Helicopter money is back in the headlines amid speculation that Japan may turn in desperation to the final chapter of the handbook of unconventional monetary policy. But there’s an alternative to handing consumers a one-time payment in the hopes they’ll spend it: Give them a permanent wage hike instead. Milton Friedman’s thought experiment about whirlybirds dropping cash from the …

  Istanbul / AFP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday launched his most bitter attack yet on Turkey’s Western allies over the July 15 attempted putsch, accusing them of supporting both “terror” and the coup plotters who tried to unseat him. Erdogan, who blames the plot on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, also described the coup as a “scenario written …

  Tripoli / AFP More than 60,000 people have fled South Sudan since violence escalated in the oil-producing nation about four weeks ago, amid reports of gunmen killing civilians, looting villages and forcibly recruiting youths, the United Nations said. The number of refugees seeking shelter in Uganda has doubled in the past 10 days, with more than 52,000 arriving since …