Jul 1st 2023

Hard truths about green growth

The world this week

Leaders

Russia

The humbling of Vladimir Putin

The Wagner mutiny exposes the Russian tyrant’s growing weakness. But don’t count him out yet

Hard truths about green growth

How misfiring environmentalism risks harming the world’s poor

The trade-off between development and climate change is impossible to avoid

AI and productivity

The widespread adoption of AI by companies will take a while

For the technology to make its mark on productivity, even mediocre firms will need to make the leap

Half-marks for Indian education

Can India educate its vast workforce?

Poor schools put the economic boom at risk

Don’t be a flaggard. Raise your standards!

How to design better flags

Some tips to avoid having an embarrassing emblem

Letters

On Turkey’s economy, Microsoft, jargon, Botswana, older workers, Harry Potter

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Russia

Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the stark lessons from Russia’s wild weekend

Russia

Mark Galeotti on Vladimir Putin’s self-inflicted wounds

Briefing

Out of the frying pan

The surprising upside of climate migration

To adapt to climate change, people will move. The results will not be all bad

Asia

Missing the mark

Narendra Modi’s ultimate test—educating 265m pupils

Best in class

Why are Vietnam’s schools so good?

Closing Pandora’s box

Ethnic conflict drags on in Manipur in India’s north-east

Banyan

Aboriginal Australians may at last be given a say in their own affairs

China

Bringing up the past

Why China is so keen to salvage shipwrecks in the South China Sea

Nonne intellegis?

To understand Xi Jinping, it helps to be steeped in the classics

Planting seeds

A Chinese reality-TV show about farming doubles as propaganda

Chaguan

How China sees Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny

United States

New nukes

America aims for nuclear-power renaissance

Beacon Mill

Massachusetts is not the gun-control beacon it once was

Gen C-Suite

What the rise of student consulting clubs means

Recovery for a broken heart

In North Carolina a jilted husband can sue his wife’s lover

A victory for democracy

The Supreme Court declines to upend American election law

Bad banners

Why many American states and cities are changing their flags

Lexington

AI is making Washington smarter

Middle East & Africa

Wagner in Africa

What next for Wagner’s African empire?

Not so transparent

Sierra Leone’s president is re-elected in the first round

Out of control

Settler vigilantes are getting more violent—and Israel’s government is encouraging them

Don’t care too much for money

After years of talks, indebted Arab states and the IMF are at an impasse

The Americas

The parsimonious populist

AMLO’s austerity has hurt Mexico

Seeds of hope

Guatemala’s election produces a pleasant surprise

Maggie in the making

If Venezuela’s elections were fair, this would be the front-runner

Europe

The time of troubles

The Wagner mutiny has left Putin dangerously exposed

Party like it’s 1917

Can Ukraine capitalise on chaos in Russia?

Back in triumph

Kyriakos Mitsotakis returns to the Greek prime minister’s office

Kosovo rumbles again

Ethnic Serbs and Albanians are at each others’ throats

Back to the centre

Spanish voters seem to hanker after stable centrist government

Charlemagne

European politics has gone from complicated to impenetrable

Britain

Crime and pointless punishment

Why short prison sentences in England and Wales are a disaster

Buyers’ remorse

As Britons grow more unhappy with Brexit, what happens next?

Navigation

Lighthouse lights are losing their sweep

British intelligence

The boss of Britain’s spies speaks

Britain’s badly fed kids

Are young children in Britain getting smaller?

Business

ChatGPT Inc

Our early-adopters index examines how corporate America is deploying AI

Super traps

Why Asia’s super-app companies are stuck in a rut

Too close for comfort

South Korea’s government and business are over-close

Bartleby

The potential and the plight of the middle manager

Traders of a lost art

Indiana Jones and the fedora boom

Gone with the wind

Siemens’s wind-turbine business is blown off course

Schumpeter

Meet the world’s most flirtatious sovereign-wealth fund

Finance & economics

Development v climate

The choice between a poorer today and a hotter tomorrow

Blow the whistle

New forms of debt restructuring reward bad behaviour

Too little or too late

Financial sanctions may not deter China from invading Taiwan

Sichuan pep

How to escape China’s property crisis

Buttonwood

Americans love American stocks. They should look overseas

Pump prizes

How Russia dodges diesel sanctions

Free exchange

The working-from-home illusion fades

Science & technology

Ripples in the sky

A new gravitational-wave detection has excited astronomers

Seeing stars

Even doctors can struggle to diagnose concussions

The forgotten pandemic

A new TB vaccine could save 8.5m lives over the next quarter of a century

The easy problem is not so easy

Thousands of species of animals probably have consciousness

Culture

Bethink yourselves!

Used and abused by Russian rulers, Tolstoy has always resisted

World in a dish

The curious, anaesthetising charm of Sichuan peppers

Rethinking German history

Seeing Germany’s past through a “global lens” revises it

The art of theft

The amazing tale of one of the world’s most prolific art thieves

Back Story

The secrets of Indiana Jones

The Economist reads

What to read (and listen to) about South Africa

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Saturday afternoon fever

Sunday brunch is the new Friday night

The Economist explains

What happened when Russia’s air force attacked Wagner’s rebels?

The Economist explains

How much power does Alexander Lukashenko have?

Obituary

Her working life