Jun 17th 2023

America’s new best friend: Why India is indispensable

The world this week

Leaders

BritGPT

How Britain can become an AI superpower

Rishi Sunak’s enthusiasm is welcome. But his plans for Britain fall short

America’s new best friend

Joe Biden and Narendra Modi are drawing their countries closer

India does not love the West, but it is indispensable to America

Secrets and fries

The real injustice would have been not to indict Donald Trump

The former president must be subject to due process

Undoing business in China

The crackdown on foreign firms will deter global business—and undermine China’s own interests

Bosses are scrambling to ensure that they do not fall foul of data-security laws

Recklessly red

Fiscal policy in the rich world is mind-bogglingly reckless

High inflation and low unemployment require tighter budgets not looser ones

Letters

On the English language, oil prices, Pakistan, digital payments, productivity, Henry Kissinger, Monty Python, pronouncing Erdogan

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

War in Ukraine

Sir Richard Barrons on the broader security considerations around Ukraine’s counter-offensive

Global taxation

Finding the money to fix the world requires a rethink on tax, says Jayati Ghosh

Asia

The elephant in a boom

America is courting India in part for its growing economic clout

Non-alignment non-negotiable

India’s foreign minister on ties with America, China and Russia

Too good to refuse

On defence, America and India edge closer together

Banyan

Narendra Modi is the world’s most popular leader

China

Not another crisis

America and China try to move past a new bump in relations

Mazu and the motherland

China hopes Mazu, a sea goddess, can help it win over Taiwan

The affair of the pink dress

China’s tolerance for public oversight is limited

Chaguan

Xi Jinping reaches into China’s ancient history for a new claim to rule

United States

Southern shift

The South is fast becoming America’s industrial heartland

Teacher’s pet

How ChatGPT could help teachers and lower the cost of college

Pride/prejudice

How LA’s drag nuns took centre stage in the culture wars

Going bus

American states are bailing out public transport

Invasive species in America

Attack of the feral parakeets in New York

The chain

How the Pentagon thinks about America’s strategy in the Pacific

Lexington

North Carolina may be the hottest political battleground of 2024

Middle East & Africa

Ten hard years

Egyptians are disgruntled with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi

Betting on boats

Why wretched Lebanese are fleeing across the sea

Breaking a taboo

Saudi Arabia may accept normal relations with Israel

The Great Carbon Valley

Why Kenya could take the lead in carbon removal

Pastures new

Rural Africans are finding work beyond their farms

The Americas

Unsustainable

Lula’s ambitious plans to save the Amazon clash with reality

Comrades across continents

What does China want from Latin America and the Caribbean?

Burning bright

Canada’s wildfires have burnt an area 16 times larger than normal

Europe

Going into hell

Ukraine’s counter-offensive is making mixed progress

After Berlusconi

The death of Silvio Berlusconi creates uncertainty for his party

Big words

Germany’s new national security strategy is strong on goals, less so on means

Left hanging

The problems ailing Western Europe’s left are not just cyclical

Charlemagne

Why Europe’s asylum policy desperately needs rebooting

Britain

Britain’s AI future

How to make Britain’s AI dreams reality

Costing an arm and a leg

How much is a human head?

Britain’s economy

Wage growth, inflation and more place Britain’s central bank in a spot

Bagehot

Reading the death certificate on Boris Johnson’s political career

International

Making it as migrants

India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential than any in history

Business

Spooked

Is doing business in China becoming impossible for foreigners?

Ahead in the clouds

Oracle is making Larry Ellison the world’s third-richest man

The Magdeburg gambit

It is make or break for Intel’s giant bet on Germany

Bartleby

The upside of workplace jargon

Ball is life

Which sport is the best business?

Unit economics

Why self-storage is turning into hot property

Summer holidays

How long will the travel boom last?

Schumpeter

What Tesla and other carmakers can learn from Ford

Finance & economics

The great escape

Is the global housing slump over?

Graftbusters

A new super-regulator takes aim at rampant corruption in Chinese finance

Buttonwood

Sooner or later, America’s financial system could seize up

Boy cries wolf

AI is not yet killing jobs

The great steeplechase

America is losing ground in Asian trade

Lost and won

South Korea has had enough of being called an emerging market

Free exchange

Wage-price spirals are far scarier in theory than in practice

Science & technology

You are legion

The idea of “holobionts” represents a paradigm shift in biology

Don’t have kittens

There’s more than one way to spay a cat

Culture

African political cartoons

For the boldest commentary on African politics, look to cartoonists

European history

The eastern half of Europe is united by its diversity

American bards

Cormac McCarthy was the great novelist of the American West

World in a dish

A potato can have no finer fate than ending up as an Irish crisp

American cults

Meant to be liberating, the Sullivanian community became a nightmare

Back Story

“The Full Monty” gang are back

The Economist reads

From partition to pierogi

What to read to understand modern Poland

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

And then there were three

England may soon become the world’s best cricket team

The Economist explains

How are people appointed to Britain’s House of Lords?

The Economist explains

Are cryptocurrencies securities?

Obituary

The great seducer