Blog Profile / Banyan
| URL : | http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | News | |
| Posts on Regator: | 496 | |
| Posts / Week: | 4.6 | |
| Archived Since: | April 18, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
A killing in Karachi
THE police in Karachi say they still have an open mind about the murder, late on May 18th, of Zohra Shahid Hussain, a senior politician with the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Movement for Justice. The three young men on a motorcycle who attacked her outside her home may have been robbers, they say. Show More Summary
The man with a plan
Shinzo Abe's plans for structural reform are welcome. But in a region sensitive to Japanese nationalism, revitalising Japan's military will demand delicacy, say our correspondents
Raring to go
Soon India will have a fifth of the world's working-age population. It needs to make 100m new, good jobs fast, or it risks squandering a once-in-a-generation demographic advantage
Ebb and flow
THE world’s most densely populated country of any size also happens to be home to the world’s fastest-growing city. By the middle of the 21st century, Bangladesh, whose landmass could be fit 58 times into Brazil’s, will be home to 195m people—that is, Brazil’s population today. Show More Summary
An emphatic win
AS POWER is peacefully handed from one democratically elected government to another for the first time in Pakistan's history, our correspondents ask what the results mean for the future of the country
Chez Sharif
IT IS still not official, but everybody knows Nawaz Sharif is set to become Pakistan’s next prime minister. Foreign leaders have dialled in congratulations. Pakistan’s bigwigs sniffing for jobs queue at his residence in Lahore. Three days ago everyone you met on the street was planning to vote for Imran Khan. Show More Summary
Third time lucky?
THROUGH the night in Lahore, and early in the morning of May 12 th, cars raced, honked and revved their engines, young men sprawled out of windows to wave flags and mobs of happy Punjabis shouted: “Lion!”, the party symbol of their successful leader. Show More Summary
Bloodied, not beaten
IT WAS a television image that many feared seeing in an election campaign beset by terrorist attacks. A prominent party leader, aspiring to be prime minister,was shown bloodied, unconscious and being carried from a rally. Late on May...Show More Summary
Violence on the streets
THE ARMY was still counting the dead from Bangladesh’s biggest industrial disaster, when a massacre of hardline Islamic demonstrators unfolded in the early hours of May 6 th. It took place in the commercial district of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. Show More Summary
A tawdry victory
IT’S more of the same in Malaysia as the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) has been re-elected in the country’s 13 th general election. Voting on May 5 th, with a record turnout of 80%, gave the BN a majority of seats in parliament, 133 out of 222, probably a slightly bigger margin of victory than many had predicted. Show More Summary
Kicked in the teeth
I AM in Malaysia for the election on May 5th, and up here in the north of the country quite a lot of the political to-and-fro is about political Islam. The opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (better known as PAS) is strong up here...Show More Summary
Striving for a meritocracy
ON MAY 5th Malaysia goes to the polls to elect its next government. For the first time since 1957, the ruling coalition stands a real chance of losing
The Penang effect
THE story of Lim Guan Eng, chief minister of the Malaysian state of Penang, tells much about how Malaysian politics has been transformed in recent years. Mr Lim heads the Democratic Action Party or DAP, a member of the three-party opposition coalition hoping to wrest power from the ruling Barisan Nasional in a general election on May 5th. Show More Summary
High stakes
SO FAR it is a matter of a few military tents, a handful of shivering soldiers and a disagreement over a remote and never-demarcated line in the Himalayas. Yet a lengthening stand-off between Chinese and Indian soldiers in a disputed...Show More Summary
The new collapsing building
IT LOOKS like the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh’s history. Thirty-six hours after an eight-storey building collapsed in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, dead bodies kept emerging from a pile of concrete rubble that was, until Wednesday morning, a complex that included a shopping centre and six garment factories. Show More Summary
Just a glimmer of anger
SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO, the president of Indonesia, was in Singapore on Monday for the regular Singapore-Indonesia “leaders’ retreat”, a chance for a more relaxed exchange of views between the premiers of the biggest South-East Asian country and one of the smallest. Show More Summary
When praying is not enough
AN IMPORTANT new report on the violence last year in Rakhine state in western Myanmar by Human Rights Watch has particular resonance for this blog. Two days last October in Mrauk-u in Rakhine marked for me a low point in a long career in journalism. Show More Summary
The customer is sometimes wrong
WILDLIFE poaching is soaring. If bans and legal trading efforts do not stop it, the final hope for animals threatened with extinction may lie with consumers
Musharraf interrupted
THE arrest of General Pervez Musharraf on April 19th, in Islamabad, should bring home at last to Pakistan’s former leader that he no longer has the clout to ride roughshod over the country’s battered institutions. As his delusions—that...Show More Summary
Stuck in the middle
AS REPORTERS gather in Seoul to await the latest hostile missive (or missile) from the North, Western governments have continued to press China to do more to rein in their putative ally. Like a pit pull chained in the front yard, North Korea does keep the neighbours on edge. Show More Summary