Argentina’s new, honest inflation statisticsThe end of bogus accounting SOME readers of The Economist may be numbed by statistics. To many others, they are the water of cognitive life. Each week at the back of this newspaper we publish official data on 42 of the largest economies in the world—with one exception. Five years ago we stopped publishing the inflation figure for Argentina produced by th

Ukraine and Russia are both trapped by the war in DonbasThe Minsk-2 peace agreement is a sham, but neither side can pull out ON APRIL 12TH 2014 Igor Girkin, a former Russian military officer also known as “Strelkov” (“Shooter”), sneaked across the border into Ukraine’s Donbas region with a few dozen men and took control of the small town of Sloviansk, igniting Europe’s bloodiest war since the 1990

Mapping the manifestosThe platforms of Britain’s main parties offer voters areas of overlap and clear blue water By THE DATA TEAM FOR once, British voters can hardly complain that the parties are all the same. Jeremy Corbyn has taken Labour far to the left with a plan to re-nationalise industries and spend billions on public services, including free university education. Theresa May's Conservative

A LONG dictatorship ended in a negotiated transition to democracy. The centre-left took office with a moderate programme, reassured the right by pursuing pro-market economic policies, added better social provision and reconnected the country to the world. Power later switched to the right, which persuaded the country that it had become democratic. Then the centre-left returned, this time as a new

THIS year marks a watershed in the annals of bizarre geography. On July 31st India and Bangladesh will exchange 162 parcels of land, each of which happens to lie on the wrong side of the Indo-Bangladesh border. The end of these enclaves follows an agreement made between India and Bangladesh on June 6th. The territories along the world’s craziest border include the pièce de résistance of strange ge

MINE is barely three inches long but gives people a case of the vapours at Japanese swimming pools. Invariably, a lifeguard will tut-tut from his high chair before demanding it be covered up. Tattoos come freighted with taboos in Japan. They have long been associated with “anti-social elements”, code for yakuza mobsters. That makes the law-abiding among us collateral damage in a cultural war again

Turkey is sliding into dictatorshipRecep Tayyip Erdogan is carrying out the harshest crackdown in decades. The West must not abandon Turkey TURKEY matters not just for its size, but also as a bellwether of the political forces shaping the world. For centuries it was the seat of a great empire. Today, as a frontier state, it must cope with the violence spewing out of war-ravaged Syria; it is a test

Trends in the air-freight businessFewer electronics are being flown. Instead, planes are full of fresh produce WHEN people think of air travel they picture planes full of passengers. But air cargo is as vital—perhaps more—to the global economy. Only 1% of exports by volume go in aircraft but because they tend to be the most expensive goods, they account for 35% of global trade by value. Nearly eve