Leaders
A giant departs
The mess Merkel leaves behind
The successor to Germany’s much-admired chancellor will face big unresolved problems
Resurfacing
America is at last getting serious about countering China in Asia
But strengthening military alliances is not enough
Gas puzzlers
Natural-gas shortages threaten governments’ green goals
The energy transition must be better managed or environmentalism will become unpopular
Bail-outs and bedlam
Evergrande’s crisis highlights China’s shortcomings
Can “common prosperity” lead to financial stability in China?
The World Bank and China
Why the head of the IMF should resign
A scandal over data and China has undermined her credibility
Letters
On war, Joe Biden, Pakistan, abortion, social media, Aristotle, The global normalcy index, Rembrandt, holidays
Letters to the editor
Briefing
The new geopolitics of Asia
AUKUS reshapes the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific
A major submarine deal underscores how the new theatre for great-power competition is maritime
Europe
Hunting for the Merkel middle
German candidates fight to woo moderate voters
The conjuror in the Kremlin
How Russia’s election was fixed
Britain
Energy prices
Britain’s gas market is broken
Baron net
Debrett’s goes digital
Yellow Tories
Liberal Democrats are courting Conservative voters
The Hong Kongers
Britain’s newest immigrant group is unlike any that came before
Middle East & Africa
Not so black and white
Unpicking inequality in South Africa
Sum of a preacher man
Nigerian megachurches practise the prosperity they preach
Bye-bye, Bouteflika
Algeria’s ex-president is dead, but his regime lives on
Power politics
The tangled diplomacy of Lebanon’s energy crisis
United States
Build, baby, build
California ends single-family zoning
Ahead of the science
Biden’s booster plan has created confusion and concern
Lexington
Chuck Schumer’s modest leadership
The Americas
Fishing for compliments
Chilean salmon take a vigorous leap towards sustainability
Medieval mapping
A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
Asia
Going round in circles
Japan readies itself for an unpredictable ballot
Room for improvement
Love hotels are blossoming in India
Duterte harried
The International Criminal Court takes on Rodrigo Duterte
China
Black, white and red all over
In the West, China holds growing sway over Chinese-language media
Low-hanging fruit
China pledges to stop financing coal plants abroad
International
Northern exposure
Measures to prevent the spread of covid-19 have also fended off flu
Special report
Germany
After Merkel
The public sector
Germany’s urgent need for greater public investment
The car industry
A troubled road lies ahead for German carmakers
The demographic challenge
Parts of Germany are desperate for more people
The European dilemma
The European Union will badly miss Angela Merkel
Merkelkinder
The attitudes of Germany’s young
Foreign and security policy
The world needs a more active Germany
The future
Germany needs a reforming government
Business
Neutral but not idle
IMEC offers neutral ground amid chip rivalries
Aftershock
Two new shocks for American shopping
Deutschland AG
The revival of Berlin Inc
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
Universal Music is a hit
New civility
Wave goodbye to the handshake?
Schumpeter
Peter Thiel, scourge of Silicon Valley
Finance & economics
Boiling over
Natural-gas prices are spiking around the world
Wiping America’s eye
China throws a wrench into a transpacific trade pact
China’s property woes
What are the systemic risks of an Evergrande collapse?
The new rent-seekers
Beware the backlash as financiers muscle into rental property
A mountain but not a volcano
How threatening are the high levels of corporate debt?
Science & technology
The future of warfare
Tomorrow’s soldiers will have their reality augmented
The evolution of fruit
Why some fruits ripen on the branch
The comforts of religion
Religious belief really does seem to draw the sting of poverty
Culture
Reason and its discontents
Steven Pinker’s new defence of reason is impassioned but flawed
What lies beneath
The lost rivers and forgotten history of London
Justice on screen
A new book explores the curious origins of “12 Angry Men”
Dystopian fiction
A father and son take on the world in Richard Powers’s new novel
Contemporary art
A bold artist’s work is at once high-tech and primeval
Economic & financial indicators
Graphic detail
To the ends of the Earth
Genes reveal how and when humans reached remote corners of Pacific
Obituary
Invent or bust