Jun 24th 2023

The trouble with sticky inflation

The world this week

Leaders

Investors must prepare for sustained higher inflation

The costs of taming price rises could prove too unpalatable for central banks

The home front

Building Ukraine 2.0

For Russia’s war to fail, Ukraine must emerge prosperous, democratic and secure

Iran’s nuclear programme

America wants to lower tensions with Iran. Good

Now is the time to buy some time

Confidence trap

China’s economic recovery is spluttering. The prognosis is not good

There are lessons from Japan’s long stagnation

Merger crush saga

Blocking the Microsoft-Activision deal would harm consumers

The tie-up promises new kinds of competition in gaming

Letters

On productivity in Latin America, Boris Johnson, New College of Florida, Verdun, banking, Sheikh Hasina, legal speak

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Behold the AI shoggoth

Artificial intelligence is a familiar-looking monster, say Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi

America and China

Thom Woodroofe on why climate co-operation could be the key to improving Sino-American relations

Briefing

Ukraine 2.0

War is reshaping the Ukrainian state—for the better

But corruption remains a plague

A sticky predicament

Inflation is as corrosive to investing as it is to the real economy

The failure to quell it quickly will transform financial markets

Asia

High on their own supply

Can Australia break China’s monopoly on critical minerals?

International yoga day

Narendra Modi’s yoga evangelism

Afghanistan

The Taliban have launched an impressive new war on drugs

Greenwashing in Seoul

South Korea, having sworn to lead the green transition, is holding it up

Banyan

Japan is nostalgic for a past that was in part worse than its present

China

Conflicting thoughts

When it comes to a war with Taiwan, many Chinese urge caution

Another nationalist obsession

China has its eyes on Okinawa

Dress to impress

Why foreign dignitaries wear red when meeting Xi Jinping

United States

America’s competition cops

Why Joe Biden’s trustbusters have fallen short of their ambitions

The road most travelled

Pain and pride around a vital American highway

Telling it how it isn’t

As response rates decline, the risk of polling errors rises

Crack case

Hunter Biden’s plea bargain will not stop Republicans chasing him

Murder on his mind

Nearly all Louisiana’s death-row inmates have filed for clemency

Abortion politics

One year after Dobbs, America’s pro-life movement is in flux

Lexington

Why the multiverse is eating popular culture

Middle East & Africa

Finding Africa’s voice

African countries are fed up with being marginalised in global institutions

The spreading menace

Jihadists in Congo are extending their reach in the region

An unenriching agreement

America and Iran try to step back from the brink over nukes

Fire sale

The war in Ukraine is boosting Israel’s arms exports

The Americas

It’s still the economy, stupid

Annual inflation of 114% is pushing Argentina to the right

No country for journalists

Press freedom is stifled in Guatemala ahead of an election

Of buoys and men

Canada has a shortage of lifeguards

Europe

An unspooked spook

Ukraine’s spymaster has got under the Kremlin’s skin

Beefing it up

France’s top general on lessons from the battlefield

Tragedy intervenes

Greece votes, again, following the sinking of a migrant boat

Through the roof

Turkish property prices are soaring

Charlemagne

A farewell to small cars, the industrial icons that put Europe on wheels

Britain

Made in Britain

Britain’s inflation pain is mostly self-inflicted and getting worse

Executive pain

Pay for bosses in Britain falls far behind America. Tough luck

Britain and Ukraine

Ben Wallace says he is out of the race for NATO’s top job

Abortion rights and wrongs

Should Britain change its abortion laws?

A boom in overseas students

Indians are flocking to study at British universities

E-cigarettes

Vaping among schoolchildren has become a moral panic in Britain

Bagehot

Sir Keir Starmer’s magic lamp

International

The great dilemma

NATO is agonising over whether to let Ukraine join

Business

Outward bound

America’s plan to vet investments into China

China and Europe

Why is China blocking graphite exports to Sweden?

Work and savoir-faire

Europe’s last finishing school targets anxious executives

Health care

Doctor Walmart will see you now

Jet stream

India leads a boom in orders for passenger jets

Bartleby

“Scaling People” is a textbook piece of management writing

Schumpeter

The new king of beers is a Mexican-American success story

Finance & economics

Wishful sinking

China’s economy is on course for a “double dip”

War economics

Rebuilding Ukraine will require money, but also tough reforms

Failing to ignite

Against expectations, oil and gas remain cheap

Buttonwood

Why investors can’t agree on the financial outlook

Making hay

India’s journey from agricultural basket case to breadbasket

Free exchange

Can the West build up its armed forces on the cheap?

Science & technology

Anything that can’t continue, won’t

The bigger-is-better approach to AI is running out of road

Brains in a pill

Study drugs make healthy people worse at problem-solving, not better

Growing business

Sweden wants to build an entire city from wood

Culture

#MeToo in Taiwan

A TV drama about Taiwanese politics has sparked a social reckoning

Art and regeneration

A sculpture in San Francisco Bay points towards the future

Kooky American fiction

Lorrie Moore’s protagonist goes on a road trip with a dead girlfriend

A dynasty of tyrants

Is North Korea’s propagandist-in-chief also its dictator-in-waiting?

Heaps of trouble

The world’s waste problem is growing fast

Johnson

Talking about AI in human terms is natural—but wrong

The Economist reads

Saudi Arabia

What to read (and watch) to understand Saudi Arabia

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

What goes around comes around

Buyers of Russian crude are exporting refined oil to the West

The Economist explains

Why the rainbow flag is now one of many during Pride month

Obituary

Tell me lies about Vietnam