The world this week

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s cover
Leaders


Going dark
The real problem with China’s economy
The country risks making some of the mistakes the Soviet Union did

Monster vehicles
What to do about America’s killer cars
The country’s roads are nearly twice as dangerous as the rich-world average. It doesn’t have to be that way

Red lines
The Labour government’s worrying lack of ambition in Europe
Sir Keir Starmer is trapped by the mindset of the post-Brexit years

AfDer Thuringia
How to deal with the hard-right threat in Germany
As extremists win more votes across Europe, forming moderate and effective governments is getting harder

Constitutional chaos
A make-or-break moment for Mexico
In America’s biggest trading partner the rule of law and democracy are under attack

Blocked and reported
As Brazil bans Elon Musk’s X, who will speak up for free speech?
Free expression has become a culture war, and those who should defend it are staying quiet

Letters

On exposure to the sun, education, Sudan, Robert Kennedy, growing up, cold-war diplomacy
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


The American election
Kamala Harris has good vibes. Time for some good policies
Artificial intelligence and society
Large language models will upend human rituals
Briefing


Lowering the veil
The Chinese authorities are concealing the state of the economy
But the Communist Party’s internal information systems may also be flawed
Asia


On the road to Mandalay
Myanmar’s military junta is battered by Chinese-backed forces
Is the past really past?
Could Japan and South Korea finally become friends?
Scary stuff sells
Why Indonesia’s horror films are booming
Amateur radio and ammo
Taiwan is trying to learn from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine
Banyan
Welcome to India, where the streets have four names
China


Yearning to think freely
Liberalism is far from dead in China
Not for the religious or lazy
How to get kicked out of China’s Communist Party
United States


Too much of a good thing
Americans’ love affair with big cars is killing them
Swing states
The Harris campaign hopes North Carolina will finally deliver
Back in black
The Onion’s cutting edge: paper
“Comrade Kamala”
The Trump campaign fires a barrage of negative advertisements
Nile-ism
America’s endless summers are good for mosquitoes, too
Campaign calculus
Where is Kamala Harris’s convention bounce?
Lexington
Why Kamala Harris has the advantage in debating Donald Trump

Middle East & Africa


Beyond Belt and Road
China’s relationship with Africa is growing murkier
Chilling prospects
How Africans can stay cool as the climate warms
Israel and Turkey’s war of words
The relationship between Israel and Turkey is at breaking point
Shoving a central banker aside
The fall of Libya’s central banker triggers a new struggle
Israel’s hostages
The one thing Israelis agree on: rescuing the hostages
The Americas


Mexican politics
Claudia Sheinbaum will inherit a poisoned chalice in Mexico
Hamstringing justice
Electing top judges has been a disaster in Bolivia
X is banned in Brazil
The all-powerful judge taking on Elon Musk
Europe


Of firewalls and fragmentation
Germany’s party system is coming under unprecedented strain
Taking the war to the invaders
American restrictions on hitting Russia are hurting Ukraine
No more blind eyes
Abuse by priests in Italy can no longer be tolerated by the Vatican
Succulent grapes, sometimes sour
The obstacles faced by Turkey’s winemakers
The awkward gas pipe
The West still needs Russian gas that comes through Ukraine
Charlemagne
Europe must beware the temptations of technocracy
Britain


Time to get closer
What’s next for Britain and the EU?
Hard power
Britain and the EU find it easier to talk about guns than butter
Labour’s Israel policy
Britain’s ban on arms sales to Israel mixes politics and legalism
Roll call
English kids are back in school. What about the teachers?
Public inquiries
A tardy, scathing report on the Grenfell Tower fire in London
Facial awareness
Police use of facial recognition in Britain is spreading
Bagehot
Why are Remainers so weak in post-Brexit Britain?
International


Signal boost
How encrypted messaging apps conquered the world
Business


Charging forward
Clean energy’s next trillion-dollar business
Broadly successful
How Broadcom quietly became a $700bn powerhouse
Flat-packing a punch
Can IKEA disrupt the furniture business again?
No quick fix
Closing factories will not be enough to save Volkswagen
New Silk Roads
Commercial ties between the Gulf and Asia are deepening
Bartleby
The mystery of the cover letter
Schumpeter
Has Warren Buffett lost his touch?
Finance & economics


Reds flag
China is suffering from a crisis of confidence
The leaves are turning
As stock prices fall, investors prepare for an autumn chill
Golden moment
Will interest-rate cuts turbocharge oil prices?
Long time coming
American office delinquencies are shooting up
Buttonwood
Has social media broken the stockmarket?
Trump v Harris
America has a huge deficit. Which candidate would make it worse?
Free exchange
Why Oasis fans should welcome price-gouging
Science & technology


Cold comfort
New tech can make air-conditioning less harmful to the planet
Too darn hot
Fewer babies are born in the months following hot days
Where no man has gone since 1972
Billionaire space travel heads for a new frontier
Waste management
The noisome economics of dung beetles
Culture


The devil watches Prada
How fashion conquered television
Identity politics
Technology and Hindu nationalism have transformed India
It’s all biology
The Oxford debate where evolution triumphed over creationism
Frenemies with benefits
Despots and oligarchs have many means to meddle in American politics
Speculative fiction
A gripping new novel about AI captures what it means to be human
A maestro, due an encore
Arnold Schoenberg was one of classical music’s most important rebels
The Economist reads


The Economist reads
What to read about the British economy
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary


How to mend a cathedral
Simon Verity believed in working the medieval way