Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

In principle, British law allows for children with severe epilepsy to receive medical cannabis.

In practice, only a handful of patients have received it.

We ask why a proven treatment isn't being given to those with the most need.

And alcohol has long been illegal in Saudi Arabia, but under a reformist crown prince, exceptions keep multiplying.

This weekend, a new booze you can use question.

Will the winner of a Formula One race in Jeddah celebrate with champagne?

But first... More peacekeeping troops are being sent to the Solomon Islands following an outbreak of deadly violence. Troops from New Zealand are joining an Australian-led mission

deployed after protests calling for the removal of the island's Prime Minister.

Demonstrators tore through the capital Honiara last week,

ransacking businesses and burning buildings, leaving three people dead.

It's hard to see that our police station has been run down by this

this grant of Solomon Islanders.

The string of Pacific Islands is no stranger to ethnic unrest, but this time it's got a worryingly international dimension to it.

The Solomon Islands is a tiny state. It's a scattering of islands with only 700,000 people.

Dominic Ziegler writes Banyan, the economists call them, covering the Asia-Pacific region.

There are dozens of language communities scattered across those islands, and there have been

long-standing tensions between some of those.

Those tensions have been exacerbated by a geopolitical struggle that is taking place across the

Indo-Pacific region between China and the United States.

Okay, so help me understand the source of the tension now.

What's going on in terms of the disputes on the islands? Well, there have been long simmering tensions between the most

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