The trouble with sticky inflation

The world this week

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


The trouble with sticky inflation
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
Obituary


Tell me lies about Vietnam
Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to try to stop the Vietnam war