The world this week
Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon

Leaders

Operation Blind Fury
War in Iran is making Donald Trump weaker—and angrier
By diminishing the president’s political superpowers, his reckless campaign may make him more dangerous
A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, March 14th 2026
Lebanon’s last chance
Lebanon’s leaders must take on Hizbullah
And Israel must not play the spoiler
A worker arranges pepper plants in a greenhouse that uses agri-tech in Jos, Nigeria
Open for business
Africa after aid is more resilient than you might think
But more needs to be done to ensure a prosperous future
A Cuban and a US flag flutter on the roof of a tricycle in Havana, Cuba
Dealing with Havana
A dirty deal with Cuba would be better than the alternatives
A prolonged blockade risks creating a humanitarian crisis on America’s doorstep
A woman walks her dog on the beach in front of an offshore wind farm.
Lingering fumes
Gas will not be killed off by renewables any time soon
But there are ways to rely less on it

Letters
A selection of correspondence
Are data centres in space less crazy than we think?
By Invitation
A portrait of Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi
Shocking war
America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war
Briefing
Satellite image shows smoke rising from UAE's Fujairah port
Double deadlock
There is plenty of scope for the Iran war to intensify
But no obvious way to bring it to an end
Munitions, believed to be JDAM bunker-busting bombs, are loaded into a US Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber
Fire-retardant spray
The Iran war could sap American military power for years
It is devouring munitions and exhausting an already stretched navy
An Iranian holds a portrait of Iran's newly nominated supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei ROTEST
No quarter
The assassination of senior leaders weakens Iran—but at a cost
The regime is becoming ever less predictable
Asia
South Korean Buddhist monks and members of civic groups bow and prostrate themselves as they march towards the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, to protest against President Donald Trump, March 17, 2026.
Holding fire
Will America’s Asian allies get dragged into the Iran war?
The energy shock in India
Panicked Indians are scrambling to buy gas
Banyan
What Nitish Kumar did for Bihar, India’s poorest state
Burmese days
Life in Myanmar’s biggest city is increasingly grim
Playing with fire
A deadly strike in Kabul could have big knock-on effects
China
An engineer debugs robots at the factory of AgiBot, a leading robotics company specializing in embodied intelligence, on December 8, 2025 in Shanghai, China.
Cake, robots and electrons
Is cheap energy the key to China gaining AI supremacy?
A hawkish turn
Public opinion in China is hardening on America and Taiwan
Clear the skies
Why China’s fight on air pollution has slowed
Chaguan
A Maoist survival guide to the Iranian energy crisis
United States
Donald Trump throwing a small fighter jet like a paper airplane that's looping around and about to hit the back of his head
The man with no plan
How the Iran war is hurting Donald Trump
Conversation with an apostate
Tucker Carlson on whether Donald Trump has betrayed his base
Collateral advantage
A muddled war and rising prices are boosting Democrats’ midterm hopes
From Hormuz to the heartland
American farmers are feeling the squeeze
Distracted defences
Is an obsession with immigration leaving America exposed?
Lexington
Does Donald Trump even care about the midterms?

The Americas
A man repairs a bicycle tire on the sidewalk
Blackout economics
Cuba’s broken economy leaves it at Donald Trump’s mercy
Middle East & Africa
Portrait of Aliko Dangote.
Aliko Dangote
Africa’s richest man has ambitious plans for the continent
No peace in sight
The war in eastern Congo is escalating far from view
Rocking the Nation
A shake-up at Africa’s spikiest media group
Israel and Hizbullah
Israel contemplates a ground invasion of Lebanon
Europe

Low on gas
The Iran war is forcing Europe to confront its energy problem
Barrels of laughs
Vladimir Putin enjoys a huge windfall from the Iran war
Yeah, baby
Viktor Orban’s pro-natalist policies are not working
Catfishing in the Alps
A spy scandal upends Slovenia’s election campaign
The Kneecap effect
The quiet recovery of Ireland’s ancient tongue
Charlemagne
How Ukraine and Europe got caught in a geopolitical lovers’ tiff
Britain
Rachel Reeves, interviewed for the Economist, London, UK, March 17th 2026
Destination Brussels
Britain’s chancellor starts a tilt towards Europe
U-turn if you want to
By our calculations, motoring in Britain has rarely been so cheap
Not so NEET
Britain’s youngsters are increasingly out of work
Rational recreation
The Duke of Edinburgh’s award is more popular than ever
Holy divided
The new Archbishop of Canterbury inherits a church in turmoil
Scrapheap Britain
Industrial-scale fly-tipping is spreading across Britain
Bagehot
CBeebies or barbarism!
International
Blast furnaces, in a copper smelter where copper ore is smelted and raw copper sheets are cast.
Get paid, not aid
The future of Africa will be shaped by investment rather than aid
The Telegram
America’s failing gunboat diplomacy
Business

Space Nvader
Nvidia is expanding its empire
Of cockroaches, canaries and termites
Trouble is brewing among America’s corporate borrowers
Clearing the air
War may bring lasting change to the airline business
Noises off
The Iran war casts a shadow over BASF’s nascent revival
Coding against the machine
Why AI has not yet upset India’s IT industry
En vogue
How Zara fought off H&M and Shein
Bartleby
The secrets to a good employee survey
Schumpeter
Elliott Management and the art of telling bosses they’re wrong
Finance & economics
A worker changes the prices for gas at a 76 station in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
Disunited petro-states of America
America may be a petrostate. But the energy shock still hurts
Terminal solution
What if Donald Trump decided to ban oil exports?
Green, brown and red
China cannot escape the energy shock
The darkest hours
Which country is the biggest loser from the energy shock?
Scattershock
The Iran war is roiling commodities far beyond oil
Buttonwood
Will South Korea’s epic bull market survive the energy shock?
Free Exchange
The new economics of sex work
Science & technology
In front of the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s first tokamak donated to the Institute by the Soviet Union.
Chasing the sun
China is a serious contender in the race for fusion energy
Chips away
The next phase of artificial intelligence may require very different processors
Leading the charge
Rapid-charging EV batteries are on the way
Well Informed
Should you take GLP-1 drugs for longevity?
Culture
Empty beds are pictured before high-rise buildings along a beach at Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) in Dubai.
Wanderlust and lost
War is only the starkest way that politics is disrupting tourism
World in a dish
Which is the best sparkling water?
Hatchet job
Re-examining one of the world’s most notorious assassinations
The gang’s all here
It’s strictly business: the enduring allure of mafiosi in culture
Rooms with a view
Looking for a Paris hotel with a past?
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Jürgen Habermas
The Mole of Reason
Jürgen Habermas hoped rational discussion could save the world