The Economist Asia Edition July 16, 2022

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country after huge crowds stormed the presidential complex. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister and Mr Rajapaksa’s ally, took over as acting president. The protesters, who are furious about costly food, fuel shortages and their country’s economic collapse, were not appeased. A state of emergency was declared. Crowds thronged the streets of Tokyo to mourn Abe Shinzo, a Japanese former prime minister, who was murdered with a home-made gun on July 8th while campaigning for an upper-house election. The assassin reportedly held a grudge against the Unification Church, from which Mr Abe had sometimes received support. The election went ahead, and Mr Abe’s party won a large majority. Mr Abe had beefed up Japan’s defences to counter rising Chinese assertiveness. Pacific discord The Pacific…

Twitter lodged a lawsuit against Elon Musk that seeks to force him to complete his takeover of the company for $44bn. Mr Musk has broken off the deal, accusing Twitter of breaching their agreement by not disclosing the number of fake and spam accounts on its platform, which he insists is much higher than the company’s estimate of 5%. In its suit Twitter described Mr Musk’s complaints as “imaginary conditions”, called his actions a mark of “disdain” and said that his “exit strategy is a model of hypocrisy”. It has asked a court in Delaware to hold a hearing in September. America’s annual inflation rate as measured by the consumer-price index leapt to 9.1% in June from 8.6% in May. The jump was bigger than had been expected by most…

EVERY PRESIDENT yearns to be historic—but not historic like Joe Biden. At this point in his presidency Mr Biden’s singular achievement is to have the lowest approval rating of any incumbent since the 1950s. Even among Democrats, 67% think the economy is doing poorly, 78% think the country is heading in the wrong direction and 64% want another presidential candidate on the ticket in 2024. Mr Biden took office promising to heal the soul of the nation. Eighteen months later he has little to show for his efforts. Inflation has sapped goodwill. The White House’s attempts to mobilise the state, including the theory-of-everything bill known as Build Back Better, have stalled in Congress. Democrats are bracing themselves for heavy losses in mid-term elections in November, which would doom most of…

IF YOU HAVE spent the past few days being sizzled alive on a Mediterranean beach or slow-roasted on the streets of Berlin, London or Rome amid a heatwave, cold weather may be the last thing on your mind. But make no mistake, winter is coming, and it promises to be brutal and divisive because of an energy crisis that is rapidly worsening as Vladimir Putin strangles supplies of Russian gas. Several calamities in the past decade have come close to ripping Europe apart, including the euro crisis in the early 2010s and the migrant crisis in 2015. The winter energy shock of 2022 could yet join them. Once again, the continent’s unity and resolve are about to be tested. Most Europeans cannot yet see or smell the gastastrophe, but in…

MAX WEBER spoke of the contrast between politicians wedded to moral purity and their pragmatic peers. Abe Shinzo, Japan’s prime minister from 2006-07 and 2012-20, was a keen reader of Weber. The tension between the competing ethics of conviction and responsibility defined his own life, which an assassin’s gun cut short on July 8th (see Asia section). Mr Abe had an ideological core. It was Abe the conservative nationalist who repelled his neighbours and polarised his country. Yet he also developed a studied pragmatism. This Abe was a realist who strengthened Japan’s defences and rallied allies. Despite Mr Abe’s death Japan is likely to stick to the course he set. It will remain committed to boosting its own armed forces, reinforcing its alliance with America, and deepening its security relations…

A LITTLE MORE than a decade after the Conservatives declared Britain to be on the brink of a bond-market crisis, many of the candidates to lead the party—and therefore the country—are promising to dole out plenty of cash. Tom Tugendhat wants to reverse a recent increase in national insurance, a payroll tax. Liz Truss wants to do that and cancel a planned rise in corporation tax. Penny Mordaunt, the bookies’ favourite, wants to peg most tax thresholds to inflation and temporarily halve VAT on petrol. There is still time for candidates to flesh out their plans, and none admits to throwing fiscal caution to the wind. Ms Mordaunt promises that she will get the debt-toGDP ratio down. But none of the candidates has given a credible account of how they…