A selection of essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, the role of big government in the time of covid-19, (10:20) assessing the havoc the pandemic is causing in emerging countries, (17:45).
In just a few weeks a virus a ten-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter has transformed Western democracies. States have shut down businesses and sealed people indoors. They have promised trillions of dollars to keep the economy on life support. If South Korea and Singapore are a guide, medical and electronic privacy are about to be cast aside. It is the most dramatic extension of state power since the second world war.
Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom, as well as high levels of social trust towards each other, which play an important role in determining life satisfaction.
Iran has been roiling with protests following the accidental downing of an airliner; what should Iranians and the wider world expect now? And we examine how Bogotá’s once-adored public-transport system went so wrong.
Boomers Daily 