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These are hard times for many local governments in China. Slowing economic growth and a teetering property market make it hard for them to service their massive debts. Some even [...]

Homosexuality in Uganda has been punishable by life imprisonment since colonial Britain outlawed it in 1950. But today's lawmakers have deemed that too lenient. A new law signed on May [...]

Sausages are sizzling on open grills; a bass beat is pumping from a nearby float. 'A violent desire for happiness' reads a giant red banner. The mood in Paris is [...]

OVER THE past week protests in France against the government's pension reforms have intensified. On March 24th, after a mob set fire to the façade of Bordeaux's town hall, Emmanuel [...]

Nicaragua's authoritarian regime has long jailed and mistreated its opponents. So it appeared to be a cause for celebration when, on February 9th, 222 political prisoners were taken from cells [...]

Days after winning Brazil's presidential election in October last year, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stood on a stage with tears streaming down his face. Lula, as he is known, [...]

The French government has decided to go ahead with a controversial pension reform that looks set to divide the country and prompt social unrest. On January 10th Elisabeth Borne, the [...]

Few aspects of life are as sensitive as the leaving of it. Such is the taboo about death and how to manage it in many parts of Europe that France [...]

A citizens' assembly debates legalising assisted dying F EW ASPECTS of life are as sensitive as the leaving of it. Such is the taboo about death and how to manage [...]

Will Joko Widodo approve an appalling new penal code? T HE NEW criminal code that Indonesia's parliament passed on December 6 {+th} is billed by the administration of President Joko [...]

Migrant flows are changing. A new declaration may help manage them T HE DEATHS last month of 53 migrants from asphyxiation in a trailer outside San Antonio in Texas were [...]

The new president is clamping down on women's freedoms A TRIP TO the beauty salon for a manicure followed by a lift home does not usually constitute an act of [...]

China is clamping down on waste N O BANQUET IN China is complete without the host loudly calling for more food, even when it is clear that no one can [...]

A BIG INFLUX of migrants in 2015 sparked a political crisis within the European Union. Now a rogue regime on its border is trying to engineer another one. On November [...]

A peaceful protest for change The world's second-biggest Catholic country decriminalises abortion THE RULING was clear. On September 7th Mexico's Supreme Court unanimously voted to decriminalise abortion. The ten judges [...]

All for affirmative action The country secures its unlikely place as a global leader in trans rights PAMELA ROCCHI was born a boy, but felt from an early age she [...]

A new challenge to France's deep reluctance to talk about race WHEN GROWING up in La Courneuve, on the unfashionable fringes of Paris, Rokhaya Diallo says she 'didn't feel black'. [...]

FRANCISCO, AN ACCOUNTANT, sips coffee in a café as he explains why he would move to Punta del Este, Uruguay's most famous beach resort, from his native Argentina. 'I can't [...]

President Xi does not approve TEARING DOWN crosses from church spires may not sound the best way to win a promotion. But in Xi Jinping's China, it might do the [...]

PLOT TWISTS in Mexico's underworld happen quickly. In Netflix narco-dramas, Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán, the former boss of the Sinaloa drug gang, is the country's chief mobster. In real life [...]

HE WAS DEVOUT as a teenager and irreverent as an adult, but always kind, and bequeathed his fortune to charity. She was large, loud, and in her own words ugly [...]

Mixed messages MARIANGELA's eyes fill with tears as she talks about her parents in Venezuela. A pre-school teacher, she arrived in Chile three months ago with her husband and two [...]

A fresh round of arrests takes relations with the European Union to a new low 'WE HAVE no concern about what the EU might say, whether the EU accepts us [...]

Erdogan tries to escape Ataturk's shadow Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems bent on strengthening the influence of Islam 'A NEW Turkey' was the promise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who became its [...]

The government is right to reform the 'hukou' system, but it needs to be braver CHINA'S future is now firmly urban. Already around 54% of its people live in cities--and [...]

Only outsiders can break Venezuela's deadlock IN DECREEING that the Carnival holiday would last an extra two days this year, Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, seemed to have hit on a [...]

