The right goes gaga: Meet the Global Anti-Globalist Alliance

The world this week

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


The right
The growing peril of national conservatism
It’s dangerous and it’s spreading. Liberals need to find a way to stop it

Prepare for President Trump
Europe must hurry to defend itself against Russia—and Donald Trump
The ex-president’s invitation to Vladimir Putin to attack American allies is an assault on NATO. Ultimately, that is bad for America

Decline and fall
Pakistan is out of friends and out of money
A botched election and an economic crisis show how low it has fallen

A shock to the system
A new answer to the biggest climate conundrum
Will electrification of industry live up to its promise?

Silicon rally
As San Francisco builds the future of technology, can it rebuild itself?
People feared a doom loop. Reality has been more surprising

America’s shadow central banks
Another bank subsidy America should kill off
The Federal Home Loan Banks offer loans to Wall Street that are too cheap

The ur-snafu
How not to do a megaproject
The lessons of HS2 for Britain and beyond

Letters

On export controls on China, charter schools, council tax, Ukraine, DEI, Peter Schickele, common sense
Letters to the editor
By Invitation


Politics and ageing
David Owen argues that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both too old to be president
Corporate culture
Two experts predict AI will transform companies’ understanding of themselves
Briefing


Nationalists of the world, unite!
“National conservatives” are forging a global front against liberalism
The alliance may be incoherent, but that does not make it harmless

The burning question
First electric cars. Next, electric factories?
They could be a major new way to slow global warming
Asia


A historic shift
India’s unprecedented love-in with the Middle East
Junked bonds
India’s Supreme Court delivers a rare setback for Narendra Modi
File under F for “fiasco”
Pakistan’s voters tell the generals where to put it
General, elected
Prabowo Subianto will be Indonesia’s next president
Banyan
Australia needs to rethink its approach to its Pacific island neighbours
China


China and the world
Xi Jinping’s paranoia is making China isolated and insular
Messy for Messi
Hong Kong is struggling to restore its image as a global city
Life’s a beach
China is trying to boost domestic tourism
Chaguan
How China stifles dissent without a KGB or Stasi of its own
United States


Racial progress in America
Black workers are enjoying a jobs boom in America
House of cowards
House Republicans fear Trump too much to aid Ukraine
All in the family
Cousin marriage is probably fine in most cases
Parler games
The far-right’s favoured social-media platform plots a comeback
Night court
The search for justice in America is not a nine-to-five job
Lexington
Donald Trump’s tremendous love

Middle East & Africa


The next phase of the Gaza war
If Israel invades, hell looms in Rafah
The case against UNRWA
The real problem with the UN’s agency for Palestinians
Helping the bad guys
How Yemen’s dominant Houthis blackmail foreign aid agencies
South African politics
Is Julius Malema the most dangerous man in South Africa?
Taking credit
African governments return to international bond markets
Ukrainians in Sudan
Evidence mounts that Ukrainian forces are in Sudan
The Americas


The perils of Petrobras
Why Lula keeps meddling with Latin America’s top oil company
From model to muddle
Chile’s crisis is not over yet
Europe


How to spend it
The EU’s covid-19 recovery fund has worked, but not as intended
A new role
After Russia’s invasion the people of Bessarabia switched sides
A concrete wall
As Donald Trump threatens NATO, the Baltic states stiffen their defences
Back from the slagheap
As German industry declines, the Ruhr gives hope
Overcooked controversy
Europe decides it doesn’t like lab-grown meat before it’s tried it
Charlemagne
How not to botch the upcoming EU leadership reshuffle
Britain


Getting nowhere fast
The horror story of HS2
Crime prevention
Why British police should focus on victims
Hotting up
Climate will be a battleground in Britain’s next election
Britain’s silver zones
How to live to one hundred
A life more ordinary
British lives are getting duller
Bagehot
Ban it harder! An unwelcome new trend in British politics
Roses are perishable
Love, frugality and home-grown flowers are in the air
International


Counting the votes
2024 is a giant test of nerves for democracy
Business


Chipping in
China is quietly reducing its reliance on foreign chip technology
Tokyo Electrified
Japan’s semiconductor toolmakers are booming
Paramount’s paramours
Suitors are wooing Paramount
The super store
Why Costco is so loved
Bartleby
How to benefit from the conversations you have at work
Boxing match
How worried should Amazon be about Shein and Temu?
Schumpeter
The row over US Steel shows the new meaning of national security
Finance & economics


Artificial intelligence
How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback
Buttonwood
Investing in commodities has become nightmarishly difficult
Putting out fires
How the world economy learned to love chaos
Conflict trading
The Ukraine war offers energy arbitrage opportunities
American banks
Is working from home about to spark a financial crisis?
Free exchange
In defence of a financial instrument that fails to do its job
Science & technology


Lunar odyssey
A private Moon mission hopes to succeed where others have failed
Milk and two microbes
For the perfect cup of tea, start with the right bacteria
Shame, set and match
What tennis reveals about AI’s impact on human behaviour
JET off
A 40-year-old nuclear-fusion experiment bows out in style
Culture


Turkish delight
The third-largest exporter of television is not who you might expect
Indecipherable fingerprints
A secret room in Florence boasts drawings by Michelangelo
Laughing to tears
On “A Wonderful Country”, Israelis joke their way through trauma
Drugs, terms and steel
The Wa: the world’s biggest drug-dealers, with a tiny profile
Pen v plague
From Napoleon to Vladimir Putin, disease has shaped history
Back Story
The real message of Vladimir Putin’s chat with Tucker Carlson
The Economist reads


The Economist reads
What to read about Indonesia
Economic & financial indicators

Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
The Economist explains


The Economist explains
What is Russia’s mysterious new space weapon?
The Economist explains
How Ukraine sank the Caesar Kunikov—and is beating Russia at sea
Obituary


A line through the jungle
Jack Jennings was one of the Allied POWs who built the Burma Railway