Thicket and boarding pass: travel’s tangle of rules
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2021
⏱️ ? minutes
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Summary
Restrictions are opaque, fickle and often illiberal—and it is not even clear how much they help curb the coronavirus. Chinese officials want to boost the economy of the province of Xinjiang, but our correspondent says plans predicated on repressing the Uyghur minority are unlikely to work. And bidding farewell to our work-and-management columnist, who still hates useless meetings.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Saudi Arabia's economy is transforming. What's behind it? The Public Investment Fund, or PIF. |
| 0:07.1 | It's one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, creating 13 new sectors, |
| 0:12.2 | 66 companies, and more than 500,000 direct and indirect jobs so far. PIF is also the first |
| 0:19.5 | sovereign wealth fund to issue a green bond supporting Saudi Arabia's 2016 Net Zero emissions target. |
| 0:26.6 | Find out more at pif.gov.sa. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host Jason Palmer. |
| 0:41.1 | Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:49.6 | Chinese officials want to boost the economy of Xinjiang province, |
| 0:53.4 | developing manufacturing, trade, and tourism. But they also want to continue repressing and |
| 0:59.1 | co-opting the province's weaker minority. Our correspondent reckons those plans are incompatible. |
| 1:06.4 | And since the very start of the intelligence, our Bartleby columnist has been railing |
| 1:10.9 | against the harms of useless meetings, long hours, corporate jargon, and more. |
| 1:15.7 | Today, he bids his farewell and shares what he's learned about the world of work. |
| 1:27.7 | But first, |
| 1:35.7 | If you have occasion for international travel, good luck getting to grips with the restrictions |
| 1:41.7 | and cross your fingers, they don't change between your departure and your return. |
| 1:46.3 | According to Britain's inscrutable traffic light system, rules for travelers returning from France |
| 1:51.5 | loosened this week. For those coming from Mexico, they tightened. East Asia and Australia are |
| 1:57.5 | largely locked down. Sub-Saharan Africa mostly open. America still won't take travelers from |
| 2:03.5 | the European Union. Strict quarantine rules in government-approved facilities, |
| 2:09.2 | Byzantine testing regimes, outright bans, travel remains out of reach for many and messy for |
| 2:15.6 | everyone. And not just travelers, of course. It's nightmarish for the economies of tourist spots, |
... |
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