May 6th 2023

Fiscal fantasyland: When will politicians wake up?

The world this week

Leaders

Bust budgets

Governments are living in a fiscal fantasyland

The world over, they are failing to confront the dire state of their finances

The most important election this year

If Turkey sacks its strongman, democrats everywhere should take heart

After 20 years of increasingly autocratic rule, Recep Tayyip Erdogan risks eviction by voters

A new Afghanistan policy

Time to engage (very carefully) with the Taliban

Isolating the mullahs is not working. The West needs a more constructive approach

Rebuilding the buffers

How to shore up America’s banks after First Republic’s demise

One route to a safer system is consolidation; another is taxpayer stakes in the sector

When viruses are good for you

How to battle superbugs with viruses that “eat” them

As antibiotic resistance spreads, bacteriophages could help avert a crisis

Letters

On greening electricity pylons, Englishness, banking, our banana index, jerks at work, cider

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Artificial intelligence

Yuval Noah Harari argues that AI has hacked the operating system of human civilisation

The Crown: a review from down under

Charles III is a good bloke, says Malcolm Turnbull

Banking

Andreas Wesemann asks what government-backed deposit insurance is for

Briefing

Crossroads at a crossroads

Could Erdogan be ousted in Turkey’s coming election?

His exit would reshape the country and reverberate around the world

Asia

Afghan reality

Life under the rule of the Taliban 2.0

A tepid taste of freedom

The opposition looks set to win Thailand’s election

The revolution is over

The Philippines’s once-proud Maoist insurgents are out of ammo

Banyan

America’s closest Indo-Pacific allies are cosying up

China

Closed society

China needs foreign workers. So why won’t it embrace immigration?

The smokeless war

A battle against spies in China is spooking locals and foreigners

Battle of the bricks

Lego, the world’s top toymaker, focuses on China

Chaguan

China’s new “Top Gun” normalises war with America

United States

DeSantis and his dissenters

Ron DeSantis’s lurch in Florida hurts his presidential chances

Lights, camera, industrial action

Hollywood’s writers go on strike

Bye-bye covid

America is ending its emergency declaration for the pandemic

Aid and a bet

USAID is changing the way it tries to do good in the world

Snake, rattle and roil

The fun and the fury of a rattlesnake derby

Lexington

What walking from Washington to New York reveals about America

Middle East & Africa

Strategic struggle

Sudan’s war is home-grown, but risks drawing in outsiders

Macron’s mission

France moved quickly to evacuate civilians from Sudan

A name to die for

Leaders of Islamic State have a short life-expectancy

Syrians unwanted in Lebanon

Lebanon’s government is squeezing out Syrian refugees

From the Baltic to the Caspian and onwards

Russia and Iran are upgrading their transport links

The Americas

Wrangling over white gold

The green revolution will stall without Latin America’s lithium

A libertarian turn

Javier Milei, an Argentine libertarian, is rising in the polls

Stability amid chaos

Santiago Peña, a former economist, is Paraguay’s next president

Europe

Atrocity exhibitions

War-crimes prosecutions in Ukraine are a long game

No Victory Day

Russia could take Bakhmut within weeks

Producing patriotic children for Russia

Vladimir Putin wants to militarise Russian schools

The reckoning

Europe will need to fundamentally reset its fiscal policies

Charlemagne

Emmanuel Macron hopes to reinvent himself in 100 days

Britain

A coronation

Britain crowns Charles III its new king

Bourse correction

Britain is liberalising its stockmarket-listing rules, again

Fixing the state

Britain takes a more sensible approach to post-Brexit regulation

Striking difference

Britain’s NHS has never seen industrial action on this scale

Science lessons

Britain plans new guidance on sex and gender in schools

Bus swap

Wrightbus bets on hydrogen buses

Bagehot

The Tories v the institutions

International

Which billionaires lost out?

The 2023 crony-capitalism index

Business

The missing middle

The business trend that unites Walmart and Tiffany & Co

Latin America’s other Amazon

Why MercadoLibre keeps soaring as other e-emporiums sink

Coding in the moonlight

How to two-time your employer: a tech worker’s guide

Ghost writers

Artificial intelligence is remixing journalism into a “soup” of language

Can I sink Icahn?

Hindenburg Research takes on Carl Icahn

Bartleby

A short guide to corporate rituals

Information overlords

China’s data-security laws rattle Western business executives

Schumpeter

America needs a jab in its corporate backside

Finance & economics

In God we bust

America faces a debt nightmare

Borrowing problems

China’s local-debt crisis is about to get nasty

Capital v labour

Are greedy corporations causing inflation?

Prize fighter

Gabriel Zucman, a controversial John Bates Clark medallist

Buttonwood

What the First Republic deal means for America’s banks

Free exchange

How Japanese policymakers ended up in a very deep hole

Science & technology

The antibiotics crisis

Western firms are becoming interested in a Soviet medicine

Exploring the blue planet

Much of the Earth remains unexplored

Tides of filth

What shipwrecked insects reveal about life at sea in the 17th century

Culture

The emperor’s new abode

Was Charlemagne’s base really in Italy rather than Germany?

Reach for the stars

How SpaceX set off a new race to commercialise space

World in a dish

A hunt for ramps exemplifies the pleasures of foraging for dinner

Pocket rockets

The evolution of watches reflects changing relations with time

Back Story

What happens when a story loses a main character?

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

The jury is still out

Suicide rates for girls are rising. Are smartphones to blame?

The Economist explains

Why are migrants to Europe fleeing from and through Tunisia?

The Economist explains

What is the special district at the heart of Disney’s feud with Ron DeSantis?

Obituary

A whistle in the dark