In August Scott Bessent made a big deal out of the Treasury’s plan to lower the government’s borrowing costs by buying back long-dated debt. But when he finally announced the specifics last week, investors were underwhelmed. Our Buttonwood columnist takes stock of Mr Bessent’s missteps—not only his bluster, but his apparent failure to grasp that the bond market is actually working as it should.

South Africa has long had an underworld. Now criminality threatens the overworld. Read our report from Cape Town, where legitimate firms face pressure from illicit business, “extortion mafias” are on the rise and organised crime is infecting the criminal-justice system.

Finally, Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, and a group of our editors and correspondents spent last week reporting from Ukraine. On today’s Insider they discuss what they learned.