Mar 29th 2014

Rise of the robots

The world this week

Leaders

New roles for technology

Rise of the robots

Prepare for a robot invasion. It will change the way people think about technology

France’s National Front

On the march

Marine Le Pen’s success should serve as a warning to the political elite in France and across Europe

America and the IMF

Dereliction of duty

Congress’s failure to support the International Monetary Fund is shameful and self-defeating

NATO

All for one

The alliance must banish the suspicion that it would not always defend its eastern flank

Cartel-busting

Boring can still be bad

Market-rigging in unsexy industries costs consumers a lot. More can be done to detect and deter it

Letters

On cronyism, competition, defence policy, China, takeovers, prostitution, solar power, senators, Edward Snowden

Briefing

Japanese women and work

Holding back half the nation

Women’s lowly status in the Japanese workplace has barely improved in decades, and the country suffers as a result. Shinzo Abe would like to change that

United States

Obamacare

Uphill all the way

Obamacare and religious freedom

The Hobby Lobby hubbub

Catholics in America

What crisis?

Presidential libraries

Style and guile

Journalism in America

Digital resurrection

Politics in Arizona

Saner than it looks

America’s awful airports

A new ranking

Lexington

Medals for drone pilots?

The Americas

Latin America’s economies

Life after the commodity boom

Bello

Legalism v democracy

Brazil’s internet law

The net closes

Data leaks

Going overboard

Asia

Politics in Taiwan

Manning the trade barriers

India’s election

Seasons of abundance

Flight MH370

Lost

Japan’s consumption tax

The big squeeze

Banyan

On the antlers of a dilemma

A presidential election in Afghanistan

Runners and riders

China

The economy

On cloud nine trillion

Middle East & Africa

Saudi Arabia and the United States

Awkward relations

Egypt

Of judges and generals

The Gaza Strip

Who’s in charge?

Nigeria

Worse and worse

Burundi

Trouble ahead

Sierra Leone

Stop rape

Europe

Turkish politics

The battle for Turkey’s future

Turkey and the internet

Of tweets and twits

Russian propaganda

1984 in 2014

The Baltic states

Echoes of the Sudetenland

French elections

A little local difficulty

Charlemagne

Putin’s arrow

Britain

The NHS

Health reform in a cold climate

International broadcasting

Foreign losses

Jon Cruddas

The sage of Dagenham

Debating Europe

The third man

Media law

Data lock

BSkyB’s drama offensive

Home grown

Bagehot

History trumps democracy

Teachers’ pay

The going rate

International

The future of NATO

First principles

Drone journalism

Eyes in the skies

Special report

Immigrants from the future

The build-up

Good and ready

Military uses

Up in the air

Business service robots

The invisible unarmed

Labour markets

A mighty contest

Domestic service robots

Seal of approval

Regulation

That thou art mindful of him

Business

Cartels

Just one more fix

Facebook and virtual reality

A game of goggles

Commercial property in Europe

A skyscraper too far

Schumpeter

A green light

Correction

Myanmar’s oil and gas

Drilling in the dark

Finance & economics

Inflation and interest rates

Up, up and away

Buttonwood

Freedom or licence?

Swiss banks

Swissness is not enough

American banks

A harsh light

Anti-social media

Ashes of a coalfire

Copper

Broken contacts

Free exchange

Pricing the surge

Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sorry, no vacancies

Science & technology

Synthetic biology

DIY chromosomes

The outer solar system

Something new under the sun

Locking horns

Sexual selection in plants

Focal dystonia

Don’t cramp my style

Palaeontology

Shovel face

Books & arts

100 years after 1914

Still in the grip of the Great War

France and “la guerre de quatorze”

Never-forgotten names

Memoirs of a German soldier

Return of a war classic

Economic & financial indicators

Output, prices and jobs

Trade, exchange rates, budget balances and interest rates

Markets

The Economist commodity-price index

Natural disasters

Obituary

Adolfo Suárez