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News analysis
Middle East & Africa

Saudi Arabia has put strict limits on this year’s haj

The kingdom wants to avoid turning the pilgrimage into a “super-spreader event”

Related

The end of the Arab world’s oil age is nigh

International

Why governments are paying people to go on holiday

Is this the best way for taxpayers to prop up tourist hotspots?

Highlights
1843

Battered but still standing: how the NHS coped with covid-19

For three months, 1843 followed doctors, nurses and paramedics in London as they fought the most devastating pandemic for a century. This is their story

Finance & economics

Unusually, copper and gold prices are rising in tandem

An uncertain and uneven recovery explains their skyward leap

From our columnists
Daily chart

The pandemic is widening educational inequality

For many low-income students, online courses are a poor substitute for in-person learning

Moreover
Books & arts

“Catch-22” and the caprices of bureaucracy

Joseph Heller’s comic war novel resonates anew during the pandemic

The Economist’s coverage of the coronavirus

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Podcasts

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

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In context: Space exploration

Special report: The Midwest

A region with outsized punch

America’s Midwest matters out of proportion to its size, says Adam Roberts

The urban prairie

For the region to prosper, its bigger cities must flourish

Separate, downtrodden

The region has particular problems with segregation and policing

America’s Mittelstand

Advanced manufacturing can thrive, as Grand Rapids shows

From rustbelt to brainbelt

How higher education can drive prosperity

Economist Films

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

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