The world this week

Politics
Business
KAL’s cartoon
This week’s covers
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
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Graphic detail


Saturday afternoon fever
Sunday brunch is the new Friday night
The Economist explains


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
Glenda Jackson left acting for politics—and then returned