The world this week

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


Chaos—or opportunity?
Donald Trump is winning. Business, beware
What a second term would mean for American business and the economy

Hindu nationalism
Narendra Modi’s illiberalism may imperil India’s economic progress
Fulfilling his great-power dream requires restraint, not abandon

Bagehot weeps
How America accidentally made a free-money machine for banks
The Federal Reserve should switch it off

Show trial
Charging Israel with genocide makes a mockery of the court
And it diverts attention from the real humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Pics and it didn’t happen
AI-generated content is raising the value of trust
Who did the posting will soon matter more than what was posted

Letters

On Joe Biden, migrants, green data, electrifying heat, wine, meeting rooms
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


The war in Ukraine
Ukraine’s chief spy argues that its security deal with Britain is a game-changer
Pakistan’s election
A former ambassador argues that Pakistan needs a new political compact
Briefing


Invincible Indian
Narendra Modi’s electoral juggernaut looks unstoppable
But Indian democracy is stronger than it seems
Asia


Democracy island
Defying China, Taiwan elects William Lai Ching-te as president
Killing fields
Cambodia’s genocide is still hurting its people
Housewives and work
Married women in Japan are re-entering the labour market
North Korean belligerence
The Korean peninsula is as divided as ever
Banyan
How Hindu is India’s foreign policy?
China


Crime and punishment
Why China’s government is hushing up court rulings
Survey says
China’s leaders are less popular than they might think
Step aside, Ronald
How China is making the burger its own
Chaguan
How China’s public views Taiwan’s elections
United States


The mood thing
Why are Americans so gloomy about their great economy?
Hope springs ephemeral
How did the Iowa result change the Republican primary?
Iowa’s hidden hints
Where Donald Trump still looks vulnerable
Crashing truths
Why car insurance in America is actually too cheap
Over the wall
America’s southern border has become a global crossroads
Finding the votes
The election in Georgia could be as pivotal as it was four years ago
Lexington
It’s not the Trump Party quite yet

Middle East & Africa


How Israel has changed
After it ends, the war in Gaza will still continue to shape Israel
How Israel’s Arabs see themselves
Even as war rages in Gaza, Israel’s Arabs are feeling more Israeli
Sea change
Joe Biden puts the Houthis back on America’s baddies list
Insecurity in Nigeria
Kidnappers are wreaking havoc in Nigeria
Solving Sudan
Why diplomacy over Sudan, Africa’s enduring nightmare, is stuck
The Americas


Milei vs the caste
The fightback against Javier Milei’s radical reforms has begun
Reaping what you sow
Wild boar hybrids are raising hell on the Canadian prairies
Accelerated ageing
Plunging fertility rates are creating problems for Latin America
Europe


Shell-shocked
Can Europe arm Ukraine—or even itself?
Trip out of hell
A new therapy for Ukraine’s scarred soldiers: ketamine
Reining in the reindeer
Russia’s war is splitting the indigenous Sami in two
Ungainly Spain
Spain shows regional nationalists make bad coalition partners
O partigiano
Kin of Italian victims of Nazis may finally get compensation
Charlemagne
Europe’s monarchies are a study in dignified inanity
Britain


Still troubled
Northern Ireland’s peace process is not over
Getting verse
Britain has seen an alarming rise in poetry sales
Rejoice!
Rishi Sunak’s pyrrhic victory on Rwanda
Human says no
Britain’s Post Office scandal is a typical IT disaster
Constituency cartography
The map for the next British election has been redrawn
Notes on a scandal
Britain tries to correct the treatment of gender-dysphoric kids
Bagehot
Scottish nationalism’s left turn
International


Israel in the dock
The genocide case Israel faces is more about politics than the law
On the bench
Israel’s judge in The Hague is its government’s bogeyman
Business


Duck and cover
Many CEOs fear a second Trump term would be worse than the first
Hardly PAC-ed to the rafters
Donald Trump’s populism is turning off corporate donors
Fiscal Trumponomics
Donald Trump’s tax cuts would add to American growth—and debt
The Sam and Satya show
The bosses of OpenAI and Microsoft talk to The Economist
Cross-strait squeeze
China may be losing its sway over Taiwanese business
Bartleby
Companies run to their own annual rhythms
Amer’s American dream
Can Arc’teryx’s owner revive Chinese IPOs in America?
Big by design
A $35bn mega-merger strengthens a quiet chip duopoly
Schumpeter
Why BlackRock is betting billions on infrastructure
Finance & economics


Of money and Modi
How strong is India’s economy under Narendra Modi?
Global monetary policy
The countries which raised rates first are now cutting them
Follow that!
Ted Pick takes charge of Morgan Stanley
The turn of the screw
Australian houses are less affordable than they have been in decades
Double dip
China’s population is shrinking and its economy is losing ground
Buttonwood
Wall Street is praying firms will start going public again
The fallout
The Middle East faces economic chaos
Free exchange
What economists have learnt from the post-pandemic business cycle
Science & technology


More bucks for bigger bangs
The Pentagon is hurrying to find new explosives
A slippery concept
Common sense is not actually very common
Fake-news news
Many AI researchers think fakes will become undetectable
Mass production?
Researchers in China create the first healthy, cloned rhesus monkey
Culture


In your face
The rise of foul-mouthed female slam poets in Africa
Diary of a bad year
A tougher sentence for Hitler in 1923 could have changed history
Copy wrongs
A new book looks at the past and future of copyright
Back Story
How should cinema tackle the horror of the Holocaust?
Live music
Does Las Vegas’s Sphere reveal the future of concerts?
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary


From boys to men
Elmore Nickleberry pinned his hopes to Martin Luther King