The Economist Continental Europe Edition May 30, 2020

Politics Protests erupted in Hong Kong after an announcement that the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, would impose a national-security law on the territory. The demonstrations were also fuelled by a proposal in the city’s legislature to make insulting China’s national anthem a crime. Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary of state, said that the “facts on the ground” showed that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous. This could pave the way for American action, including possibly treating the territory the same as the rest of China for trade and other purposes. At the opening of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, the government abandoned a GDP target for the first time. The economy shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter. A border dispute between India and China appeared to intensify.…

Countries in the Americas are the new centre of the pandemic, according to the WHO. Infections and deaths in Mexico have doubled over the past two weeks. Brazil now has the world’s second-highest number of cases, prompting the United States (more than 100,000 deaths) to ban non-American travellers who have been to the country. Russia has also reported sharp increases in confirmed cases and deaths over two weeks; the actual numbers are thought to be much higher. Spain revised its death toll down by more than 1,900 because of “duplicates” and wrongly attributed deaths. A test-and-trace system was introduced in England. India resumed domestic flights, amid much confusion at airports about whether planes would be allowed to land in certain states. For our latest coverage of the virus and its consequences please visit economist.com/ coronavirus…

Politics Protests erupted in Hong Kong after an announcement that the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, would impose a national-security law on the territory. The demonstrations were also fuelled by a proposal in the city’s legislature to make insulting China’s national anthem a crime. Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary of state, said that the “facts on the ground” showed that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous. This could pave the way for American action, including possibly treating the territory the same as the rest of China for trade and other purposes. At the opening of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, the government abandoned a GDP target for the first time. The economy shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter. A border dispute between India and China appeared to intensify. China reportedly sent…

Countries in the Americas are the new centre of the pandemic, according to the WHO. Infections and deaths in Mexico have doubled over the past two weeks. Brazil now has the world’s second-highest number of cases, prompting the United States (more than 100,000 deaths) to ban non-American travellers who have been to the country. Russia has also reported sharp increases in confirmed cases and deaths over two weeks; the actual numbers are thought to be much higher. Spain revised its death toll down by more than 1,900 because of “duplicates” and wrongly attributed deaths. A test-and-trace system was introduced in England. India resumed domestic flights, amid much confusion at airports about whether planes would be allowed to land in certain states. For our latest coverage of the virus and its…

AMERICA HAS passed a grim milestone: 100,000 deaths from a novel coronavirus that began to spread half a year and half a world away. Many Americans think their president has handled the epidemic disastrously, that their country has been hit uniquely hard and that there is a simple causal relationship between the two. The 100,000, which does not include excess deaths mistakenly attributed to other causes, is higher than any other country’s. It has routinely been compared with the 60,000 American casualties in the Vietnam war. A Trump Death Clock in Times Square purports to show how many lives the president’s ineptitude has cost: as we went to press it stood at 60,262. Yet this widespread conviction that America has failed because of Donald Trump is not supported by the…

AMERICA HAS passed a grim milestone: 100,000 deaths from a novel coronavirus that began to spread half a year and half a world away. Many Americans think their president has handled the epidemic disastrously, that their country has been hit uniquely hard and that there is a simple causal relationship between the two. The 100,000, which does not include excess deaths mistakenly attributed to other causes, is higher than any other country’s. It has routinely been compared with the 60,000 American casualties in the Vietnam war. A Trump Death Clock in Times Square purports to show how many lives the president’s ineptitude has cost: as we went to press it stood at 60,262. Yet this widespread conviction that America has failed because of Donald Trump is not supported by the…