Marijuana is appearing in a growing array of products A hundred years ago, Coca Cola contained cocaine and was held up as a cure for impotence, headaches and morphine addiction. The hard narcotics are long gone, but folk are aflutter at the possibility that the fizzy drink might one day contain cannabis. For it emerged this week that Coca-Cola, the company, is taking a close look at the cannabis..
Donald Trump announces another wave of tariffs. China retaliates Another week, a further ratcheting up of trade tensions between America and China. On September 17th President Donald Trump announced that he had approved another wave of tariffs on Chinese imports. From September 24th, imports of products which in 2017 were worth as much as $189bn, including furniture, computers and car parts, wil..
A book excerpt and interview with David Runciman, author of "How Democracy Ends" History provides uncomfortable lessons. Among them is that systems of governance are not immortal and that democracies can devolve into autocracy. As institutions decay and social norms fray, democratic processes and practices are prone to apathy, demagoguery and disintegration. One scholar ringing the loudest alarm..
Success turned liberals into a complacent elite. They need to rekindle their desire for radicalism Liberalism made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedo..
Americans, probably President Donald Trump reckons foreigners will pay the cost of the $200bn in tariffs he plans on Chinese goods. Others disagree, claiming that tariffs will bite into budgets at home. Duties are payable by importers, but the question of who bears their burden is more complicated. Foreigners can end up paying for tariffs if the prices they charge slump in response. For example,..
Their armies of content moderators are expanding Every other Tuesday at Facebook, and every Friday at YouTube, executives convene to debate the latest problems with hate speech, misinformation and other disturbing content on their platforms, and decide what should be removed or left alone. In San Bruno, Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's boss, personally oversees the exercise. In Menlo Park, lower-level ..
Banks are safer, but too much o what has gone wrong since 2008 could happen again When historians gaze back at the early 21st century, they will identify two seismic shocks. The first was the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the second the global financial crisis, which boiled over ten years ago this month with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. September 11th led to wars, Lehman's bankru..
Great success has brought high costs and structural change The garage in which Hewlett-Packard was started in 1939 is now a private museum - a modest monument to the cut-price creativity and bare-knuckle entrepreneurship that made Silicon Valley famous. Drive south from Palo Alto through 20 minutes of inevitable traffic to Sunnyvale and you will find a landmark of a different kind. Nothing of te..
Its primacy as a technology hub is on the wane. That is cause for concern "Like Florence in the Renaissance." That is a common description of what it is like to live in Silicon Valley. America's technology capital has an outsize influence on the world's economy, stockmarkets and culture. This small portion of land running from San Jose to San Francisco is home to three of the world's five most v..
But China may block attempts to refer Burmese army commanders to the International Criminal Court A year on from the start of the assault by Myanmar's army on the Muslim Rohingya of Rakhine state, the UN human-rights council has finally issued its verdict. It is as damning as it is comprehensive. It is unequivocal about the fact there is fully enough evidence to try Burmese army commanders for t..
An exodus of Korean-Chinese has changed them Tall jars filled with rice beer await customers by the riverside in Yanji, a city in north-eastern China close to the border with North Korea. Servers in aprons fork out spicy salads from rows of red plastic bowls. Atop a nearby trestle table a butcher has laid out three skinned dogs. The early-morning market exudes the distinctive character of Yanbia..
The EPA is dedicated to unpicking Obama-era policies, even those that are not actually in force Once upon a time, back when America was great, coal was king. Then came Barack Obama. He laid the once-mighty industry low through onerous regulation, especially the hated Clean Power Plan (CPP). On August 21st, President Donald Trump, before an appreciative crowd in Charleston, West Virginia, persona..
In a flawed and complex world, we must err on the side of life, writes Emilie Yerby There is so much we get wrong in the provision of health and care services. Everyone has a story: of misdiagnosis, of receiving the wrong treatment, of hopeless gaps in communication or care. Sometimes such things happen through deliberate cruelty or neglect, but more often through ordinary human fallibility, and..
Canada's example has lessons for other countries, says Steven Fletcher What it means to be alive versus living a full life are not abstract thought exercises to me. In 1996, at the age of 23, I became a quadriplegic. As a recent engineering graduate from the University of Manitoba, driving to work at a mining job, I hit a moose with my car. In an instant I was completely paralyzed from the neck ..
Increased competition between suppliers means buyers have the upper hand Only a few months ago, Canadians were earnestly debating whether or not the country's Liberal administration was right to go ahead with executing a $12bn contract to deliver armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The government said it would, but acknowledged its critics' concerns by agreeing to adopt a version of an internatio..