Africa's most-populous country joins the anti-gay brigade GOODLUCK JONATHAN, Nigeria's president, signed a bill on January 13th that criminalises same-sex relationships, arguing that the new law is in line with [...]

A spy casts a shadow on the president WHY were up to ten police patrol cars and dozens of officers providing round-the-clock protection at a house belonging to a convicted [...]

David Cameron in the Tamil north A summit is not the public-relations success the president hoped for 'HAS the circus left town? Can I please return to Colombo now?' asked [...]

A terrible catastrophe in the Philippines also wreaks political and diplomatic damage AS EACH day passes the suffering and devastation wreaked on the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan on November 8th [...]

Nicolás Maduro continues Hugo Chávez's campaign against the media EVERYWHERE he looks nowadays, Nicolás Maduro sees conspiracies. At least a dozen plots to assassinate him have allegedly been detected since [...]

The government drags its feet over compensating pensioners for inflation CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ presumably hoped that old people in Argentina would be delighted by her announcement on January 28th that public-pension [...]

One of the victims of a shameful law Russian civil society is outraged by a law that bans Russian orphans from being adopted by American families STANDING outside the Kremlin, [...]

Could you please put that thing down? Hopes grow for an end to a bloody and long-running insurgency AFTER 16 years of on-and-off negotiations, the Philippines government and the main [...]

The government unleashes the tax agency against its opponents ARGENTINA has few advocates of freedom of speech more vocal than its president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. 'Anyone can say whatever [...]

Corona loses his shine The president's anti-corruption campaign rolls on THE government of President Benigno Aquino is celebrating the removal of what it considers a big obstacle to its campaign [...]

Coming out in memory of Daniel Zamudio A sad milestone in the battle for tolerance ON March 3rd a young gay man, Daniel Zamudio, was beaten to a pulp in [...]

The Senate debates a small measure to help disarm an economic time bomb AFTER spending much of her political capital fighting corruption, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's president, has had to pick [...]

Curve balls from a left-hander The president-fan reaps a sporting harvest HUGO CHÁVEZ loved baseball long before he embraced socialism. His boyhood idol was Néstor Isaías Chávez, a Venezuelan player [...]

Rafael Correa has backed down in his attempt to bankrupt a newspaper. But his assault on media freedom continues to set a worrying example HIS country rarely attracts much international [...]

Will Makled sing again? Hugo Chávez seems unperturbed by claims of official complicity in crime OPPONENTS of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, are eagerly awaiting the trial of Walid Makled, a [...]

They just want a friendly chat Roma in the Czech provinces are the butt of racism--and respond violently THE gritty small towns of the Sluknov foothills in northern Bohemia are [...]

Unpalatial surroundings The government's housing plan faces an uphill battle IN THE past year the population of Haiti's tent cities has fallen from over 1m to less than 600,000. Sadly, [...]

The FARC is not finished yet AS DEFENCE minister for almost three years under President Álvaro Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos led the crackdown on the guerrillas of the FARC. Their [...]

Evo Morales tangles with the taxi drivers REAL power in Bolivia often seems to lie with the transportistas, the owner-drivers of buses and taxis who ferry people and goods around [...]

Remembering the victims Remembering the victims The drugs trade has spread corruption and violence across Mexico. Can the police ever catch up with them? THE drugs business, as Miguel tells [...]

Freeing fat-cat felons creates moral hazard, Koreans fear ON AUGUST 15th Korea celebrates its liberation from brutal Japanese rule. For South Koreans languishing in prison it is an especially joyful [...]

An ageing autocrat stifles opposition as the European Union shuts its eyes THE government of Tunisia must do more to uphold human rights and the rule of law and to [...]

It may have come late, but the president's emergency plan to save the country's fifth-biggest city from carnage and crime looks promising WHEN Arturo Valenzuela addressed Felipe Calderón at a [...]

Sorry--make that 'the armies of compassion initiative' GEORGE BUSH is nothing if not dogged. Witness his latest effort to help so-called 'faith-based organisations' carry out social-welfare programmes with taxpayers' money. [...]