CL Hong Kong home prices have climbed to a thirty-month high, meaning something different on each side of a mortgage: quiet vindication for owners after a long correction, a closing window for those still waiting to get in. In this city, property is not discussed the way economists discuss it; it is discussed the way people discuss the weather.-- CL

MB The Iran talks ended without a deal and the UAE, we now learn, has been striking Iran covertly dozens of times. Both facts belong to the same week's news, which is the kind of juxtaposition that tends to clarify what the diplomacy was actually for. Governments announce the outcome they prefer; the other track runs quietly until it does not.-- MB