The Economist Asia Edition April 9, 2022

Politics Having failed to take Kyiv, Russian troops retreated, leaving behind evidence of war crimes. In one town, Bucha, dozens of corpses were found. Some had had their hands tied behind their backs before being shot. Survivors described the cold-blooded murder of Ukrainian men suspected of resisting the invasion. Ukrainian officials said that the bodies of at least 410 civilians, including children, had been found in areas around the capital. The Kremlin said the evidence of atrocities was faked by the Ukrainian government. Russian forces are now regrouping in eastern Ukraine, perhaps hoping to seize all of Donbas. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, urged the UN Security Council to remove Russia as a member. He also called for a tribunal for the Russians who gave the orders to commit atrocities. Russia…

WHEN HE WAS first elected president of France in 2017, Emmanuel Macron immediately became a standard-bearer for radical centrism. He was young, clever and eminently reasonable. Also, it was a time of panic for liberals. Britain had voted the previous year to leave the European Union. America had just elected Donald Trump. Across Europe populists were climbing in the polls, even in sober places like Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The far left were in power in Greece. Italy’s Northern League would soon enter government as half of an all-populist coalition that flirted with leaving the euro and rebuffed migrants rescued in the Mediterranean. All around the rich world politicians who promised to raise walls, ignore experts and turn back the clock to an imaginary golden age were in the ascendant.…

EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN war crimes litters Ukraine, but however much Ukrainians and some Russians wish differently, no one—least of all Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president—is likely to spend a single day in prison for them. Nonetheless, it is important that the atrocities are investigated. This is partly to commemorate those who were tortured, raped and murdered. It is also to expose the Kremlin’s lies to a world too inclined to let them pass. And public indictments of Russian troops would serve as a warning that may help deter the next round of killing. Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said on April 3rd that 410 civilians had been killed around Kyiv. Many more bodies will be found. The Economist saw the corpse of the mayor of Motyzhyn, a suburb, blindfolded and shot, apparently by Russian…

JUST A YEAR ago the world’s economists were celebrating a rapid rebound from recession. Now they are worrying that the next downturn could be looming. In America the Federal Reserve is preparing to do battle with high inflation by raising interest rates sharply and shrinking its balance-sheet. In Europe expensive energy is sapping consumers of spending power and making factories costlier to run. And in China an outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has led the authorities to impose the strictest lockdowns since the start of the pandemic. It is a gloomy combination for global growth, and the outlook is darkening. Several economies could even suffer recessions, though at different times depending on the obstacles they face. The economy in the United States is overheating. The annual rate…

HUNGARY’S WAY of life is under attack, if you believe the ruling party. A Jewish billionaire plots to flood the country with a million Muslims. Perverts want to teach its children sexual deviance. The opposition are spoiling for war with Russia. The only way to stay safe is to back Viktor Orban, the prime minister. On April 3rd his party, Fidesz, won roughly half the vote and, thanks to gerrymandering, two-thirds of seats in parliament (see Europe section). Mr Orban called it a triumph for “our brand of Christian democratic, conservative, patriotic politics”. It was actually a victory for the paranoid style. The threats the regime describes are largely imaginary. Hungarians are free to follow their traditions if they choose. George Soros has no power over their borders. There is…

FIFTEEN YEARS ago Steve Jobs announced three new products: a music player, a mobile phone and an internet communicator. As Apple’s then-boss gave his presentation, his audience slowly realised that the three products were in fact a single gadget: the iPhone. Cue applause, cue Apple’s renaissance, and cue a new era in technology as the smartphone overtook the desktop PC as the centre of personal computing. Today even Mr Jobs might be surprised by how many uses have been found for his versatile device. The small screen has come to handle banking, networking, map-reading, gaming and much more. Apple and other phonemakers have been enriched not only by hardware sales (worth $530bn last year) but by controlling what happens on the platform, from app stores (which raked in $135bn) to…