but instead a price setter.

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Police in Chicago are being trained to defuse violent encounters

DONALD TRUMP often frets about Chicago’s recent crime wave, calling the city's homicide rate, which has risen sharply this year, a “horror show”. What is the Republican presidential nominee’s solution? In August, Mr Trump said he knew “a rough, tough guy” in the police department who could “stop [murders] in one week” if only he were in charge. The problem contributing to the sharp increase in homicides, Mr Trump said, is that police “right now are not tough”.

A broader perspective tells a different story. In recent years, the Chicago police department has faced mounting scrutiny over incidents that appear to involve the indiscriminate use of violent force toward citizens. From 2010 to 2015, according to the Chicago Tribune, 92 deaths and 170 injuries resulted from 435 police shootings. The most glaring example—sparking heated street protests and calls for Rahm Emanuel, the mayor, to resign—occurred on October 20, 2014 when Laquan McDonald, a black, knife-wielding 17-year-old, was shot and killed by police. Mr McDonald had reportedly been breaking into cars that day, and he was bold enough to slice a tire of the patrol vehicle after the...Continue reading

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As Comcast Hits the Airwaves, T-Mobile Looks Interesting

Comcast’s new wireless service may prompt it to consider buying its own network one day and T-Mobile US looks like an obvious choice.

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Bed Bath & Beyond Can Do More With Less

Bed Bath & Beyond’s margins have shriveled, same-store sales have dropped and the stock has suffered; Wednesday’s fiscal second-quarter results are expected to continue reflecting its difficult times.

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What Could Go Wrong for the Bank of Japan

The Bank of Japan may want to keep short-term rates low while nudging long-term rates, but it’s not a fait accompli.

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Globalisation backlash revisited

MUCH of the political action in recent years can be linked to a backlash against globalisation—the Brexit vote or the rise of politicians like Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump, for example. A recent post drew parallels with the first great era of globalisation in the late 19th/early 20th centuries which also led to a backlash; anarchist assassinations, industrial unrest and restrictions on immigration.

Our latest special report on the company pointed to another parallel with the late 19th century; the emergence of giant corporations. Back then, such companies were dubbed trusts in America and were tackled by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. But this was not a purely American phenomenon; some of the big German companies, such as Bayer and BASF, had already appeared well before 1914. Bismarck was influential in setting up the close link between large German banks and the corporate sector that has been a feature of the German economic model ever...Continue reading

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Driving in Vietnam is becoming even more of a nightmare

CARS and motorbikes are banned from the old heart of Hoi An, a pretty tourist town in central Vietnam. When the country’s newish prime minister paid a visit, he obligingly travelled on foot. But as Nguyen Xuan Phuc strode manfully around, his motorcade crept along behind him. Outraged netizens disseminated photos of the incident, forcing Mr Phuc to apologise—a rare step for a senior official in Vietnam’s authoritarian regime.

Not many Vietnamese can afford a fleet of blacked-out saloons. But car-ownership in the Communist country is soaring, bringing worries about pollution and congestion. Sales of cars, vans and lorries rose 55% by volume in 2015, albeit from a low base; so far this year they are up another third. Most went to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which between them house about half of Vietnam’s urban population.

Compared with its choked neighbours, Vietnam’s big cities are relatively uncongested. The country’s 40m or so motorbikes terrify pedestrians, but can thunder 10-abreast along thoroughfares as well as worm down dark alleyways. Cars, by contrast, block up the pipes. Only 9% of land in the heart of Hanoi is given over to primary and...Continue reading

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Chilled Vertex Could Heat Up Quickly

A rough year for Vertex Pharmaceuticals gives biotech investors an opening.

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Diplomacy Is Key if U.K. Finance Is to Travel Without a Passport

There are ways around Brexit for financial firms, but politics needs to help.

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The China Box-Office Boom That Wasn't

One reason China’s moviegoers are staying home: tech giants including Alibaba and Tencent are cutting back on ticket promotions.

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Multinational Tax Avoidance Crackdown Goes Far Beyond Apple

Unlike the European Commission’s battle with Apple, the OECD’s clampdown on tax dodging could change the face of corporate taxation.

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China Capital Outflows Bubble Below the Surface

Higher U.S. rates and a stronger dollar are powerful attractive forces for Chinese capital. China’s outflow problems haven’t gone away.

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GoPro's Drone Will Fly, but Its Cameras Need to Soar

GoPro’s new Hero5 cameras need to spark a substantial upgrade cycle—and soon.

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How a few thousand votes in New Hampshire could change America

THERE are several reasons why this year's Senate race in New Hampshire is one of the most closely watched in America. It is the most high-profile political contest between two women—a sitting senator and a state governor—in the country’s history. It is the most expensive race to have been run in New Hampshire, with an estimated $100 million likely to have been spent in this relatively small state. And it could decide which party controls America’s upper chamber.

If Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November, Democrats need to pick up four seats to take back the Senate majority. It is likely that Democrats will defeat incumbent Republican senators in Illinois and Wisconsin, leaving the contests in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire as the key tests. 

For several years both Kelly Ayotte, the Republican incumbent and Maggie Hassan, her Democratic challenger, have carefully developed their political brands. Both are popular and have serious political résumés. But this year the winner of the Senate contest will depend to an unusual degree on how the presidential race unfolds in this swing state. With less than two months to go until Election Day it...Continue reading

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Vladimir Putin’s party wins again

MARINA, a middle-aged Muscovite with dark hair and piercing eyes, is unhappy—about rising prices, rampant corruption and even Russia’s confrontation with the West. But she is not ready for a change of course. “People are unsatisfied, but we’re afraid of change,” she declares. “Gorbachev had some nice ideas, but see how that turned out? I don’t want Russia to be destroyed.” So it comes as no surprise that Marina, and most of her compatriots, voted for more of the same when they took to the polls on September 18th for elections to the Duma, the national parliament.

The results were never in question. The ruling United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin secured more than three-quarters of the Duma’s 450 seats. These are apportioned under a hybrid system: half are chosen proportionally, according to the votes won by each party list; and the other half are contested by individual candidates. Mr Putin said the strong endorsement for United Russia was “the reaction of our citizens to foreign pressure on Russia” and a vote in favour of stability. Three obedient “systemic opposition” parties will remain in the Duma. But two liberal anti-Kremlin parties,...Continue reading

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FedEx's Express Unit Delivers the Goods

FedEx’s air-shipping Express division will be a key area to watch in Tuesday’s earnings report.

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German politics is turning into a six-party system

THE big story of recent elections in German states has been the rise of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the far right of the political spectrum. The vote for Berlin’s assembly on September 18th was no exception: the AfD did well again, capturing 14.2% of the vote. It will enter the Berlin parliament for the first time, and is on track to win seats in the Bundestag in next year’s federal election.

But perhaps the bigger change is more subtle: Germany is witnessing the end of an era in which two big-tent parties dominated the political spectrum, one on the centre-right and the other on the centre-left. Henceforth Germany will have a six-party system that will see varying and colourful coalitions. And though progressively weakened by the backlash against her welcoming stance towards refugees, Angela Merkel, the chancellor, remains Germany’s dominant political force.

AfD’s success in Berlin was some way from its bigger successes, such as the 20.8% it won earlier this month in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. What is striking, though is that the ostensible “winners”—the Social Democrats, who came in first with 21.6% of...Continue reading

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