The Economist Continental Europe Edition August 22, 2020

Politics Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, continued to cling to power despite large demonstrations and strikes, after he fraudulently claimed victory in an election on August 9th. The European Union’s leaders have refused to recognise the result, and vowed to enact sanctions against officials involved in ballot fraud and in brutal attacks on demonstrators by Belarussian police. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has not indicated whether he will come to his neighbour’s aid. Alexei Navalny, a Russian anti-corruption activist and the country’s main opposition leader, was taken into intensive care after falling ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. Doctors suspected that he had been poisoned. France deployed two fighter jets and a naval frigate to the eastern Mediterranean in response to Turkish moves to send gas-exploration vessels into…

India’s cases soared past 2.8m, the third-highest in total behind America and Brazil. Restrictions on social gatherings were reimposed in Seoul, after South Korea reported its highest number of daily infections since March. Churches are a big source of the outbreak. Ireland reintroduced some restrictions and again asked people to work from home. The World Health Organisation warned against a growing “vaccine nationalism”, as countries seek to hoard the prospective drugs rather than ensure their global availability. Sweden and the Netherlands declined to make face masks mandatory in public despite rising numbers of infections. Both countries have implemented comparatively lenient social-distancing measures, and have higher-than-average rates of excess deaths. For our latest coverage of the virus and its consequences please visit economist.com/ coronavirus or download the Economist app.…

India’s cases soared past 2.8m, the third-highest in total behind America and Brazil. Restrictions on social gatherings were reimposed in Seoul, after South Korea reported its highest number of daily infections since March. Churches are a big source of the outbreak. Ireland reintroduced some restrictions and again asked people to work from home. The World Health Organisation warned against a growing “vaccine nationalism”, as countries seek to hoard the prospective drugs rather than ensure their global availability. Sweden and the Netherlands declined to make face masks mandatory in public despite rising numbers of infections. Both countries have implemented comparatively lenient social-distancing measures, and have higher-than-average rates of excess deaths. For our latest coverage of the virus and its consequences please visit economist.com/ coronavirus or download the Economist app.…

Politics Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, continued to cling to power despite large demonstrations and strikes, after he fraudulently claimed victory in an election on August 9th. The European Union’s leaders have refused to recognise the result, and vowed to enact sanctions against officials involved in ballot fraud and in brutal attacks on demonstrators by Belarussian police. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has not indicated whether he will come to his neighbour’s aid. Alexei Navalny, a Russian anti-corruption activist and the country’s main opposition leader, was taken into intensive care after falling ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. Doctors suspected that he had been poisoned. France deployed two fighter jets and a naval frigate to the eastern Mediterranean in response to Turkish moves to send gas-exploration vessels into disputed waters. The…

HUMANS THINK of themselves as the world’s apex predators. Hence the silence of sabre-tooth tigers, the absence of moas from New Zealand and the long list of endangered megafauna. But SARS-CoV-2 shows how people can also end up as prey. Viruses have caused a litany of modern pandemics, from covid-19, to HIV/AIDS to the influenza outbreak in 1918-20, which killed many more people than the first world war. Before that, the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans was abetted—and perhaps made possible—by epidemics of smallpox, measles and influenza brought unwittingly by the invaders, which annihilated many of the original inhabitants. The influence of viruses on life on Earth, though, goes far beyond the past and present tragedies of a single species, however pressing they seem. Though the study of viruses…

HUMANS THINK of themselves as the world’s apex predators. Hence the silence of sabre-tooth tigers, the absence of moas from New Zealand and the long list of endangered megafauna. But SARS-CoV-2 shows how people can also end up as prey. Viruses have caused a litany of modern pandemics, from covid-19, to HIV/AIDS to the influenza outbreak in 1918-20, which killed many more people than the first world war. Before that, the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans was abetted—and perhaps made possible—by epidemics of smallpox, measles and influenza brought unwittingly by the invaders, which annihilated many of the original inhabitants. The influence of viruses on life on Earth, though, goes far beyond the past and present tragedies of a single species, however pressing they seem. Though the study of viruses began…