Opinion

I am practical, and probably boring, about cars. I have never owned one that makes people on street corners and outdoor cafes stare at me. But recently I was ogled in a vehicle that wasn’t particularly flashy or expensive. I think people were gawking because the car I was test-driving, an ElectraMeccanica Solo, is delightful, unusual and impossible to figure ...

As countries around the world attempt to reopen their borders, officials have come up with an ever-changing list of labyrinthine polices to allow travel. A range of entry restrictions have been deployed, from home quarantines for vaccinated adults to spending up to three weeks in government-authorized facilities, with multiple tests along the way. The best strategy isn’t yet clear, but ...

It’s pretty unusual for a central banker in a consequential economy to get outflanked by politicians. That is the risk confronting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell when it comes to the pace of rising prices, with potentially significant implications for the American and global economies. The White House is shifting the way it talks about inflation, using plainer language that ...

Exactly 30 years ago, a looming balance of payments crisis finally convinced India’s leaders to dismantle its socialist economy, ushering in private enterprise and years of higher growth. Those pundits and policy makers hoping that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might use the country’s Covid-induced slump to launch similarly dramatic reforms, however, are likely to be disappointed. That’s not because Modi ...

Snap Inc is proving itself to be a cut above the rest. Its latest results show why. The social-media company reported second-quarter earnings that crushed Wall Street’s expectations. Revenue in the period surged 116% from a year earlier to $982 million, handily beating the Bloomberg consensus estimate of $847 million. Snap’s daily active users jumped by 23%, also ahead of ...

In the past, China Evergrande Group has always been able to wiggle out of trouble. In turbulent times, billionaire founder Hui Ka Yan would turn to his tycoon friends to prop up his stocks and bonds. The persistent support they’ve provided — buying up Evergrande debt — is why the developer is also Asia’s largest dollar junk bond issuer. Hui’s ...

London is in a precarious position when it comes to Covid-19. Remaining restrictions were recently lifted in the city along with the rest of the UK even as the highly infectious delta variant drives cases higher. London’s delta wave won’t be as bad as past outbreaks — hospitalisations and deaths remain low because of its high vaccination rate. But the ...

Things aren’t exactly settling down along the US border with Mexico, with the US Border Patrol reporting 178,416 apprehensions in the Southwest in June, its highest monthly total since early 2000. Emergency rules adopted early in the Covid-19 pandemic that allow for the immediate expulsion of most unauthorised border crossers and people who arrive at the border seeking asylum have ...

Pandemics don’t cause riots. They do, though, create the perfect conditions for turmoil in fragile societies that are already powder kegs of inequality and sky-high unemployment, and where coronavirus has inevitably hit the poor hardest. South Africa’s days of unrest this month, the worst violence since apartheid, were triggered by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma on contempt-of-court charges. ...

Salesforce.com Inc helped Zoom Video Communications Inc get off to a good start when it invested in the startup’s IPO roughly two years ago. But with the videoconferencing company now looming as a serious threat in cloud software, Salesforce may regret its initial support. Zoom announced an agreement to acquire cloud call-center software maker Five9 Inc for $14.7 billion in ...