Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Patrick Lane, filling in for Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Hindus usually greet Diwali, their great festival of light, by letting off an awful lot of firecrackers.

But this year, in Delhi, they've been banned.

The atmosphere is too polluted already.

But although dirty air is killing many Indians, politicians aren't doing much to clean it up.

Air pollution is one reason the Chinese authorities give

for their disapproval of today's winter clothing festival,

when people burn paper replicas of clothes

to keep their deceased loved ones warm in the afterlife.

It's actually one more sign of the increase in control over people's lives.

But first...

We will bury this enemy with our blood and bones.

That's what Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Abbey Ahmed, told his country's soldiers this

week. It's been a year since a rebellion began in the north, in the Tigray region, and the country's

leader is preparing for the violence to reach his doorstep. On Tuesday, a state of emergency was

declared as rebels from the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front,

or TPLF, marched towards Addis Ababa, the capital.

The TPLF had previously dominated the federal government for nearly three decades.

Abbey urged civilians to take up arms.

America and Britain advised its citizens to leave the country.

...