The Economist Latin America October 30, 2021

Politics Sudan suffered its second coup in two years. Abdel­Fattah al-Burhan, a former general and the country’s de facto president, seized control just months before he was supposed to step down. He also had the civilian prime minister arrested. Mr Burhan said he had acted to prevent a civil war. Thousands of protesters said no, it was a blatant power grab. Soldiers opened fire on them. At least seven people were killed and 140 wounded. Donors such as America suspended aid, but Mr Burhan hopes for backing from undemocratic foreign powers. BioNTech, the company that developed the covid-19 vaccine marketed by Pfizer, said it would build factories in Senegal and Rwanda next year. It hopes to produce more doses for Africa, which has 17.5% of the world’s population but has so far…

“THE RAIN it raineth every day,” Feste tells the audience at the end of “Twelfth Night”. And the COP it COPpeth every year. Since 1995 the countries bound by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have missed only one conference of the parties—when the pandemic struck in 2020. These COPs can produce action plans (Bali, 2007), mandates (Berlin, 1995), protocols (Kyoto, 1997), platforms (Durban, 2011), acrimonious breakdowns (Copenhagen, 2009) and agreements (Paris, 2015). But the rise in the atmosphere’s greenhouse-gas content and the associated warming of the climate continues in spite of them—even when, as so often, they are hyped as the world’s last chance. As diplomats, scientists, lobbyists, activists, artists, the media, politicians and businesspeople gather in Glasgow for COP26, which begins on October 31st, it is therefore…

Politics Sudan suffered its second coup in two years. Abdel­Fattah al-Burhan, a former general and the country’s de facto president, seized control just months before he was supposed to step down. He also had the civilian prime minister arrested. Mr Burhan said he had acted to prevent a civil war. Thousands of protesters said no, it was a blatant power grab. Soldiers opened fire on them. At least seven people were killed and 140 wounded. Donors such as America suspended aid, but Mr Burhan hopes for backing from undemocratic foreign powers. BioNTech, the company that developed the covid-19 vaccine marketed by Pfizer, said it would build factories in Senegal and Rwanda next year. It hopes to produce more doses for Africa, which has 17.5% of the world’s population but has…

SUDAN’S PATH to democracy has always been strewn with landmines. The country became independent in 1956. That year, and again in 1964 and 1986, there were brief attempts at democratic rule. All were scotched by men with guns. In 2019, after 30 years of genocidal military dictatorship under Omar al­Bashir, hope flowered once more. Peaceful protests toppled the tyrant. Many Sudanese longed for the army to retire to barracks. The army had other ideas. In April 2019 it seized power again. Weeks later, security forces gunned down protesters, killing more than 100 and tossing their bodies into the Nile. Demonstrators kept coming out into the streets, however, braving bullets and beatings. To end the crisis, mediators pressed the protest leaders to let the army stay in charge for almost two years…

J0E BIDEN promised to pay for his big social-spending proposals by raising taxes on the rich and nobody else. Now Democrats are rushing to find a big pot of money without raising headline rates of tax at all. They are making a mess of it. As we wrote this, they were predicting that they would soon reach a compromise on a social-spending bill that would pass in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where they cannot afford a single dissenting vote in their ranks. Yet they were struggling to reach a deal that could satisfy two centrists: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who has little appetite to raise tax rates, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is willing to do so, but objects to the alternative designed to satisfy…

“WE NEED TO strive for genuine gender equality.” So declared China’s leader, Xi Jinping, at the UN last year. It is a cause the Communist Party has long said it cares deeply about. Mao Zedong once proclaimed that “Women hold up half the sky.” And China’s women have indeed made progress. The World Economic Forum places their country below most of the rich world in terms of equality for women, but well above Japan and India. However, since Mr Xi took power in 2012 China has fallen from 69th place on that list to 107th. He seems bent on making China more macho. In September his officials banned effeminate men from appearing on television. His Politburo Standing Committee is still all male. He stresses the role of women as wives and…