The world this week

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s covers
Leaders


Search engines
The battle for internet search
Will the AI chatbots eat Google’s lunch?

Seismic shock
The devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria might upend politics, too
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a tough election in May

A new social contract in the Gulf
Arab petrostates must prepare their citizens for a post-oil future
Better schools and a political voice would be a start

Wanted: severe contests
How to promote academic freedom in America
Colleges that promote ideological conformity do students a disservice

China and America
Cold-war lessons from China’s spy balloon
To avoid perilous misunderstanding, the two sides should talk more

Adani’s agony
The humbling of Gautam Adani is a test for Indian capitalism
The biggest tycoons need the sternest scrutiny

Letters

On Ukraine and Russia, Britain’s canals, protectionism, Gina Lollobrigida, Esperanto, cannabis, Mickey Mouse, paying MPs
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


Economic growth
Jeremy Hunt’s four-pillar plan to boost productivity
Russia and Ukraine
Sir Richard Barrons on how the characteristics of war are changing
Climate technology
Michael Liebreich wants existing low-carbon technologies to be scaled up much faster
Briefing


A tycoon at bay
Why Adani Group’s troubles will reverberate across India
The conglomerate is not just big; it also embodies the tensions in the country’s growth model
Asia


Broken and broke
Pakistan is at risk of default
Cricket
Indian investors pile in to women’s cricket
Arubaito abroad
Japanese workers are seeking higher wages overseas
A strongman on the Silk Road
Squashing dissidents in Uzbekistan
Banyan
Democracy is reviving in Asia
China


Sino-American rivalry
Tensions will linger over a Chinese balloon downed by America
Gunning for the HK47
Hong Kong starts its largest national-security trial
Seeing red on the silver screen
A hit film recalling an ancient poem fuels Chinese nationalist fervour
Chaguan
The lessons from the Chinese spy balloon
United States


New testaments
American universities are hiring based on devotion to diversity
Drill, maybe, drill
Joe Biden is not quitting fossil fuels
Chains of control
The history and limits of America’s favourite new economic weapon
Picking winners
A new primary calendar gives black Democrats an earlier say for 2024
Murdaugh most foul
The Murdaugh trial and small-town power
Lexington
History may yet judge Joe Biden’s presidency as transformational

Middle East & Africa


Reinventing the Gulf
After decades of empty talk, reforms in Gulf states are real—but risky
Trade mission
Taking stock of America’s flagship trade programme for Africa
The Americas


The revolutionary v the pragmatist
Can Colombia’s mercurial president bring “total peace”?
Friends with benefits
Brazil’s new president is visiting Joe Biden to boost relations
Europe


A crushing blow
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have shaken both countries
Ploughshares into swords
Russia’s technocrats keep funds flowing for Vladimir Putin’s war
The enemy within
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are suffering with PTSD
Jobs and protest
Why France is arguing about work, and the right to be lazy
Charlemagne
Europe should not respond to America’s subsidies binge with its own blunders
Britain


Definition of insanity
The British government is planning another crackdown on asylum-seekers
Plane speaking
Volodymyr Zelensky visits Britain
Test of metal
Steelmaking in Britain has to get greener. But who’ll pay?
Track records
The technology that can help British hospitals work better
Trance advance
Shamanism is Britain’s fastest-growing religion
Pump unprimed
The heat-pump challenge in Britain
Bagehot
The Conservative Party’s morbid symptoms
International


Move fast and fix things
How a tide of tech money is transforming charity
Business


Seeking change
Is Google’s 20-year dominance of search in peril?
Three is a cloud
Alleged fraud at a Brazilian retailer sparks a corporate reckoning
Bartleby
The pitfalls of loving your job a little too much
The energy majors’ new map
Where on Earth is big oil spending its $150bn profit bonanza?
Schumpeter
What would Joseph Schumpeter have made of Apple?
Finance & economics


What pandemic?
China’s ultra-fast economic recovery
Home truths
South Korea’s housing crunch offers a warning for other countries
Buttonwood
Surging stocks undermine a hallowed investing rule
New lease of life
City centres: from offices to family homes
Quantitative frightening
The Federal Reserve’s $2.5trn question
Free exchange
Google, Microsoft and the threat from overmighty trustbusters
Science & technology


Bad weather
How to predict record-shattering weather events
Military communications
DARPA, lasers and an internet in orbit
Culture


Man of the people
A television show about Jesus Christ has become an unlikely hit
It took a continent
A new history focuses on the collaborators in the Holocaust
Historical fantasy fiction
Salman Rushdie’s new novel is an ode to storytelling and freedom
World in a dish
Thai restaurateurs and British pubs have proved a perfect pairing
Great minds do not think alike
Anaximander is a hero in the development of scientific thinking
Back Story
The genius of Johannes Vermeer is on display as never before
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


Stuck in the middle
Turkey sits at the crossroads of tectonic plates as well as civilisations
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
What is short-selling?
The Economist explains
How drones dogfight above Ukraine
Obituary


Whisky and moderation
Pervez Musharraf was one of Pakistan’s better dictators