David renny is our baging bureau chief at the winter olympic games. He successfully battled with monumental coved restrictions without even crossing into the so called closed loop of athletes, support staff and journalists. We've been in various security checks and cove tests for several hours already, and i think that reflects the extraordinary high stakes. This is an olympics taking place in the middle of a pandemic in a country which has decided to try and crush cobid completely. In the midst of that pandemic, they have admitted about 30 thousand foreigners into china for the olympics.
Our correspondent describes the fraught effort to attend the opening ceremony. It is a pageant highlighting a divided world, with party leaders aiming for zero covid, zero mistakes and zero dissent. An investigation reveals the brutal treatment meted out by Libya’s coast guard dealing with Europe-bound migrants—an outfit bankrolled by the European Union itself. And America’s gun-owners become surprisingly diverse.
For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer