Feb 17th 2024

The right goes gaga: Meet the Global Anti-Globalist Alliance

The world this week

Leaders

The right

The growing peril of national conservatism

It’s dangerous and it’s spreading. Liberals need to find a way to stop it

Prepare for President Trump

Europe must hurry to defend itself against Russia—and Donald Trump

The ex-president’s invitation to Vladimir Putin to attack American allies is an assault on NATO. Ultimately, that is bad for America

Decline and fall

Pakistan is out of friends and out of money

A botched election and an economic crisis show how low it has fallen

A shock to the system

A new answer to the biggest climate conundrum

Will electrification of industry live up to its promise?

Silicon rally

As San Francisco builds the future of technology, can it rebuild itself?

People feared a doom loop. Reality has been more surprising

America’s shadow central banks

Another bank subsidy America should kill off

The Federal Home Loan Banks offer loans to Wall Street that are too cheap

The ur-snafu

How not to do a megaproject

The lessons of HS2 for Britain and beyond

Letters

On export controls on China, charter schools, council tax, Ukraine, DEI, Peter Schickele, common sense

Letters to the editor

By Invitation

Politics and ageing

David Owen argues that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both too old to be president

Corporate culture

Two experts predict AI will transform companies’ understanding of themselves

Briefing

Nationalists of the world, unite!

“National conservatives” are forging a global front against liberalism

The alliance may be incoherent, but that does not make it harmless

The burning question

First electric cars. Next, electric factories?

They could be a major new way to slow global warming

Asia

A historic shift

India’s unprecedented love-in with the Middle East

Junked bonds

India’s Supreme Court delivers a rare setback for Narendra Modi

File under F for “fiasco”

Pakistan’s voters tell the generals where to put it

General, elected

Prabowo Subianto will be Indonesia’s next president

Banyan

Australia needs to rethink its approach to its Pacific island neighbours

China

China and the world

Xi Jinping’s paranoia is making China isolated and insular

Messy for Messi

Hong Kong is struggling to restore its image as a global city

Life’s a beach

China is trying to boost domestic tourism

Chaguan

How China stifles dissent without a KGB or Stasi of its own

United States

Racial progress in America

Black workers are enjoying a jobs boom in America

House of cowards

House Republicans fear Trump too much to aid Ukraine

All in the family

Cousin marriage is probably fine in most cases

Parler games

The far-right’s favoured social-media platform plots a comeback

Night court

The search for justice in America is not a nine-to-five job

Lexington

Donald Trump’s tremendous love

Middle East & Africa

The next phase of the Gaza war

If Israel invades, hell looms in Rafah

The case against UNRWA

The real problem with the UN’s agency for Palestinians

Helping the bad guys

How Yemen’s dominant Houthis blackmail foreign aid agencies

South African politics

Is Julius Malema the most dangerous man in South Africa?

Taking credit

African governments return to international bond markets

Ukrainians in Sudan

Evidence mounts that Ukrainian forces are in Sudan

The Americas

The perils of Petrobras

Why Lula keeps meddling with Latin America’s top oil company

From model to muddle

Chile’s crisis is not over yet

Europe

How to spend it

The EU’s covid-19 recovery fund has worked, but not as intended

A new role

After Russia’s invasion the people of Bessarabia switched sides

A concrete wall

As Donald Trump threatens NATO, the Baltic states stiffen their defences

Back from the slagheap

As German industry declines, the Ruhr gives hope

Overcooked controversy

Europe decides it doesn’t like lab-grown meat before it’s tried it

Charlemagne

How not to botch the upcoming EU leadership reshuffle

Britain

Getting nowhere fast

The horror story of HS2

Crime prevention

Why British police should focus on victims

Hotting up

Climate will be a battleground in Britain’s next election

Britain’s silver zones

How to live to one hundred

A life more ordinary

British lives are getting duller

Bagehot

Ban it harder! An unwelcome new trend in British politics

Roses are perishable

Love, frugality and home-grown flowers are in the air

International

Counting the votes

2024 is a giant test of nerves for democracy

Business

Chipping in

China is quietly reducing its reliance on foreign chip technology

Tokyo Electrified

Japan’s semiconductor toolmakers are booming

Paramount’s paramours

Suitors are wooing Paramount

The super store

Why Costco is so loved

Bartleby

How to benefit from the conversations you have at work

Boxing match

How worried should Amazon be about Shein and Temu?

Schumpeter

The row over US Steel shows the new meaning of national security

Finance & economics

Artificial intelligence

How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback

Buttonwood

Investing in commodities has become nightmarishly difficult

Putting out fires

How the world economy learned to love chaos

Conflict trading

The Ukraine war offers energy arbitrage opportunities

American banks

Is working from home about to spark a financial crisis?

Free exchange

In defence of a financial instrument that fails to do its job

Science & technology

Lunar odyssey

A private Moon mission hopes to succeed where others have failed

Milk and two microbes

For the perfect cup of tea, start with the right bacteria

Shame, set and match

What tennis reveals about AI’s impact on human behaviour

JET off

A 40-year-old nuclear-fusion experiment bows out in style

Culture

Turkish delight

The third-largest exporter of television is not who you might expect

Indecipherable fingerprints

A secret room in Florence boasts drawings by Michelangelo

Laughing to tears

On “A Wonderful Country”, Israelis joke their way through trauma

Drugs, terms and steel

The Wa: the world’s biggest drug-dealers, with a tiny profile

Pen v plague

From Napoleon to Vladimir Putin, disease has shaped history

Back Story

The real message of Vladimir Putin’s chat with Tucker Carlson

The Economist reads

The Economist reads

What to read about Indonesia

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

The Economist explains

The Economist explains

What is Russia’s mysterious new space weapon?

The Economist explains

How Ukraine sank the Caesar Kunikov—and is beating Russia at sea

Obituary

A line through the jungle