Opinion

  It’s been exactly two months since Britain voted to quit the European Union. Since then, the silence on how the divorce proceedings will be conducted has been deafening. It’s an impasse that helps neither side and, once Europe’s August holiday season is over and the region’s politicians are back at their desks, there’s a risk that things could turn …

  The annual performance review seems to be on its way out at U.S. corporations. Prominent companies have been ending the practice of numerically ranking employees as well. Sounds great! Performance reviews are a pain, right? If you think getting rid of them might betoken a kinder, gentler, mellower approach to human resources, though, you might want to check out …

Urjit Patel, the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has a hard act to follow. His predecessor and former boss at the central bank, Raghuram Rajan, was eminent at home and abroad, and set a high standard for talking truth to power — which could explain why he won’t be serving a second three-year term. Patel, Rajan’s quiet …

  Brazil may have pulled off the Olympics, but its economy is still in doldrums. And the political chaos is adding to the economic misery. The country is grappling with the worst recession in more than a century as the economy shrinks sharply. Brazil’s GDP has fallen by 5.4 % year-on-year. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) slashed …

  Yangon is suddenly a city of phablets. Nowhere in Asia, let alone Europe, have I seen so many supersized smartphones in public spaces, and with such egalitarian appeal: Pavement vendors selling early 20th century British guides to English grammar seem as transfixed by them as Yangon’s smart set playing Pokemon Go. For many in an isolated country, a 4G …

  Conor Sen There’s no real national debate when it comes to housing policy. Journalists and pundits on one side shout: “We need more development and density so cities will be affordable and livable.” For good measure they add: “People who don’t support more development and density are heartless and just defending their own property values.” The other side … …

  Major media outlets in France have recently decided not to publish the names and faces of terrorists so as not to glorify them and encourage copycats. On the surface, this might seem like reasonable self-imposed discretion in the interests of national security. But it’s actually self-censorship — and it’s dangerous. It reflects a subtly mistaken conception of why extremists …

  Imagine what could happen if Donald Trump hadn’t turned the presidential campaign into an argument over who founded IS or whether there should be ideological entrance tests for foreign visitors and immigrants. Then he and Hillary Clinton could have a rational debate over taxes, a serious topic on which they have clear differences. Trump wants to cut taxes massively, …

  The European Union says it wants clarity on whether U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is serious in her pledge that “Brexit means Brexit.” That clarity would be good for Britain as well as the rest of Europe, and there’s a simple way to get it: Extend the two-year deadline triggered by formal notification of the decision to leave the …

  Brazil has overcome the Olympics challenge in style, but now comes the bigger challenge: to sustain the benefits ensuing from the Games. Before the mega sporting event started, many were sceptical about the country’s ability to put up a good show. The worst recession facing the nation, shooting inflation, swelling unemployment and the political upheaval caused by impeachment of …