The Economist Latin America June 29, 2019

Politics Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was humiliated by voters, as his attempt to reverse the mayoral election in Istanbul, which his party had lost, backfired spectacularly. At his behest, the electoral board ordered a re-run, but this week the opposition challenger, Ekrem Imamoglu, won by a much larger margin than in March: 54% to 45%. After three weeks of talks that followed an election, Denmark’s Social Democrats won the backing of smaller parties on the left to form a minority government headed by Mette Frederiksen as prime minister. The smaller parties agreed to support Ms Frederiksen only after she promised to water down the hard-line policies on immigration that her party had touted during the election. Ukraine responded angrily to the decision of the Council of Europe, which is separate from the…

FOR NEARLY four years Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon was blocked. The deal it signed with America and other powers in 2015 limited its nuclear programme to civilian uses, such as power-generation, and subjected them to the toughest inspection regime in history. The experts agreed that Iran was complying and that its nuclear activities were contained. But then President Donald Trump ditched the nuclear deal and Iran resumed stockpiling low-enriched uranium. It is now poised to breach the 300kg cap set by the agreement. Iran may hesitate before crossing that line, but it is also threatening to increase the enrichment level of its uranium, bringing it closer to the stuff that goes into a bomb. Fortunately, Iran is not about to become a nuclear-weapons power. Its breakout time is over…

THE WORLD has a handful of great commercial hubs. Silicon Valley dominates technology. For electronics, head to Shenzhen. The home of luxury is Paris and the capital of outsourcing is Bangalore, in India. One of the mightiest clusters of all is London, which hosts the globe’s largest international financial centre. Within a square mile on the Thames, a multinational firm can sell $5bn of shares in 20 minutes, or a European startup can raise seed finance from Asian pensioners. You can insure container ships or a pop star’s vocal cords. Companies can hedge the risk that a factory anywhere on the planet will face a volatile currency or hurricanes and a rising sea level a decade from now. This metropolis of money, known as the City, generates £120bn ($152bn) of output…

Politics Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was humiliated by voters, as his attempt to reverse the mayoral election in Istanbul, which his party had lost, backfired spectacularly. At his behest, the electoral board ordered a re-run, but this week the opposition challenger, Ekrem Imamoglu, won by a much larger margin than in March: 54% to 45%. After three weeks of talks that followed an election, Denmark’s Social Democrats won the backing of smaller parties on the left to form a minority government headed by Mette Frederiksen as prime minister. The smaller parties agreed to support Ms Frederiksen only after she promised to water down the hard-line policies on immigration that her party had touted during the election. Ukraine responded angrily to the decision of the Council of Europe, which is…

FOR NEARLY four years Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon was blocked. The deal it signed with America and other powers in 2015 limited its nuclear programme to civilian uses, such as power-generation, and subjected them to the toughest inspection regime in history. The experts agreed that Iran was complying and that its nuclear activities were contained. But then President Donald Trump ditched the nuclear deal and Iran resumed stockpiling low-enriched uranium. It is now poised to breach the 300kg cap set by the agreement. Iran may hesitate before crossing that line, but it is also threatening to increase the enrichment level of its uranium, bringing it closer to the stuff that goes into a bomb. Fortunately, Iran is not about to become a nuclear-weapons power. Its breakout time is…

WHAT DID he think he was playing at? When Turkey’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, strong-armed his country’s electoral watchdog into annulling the result of a mayoral election his party had lost in March, it looked like an obvious blunder. Surely, many observers thought, the people of Istanbul would furiously resent having their votes overruled, and flock in bigger numbers than before to support the opposition man, Ekrem Imamoglu? Unless, of course, Mr Erdogan had a sinister plan up his sleeve to rig the new election. He did not—or at least not one bold enough to cope with how voters in Turkey’s largest and richest city gave the challenger an emphatic victory on June 23rd, by 54% to 45%, far more than his earlier, slender margin of 0.2%. Democracy, though ailing…