In 2008 Jade West, a small Canadian mining company, was selling nephrite jade for $20 per kilo. Then the Chinese market woke up. The Chinese government ran a campaign to promote nephrite jade during the Beijing Olympics, sparking interest in the gemstone…

Meetings of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) used to be soporific affairs. Not any more. These days they erupt into brawls, with bottles and chairs soaring over the mêlée, before they are broken up with tear gas. The change reflects a rift at the top of…

A glimmer of hope was provided this week by ordinary Sudanese civilians rather than the two armed forces battling for supremacy on the ground. On May 27th, to the sound of joyous ululations, the “Co-ordination Body of the Democratic Civil Forces of Sudan”…

JOE BIDEN’S re-election campaign wants you to know that the president is funny. To prove it, examples of his hilarity are posted almost daily to his TikTok page. One video, peppered with fire emojis, shows him cracking jokes about Donald Trump. Viewers have…

James Carville’s oft-quoted line needs updating. Bill Clinton’s political adviser once quipped that he would like to be reincarnated as the bond market so that he could “intimidate everybody”. It is now a group of fiscal nerds—called budget scorekeepers—who…

THERE ARE no Russian tanks rumbling towards Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, or Russian missiles flying over it—both things that happened during a five-day incursion in 2008 when the Kremlin attacked its former imperial vassal. But Georgia is still in mortal…

It is barely ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, yet Eike Schmidt has drawn nearly a hundred attentive listeners to a pizzeria in Le Cascine, a large park on the edge of Florence. But then the German-born Mr Schmidt is the most unusual mayoral candidate in…

Party activists are the infantry troops in any general election. They are the ones delivering leaflets, canvassing voters and getting out the vote. But their number is limited and parties must use them wisely. That means sending activists to marginal constituencies…

Not long ago, relations between Japan and South Korea were dismal. Between 2018 and 2021 they bickered over compensation for Japan’s abuse of Koreans as forced labourers during the second world war. Tit-for-tat trade curbs and boycotts of goods followed;…

ConocoPhillips agreed to buy Marathon Oil in a deal they valued at $22.5bn, making it the latest energy mega-merger in America. Oil and gas companies are consolidating in order to cut costs and boost their footprints. Marathon owns assets in Eagle Ford in…

At least 45 people were killed in Rafah after an Israeli air strike hit a tent camp. Israel said it was targeting two Hamas commanders and that the other deaths were caused by secondary explosions. Palestinians claimed large bombs hit an area for displaced…

THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC)—the continent’s oldest liberation movement, the spearhead of resistance to apartheid and the governing party since 1994—is no longer a hegemonic force in South Africa’s politics. Though the results of elections held on…

Across the developed world, birth rates are tumbling. That poses a fiscal threat: a smaller working-age population will struggle to fund pensions and health care for a growing number of old folk. In the face of a sudden shortfall of babies, governments face…

In 2022 the Supreme Court gave control of abortion back to “the people and their elected representatives.” This November will be the greatest test yet of what that means. Democrats are running hard on the issue and as many as 16 states will vote directly…

People are pouring into Lagos. Fast. Some 3,000 people move to the city every day. By some estimates the city grows by a million people a year. But just as Lagos’ population is rising the city is also sinking. Lagos is a city defined by water. Along its southern…

A handpicked article read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. With Narendra Modi expected to win a third term as India’s prime minister, we ask whether America is giving him an easy ride. Runtime: 8 min Get a world of insights for 50% off—subscribe…

A handpicked article read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. Today, we argue that, at a crucial moment, Europe will be shaped by the choices of Ursula von der Leyen, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen. Runtime: 9 min Get a world of insights for 50%…

THE MANAGERS of Saudi Aramco could have the cushiest jobs in the energy business. The state-run oil colossus produces 9m barrels of oil a day, more than any other firm and nearly a tenth of the world’s total (see chart 1). It boasts by far the largest remaining…

WE FULLY APPRECIATE our knees only when they stop working. The same is true of the global order: its former benefits become apparent only as it collapses. And when order collapses, the weak usually suffer most. This law of history should be on the minds of…

A handpicked article read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. Today, we ask whether the tech billionaire’s startup, christened xAI, can compete with the likes of OpenAI. While xAI has some advantages, it is entering a crowded field. Runtime: 6 min…