Aug 26th 2021

Where next for global jihad?

The world this week

Leaders

Following the Taliban

After Afghanistan, where next for global jihad?

The biggest danger is in poor, unstable states where insurgents already control territory

A rock in a hard place

The mess in Afghanistan exposes Britain’s foolish security policy

The time is long past for Britain to repair relations with its European neighbours

The Powell punt

Despite his shortcomings, Jerome Powell should be reappointed Fed chairman

It would be a bad time to cast any doubt on the Fed’s independence

Apple’s next decade

Apple exemplified an era of global capitalism that has passed

Tim Cook has to adapt to a new age of tech and globalisation

In praise of physics

Fundamental physics is humanity’s most extraordinary achievement

It sees worlds in grains of sand and infinities in hours

Letters

On refugees, Bolivia, Primrose Hill, Pacific island nations, Monty Python

Letters to the editor

Briefing

Good news for global jihad

America’s flight from Afghanistan will embolden jihadists around the world

Even if the Taliban do little to help other fighters, their success is an inspiration

United States

Fogged in

Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

The left-behind

America’s rush for the exit in Kabul

In the shadows

Many of the Supreme Court’s decisions are reached with no hearings or explanation

Infrastructure month

September will be the most crucial month of Joe Biden’s presidency

Signs of vitalism

Improved technology collides with religious beliefs at the ICU

Lexington

The trials of Gavin Newsom

The Americas

Joe Biden’s other headache

Democracy is quickly eroding in Central America

A palaeontological paradox

Bolivia has thousands of dinosaur footprints, but few bones

A bad lot

Mexico’s president has put El Chapo’s house up for sale

Asia

Kabul on edge

Blasts at Kabul airport make the Afghan evacuation grimmer still

Nation-gilding

The Afghan government was undone by its own corruption

Covid how much?

Australia is ending its zero-covid strategy

I want to break free

Singapore’s thirty-somethings are leaving home

Banyan

Angry Thais are trying to honk down their government

China

A pig of a problem

African swine fever is spreading rapidly in China, again

One more thought

Research centres promoting Xi Jinping’s ideas are proliferating

Chaguan

China would rather be feared than defied

Middle East & Africa

Not above the law

Kenya’s judges do their duty. A pity about its politicians

Death of a dictator

Chad’s former strongman, Hissène Habré, dies of covid-19

Willing hosts

Uganda receives its first flight of evacuees from Afghanistan

Retirement home for exiles

Why Afghan officials have washed up in the United Arab Emirates

Extra-virgin territory

The global ambitions of Lebanon’s hard-pressed olive-oil makers

Europe

What a time to be Olaf

The Social Democrats’ surge upends Germany’s election campaign

Saxon Switzerland

A visit to a stronghold of the AfD, Germany’s far-right party

Green list

France’s Greens prepare to pick a standard-bearer

Not yet out of the woods

Employment is growing strongly in the euro zone

Bigots anonymous

Bullies proclaiming “national patriarchy” harass Russian feminists

Charlemagne

The fiction that Turkey is a candidate to join the EU is unravelling

Britain

The special relationship

The Afghanistan debacle has weakened ties between Britain and America

No sex please, we’re skittish

OnlyFans U-turns on its porn ban

Pheasants revolt

Britain has an enormous number of pheasants

Bosses beware

Sharon Graham, Unite’s new leader, plots a radical overhaul

Not even past

How German bombs shape London’s gangs

Housing

Big British companies are entering the rental market

Light at the end of the tunnel

Crossrail, London’s new train line, is almost finished

Bagehot

What Tony taught Boris

International

New frontiers

Climate change will alter where many crops are grown

Special report

A misshapen square

Why the Arab world has an identity crisis

The resistance axis?

Iran scores a pyrrhic victory in its cold war with Saudi Arabia

No solution

Across the Arab world, Islamists’ brief stints in power have failed

A farewell to arms

The Palestinian cause no longer binds the Arab world

Talking heads

The Arab League has done little for its members in nearly 70 years

Sisi's reign

Egypt is again under military rule, but Sisi lacks Nasser’s appeal

Staying at home

Most Arab countries now focus on domestic concerns, not unity

Business

Gone today, here tomorrow

India’s government wants to monetise state-owned assets

The great successor’s second act

Apple has had a successful decade. The next one looks tougher

Jeff & Andy’s

Amazon’s department-store plans are less surprising than they appear

Bartleby

Why women need the office

Schumpeter

Flutter Entertainment, a betting behemoth, is on a roll

Finance & economics

The fight over the Fed

The new Powell doctrine

Disappearing incentives

Ending pandemic unemployment aid has not yielded extra jobs—yet

Bright SPARC

Out of Bill Ackman’s SPAC woes comes innovation

Homegrown fare

Russia cultivates alternatives to Western financial firms

Buttonwood

Trading in Japanese government bonds is drying up. Does that matter?

Free exchange

Xi Jinping’s talk of “common prosperity” spooks the prosperous

Schools brief

Biology brief

On the origin of “species”

Science & technology

Life, the universe and everything

Physics seeks the future

Books & arts

Covid and the world economy

Adam Tooze’s new book documents the economic impact of the pandemic

Sad little men

Britain’s private schools are lambasted in Richard Beard’s book

Fireworks and feminism

The first full retrospective of Judy Chicago’s career

Economic & financial indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

The font’s the thing

How data detectives spotted fake numbers in a widely cited paper

Obituary

Nobody but him