The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance

The Economist’s coverage of the coronavirus

Read now

The Economist today

News analysis
Britain

Boris Johnson is in intensive care with covid-19

The British constitution will be tested by his absence

Related

The Economist’s coronavirus tracker and story hub

Asia

Australia tries to send cruise ships packing for fear of covid-19

But on several the crew are too sick to sail away

Highlights
Finance and economics

Emerging-market lockdowns match rich-world ones. The handouts do not

Few emerging-economy governments can afford a generous fiscal response

United States

The Supreme Court blocks more absentee voting in Wisconsin

The move should give Republicans a handy advantage

From our columnists
Finance and economics

Free exchange: What China’s interest-rate muddle says about its financial system

Ask a Chinese economist what the benchmark rate is, and brace yourself for an avalanche of numbers

Daily chart

China’s data reveal a puzzling link between covid-19 cases and political events

Erratic infection numbers raise questions about the accuracy of the country’s statistics

Moreover
Middle East and Africa

A chocolate factory in a conflict zone

Dominique Persoone, a bad boy chocolatier, hopes to save gorillas

Weekly edition

A grim calculus: The stark choices between life, death and the economy

April 4th 2020
The Economist cover image for the April 4th 2020 edition
Read full edition

Readers’ favourites

Briefing

The hard choices covid policymakers face

Leaders

Bail-outs are inevitable—and toxic

Books and arts

America won the cold war. What went wrong?

Graphic detail

Covid-19’s death toll appears higher than official figures suggest

Measuring the total number of deaths tells a grimmer tale

Podcasts

Sound reasoning on current affairs, business and finance, science and technology, and global issues.

Listen now

In context: Technology firms in the crisis

Briefing

Technology startups are headed for a fall

The consequences will not all be bad

Leaders

Big tech’s covid-19 opportunity

Tech giants are thriving in the corona crisis. They should seize the moment to detoxify their relationship with society

Business

How to manage a business without a headquarters

Business

Huawei reports resilient results

Special report: Africa

Africa is changing so rapidly, it is becoming hard to ignore

Rapid economic and social change will give the continent a bigger role in world affairs, says Jonathan Rosenthal

Africa’s population will double by 2050

But the education of more African girls means it might peak sooner than most people expect

Migration is helping Africa in many ways

It is good for development and democracy, as well as helping people improve their lives

Parts of Africa will remain unstable for decades

The lack of education and jobs is a major cause

African countries must get smarter with their agriculture

Climate change and continued rural poverty present big challenges

Read full report

Economist Films

Authoritative insight on news, politics, business, finance, science, technology and the connections between them.

Watch now

The world at your fingertips.

Subscribe for unlimited access to world-leading reporting and analysis.

Subscriber-only benefits

  • Full access to all Economist digital products
  • Read and listen offline on iOS and Android
  • Subscribers-only daily briefing newsletter
  • The weekly edition, in print, digital and audio
View subscription options