The Intelligence from The Economist

By The Economist

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Get a daily burst of global illumination from The Economist’s worldwide network of correspondents as they dig past the headlines to get to the stories beneath—and to stories that aren’t making headlines, but should be. Published daily, our reporters provide a unique perspective on an expansive range of geopolitical issues and events shaping the world.
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General’s knowledge: a chat...

09.27.2023

Where the defensive lines really are, the state of Russia’s reserves, battlefield tactics: Kyrylo Budanov is a candid interviewee—but he claims to know nothing about all those drones. Gambling has been illegal in Brazil for decades, but pinched government coffers ...

The Intelligence from The Economist episodes:

09.27.2023 General’s knowledge: a chat with Ukraine’s spy chief Where the defensive lines really are, the state of Russia’s reserves, battlefield tactics: Kyrylo Budanov is a candid interviewee—but he claims to know nothing about all those drones. Gambling has been illegal in Brazil for decades, but pinched government coffers ...
09.26.2023 The French disconnection: a retreat from Niger President Emmanuel Macron’s about-face on maintaining a presence in the coup-stricken country portends a broader change in France’s relations on the continent. Shifting geopolitics is changing the list of the world’s big arms dealers (9:08). And the internet influencers taking ...
09.25.2023 Going bump in the right: Europe’s worrisome politics Populist, right-wing parties are already in power in Hungary, Poland and Italy—and getting closer to it across the continent. We ask why. At long last Rupert Murdoch, the patriarch of a global media empire, has stepped aside—sort of. We examine ...
09.22.2023 No end in sight: how Ukraine is being shaped by a long war Reporting from the ground, our Eastern Europe editor explores how the country is bracing for a new phase of war. In some ways, people have adapted, but equally the invasion has clearly taken a mental toll. Reflecting on the life ...
09.21.2023 Missing in action: China’s defence minister has disappeared It would not be the first time that a member of the government has gone missing, not even the first time this year. But what does this say about the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army? No one cares about ...
09.20.2023 Are the allegations tru deau? Canada and India’s diplomatic row The murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Najjar has deepened a long-running spat between the two countries. Will Canada’s allies be willing to get involved? It’s been 100 years since Japan’s Great Kanto earthquake. Here’s how the country is preparing ...
09.19.2023 Argo the sequel: America and Iran’s hostage deal This is not the first time the Islamic Republic has taken foreigners hostage. It’s proven an effective bargaining chip for decades and this time around, it has earned the state billions of dollars in unfrozen assets. Also, should you go ...
09.18.2023 Radical shift: an interview with Argentina’s presidential frontrunner The libertarian right-winger is leading in the polls, a surprise for a country that has typically leaned left. He has drastic plans to shrink the state. Could he turn the country around? Why Germany’s highway system and techno lovers have ...
09.15.2023 Support systems: allies debate Ukraine’s tactics As progress on the front line slows, Western countries are divided over how the army should proceed. There are disagreements about where should be targeted and how, and with autumn around the corner, time is of the essence. Why Americans’ ...
09.14.2023 Refresh your feed: introducing Economist Podcasts+ For 17 years, The Economist has brought you a host of brilliant shows. Now we are taking that even further. But to bring you even more of the content that you love, we need your support. Why Nagorno-Karabakh is on ...
09.13.2023 Chilean effect: the 50th anniversary of the coup On September 11th 1973, president Salvador Allende shot himself in the head after being overthrown in a coup, giving rise to the violent rule of General Augusto Pinochet. But citizens are divided on how the leaders ought to be remembered. ...
09.12.2023 Midnight train to Moscow: Kim Jong Un cosies up with Russia In a rare trip outside of the hermit state, it seems the dictator is planning to meet with Vladimir Putin. With the prospect of an arms deal on the table, how worried should the international community be? Car theft is ...
09.11.2023 Preparing for the long war: an interview with President Zelensky As the counter-offensive continues, Ukrainian forces are running out of time to make substantial gains. Diplomatic attempts to isolate Russia have failed and progress on the front lines is slowing. From the capital Kyiv, the president tells The Economist’s editor-in-chief ...
09.08.2023 Moves over: American house prices The highest interest rates in years should lead to a fall in house prices. But peculiarities of America’s mortgage market are driving them up. Egg-freezing was supposed to give women more control over childbearing; we look at scant data showing ...
09.07.2023 A messy oil change: Nigeria’s fraught reforms Axing generous fuel subsidies was just one necessary reform promised by Bola Tinubu. A hundred days into the president’s term, we examine his ideas for change—finding they do not seem to be backed by real plans. Our correspondent says India’s ...
09.06.2023 Show and sell: Amazon v Hollywood The retail behemoth is splashing tremendous amounts of cash on streaming content; critics are unimpressed with the outcomes. But Amazon may have the best business model going. Statisticians in Britain appear to have found about 2% of GDP hiding in ...
09.05.2023 Upping arms: the new three-way nuclear race The calculus of the cold war is back, but there are new variables in the equation—namely China’s growing arsenal. We look at how three-way deterrence could work. Two years after America’s schools reopened their doors, a terrifying proportion of students ...
09.04.2023 Held fire: America’s murder rate slips The absolute numbers remain troubling but a close look at statistics reveals that, across American cities, fewer people are being killed. That democracy is good for a country’s economy is taken as orthodoxy—but given the time and costs to make ...
09.01.2023 Paranoia politics: a Tunisian lesson in demagoguery The president is using racist hate-mongering as both a rallying tool and a distraction mechanism. It is the oldest trick in the autocrat playbook and it proving effective. Why are some Americans flocking to start new lives in Europe (10.36)? ...
08.31.2023 Going, going… Gabon: another African coup Putsches in Africa are becoming more common and there appears to be a trend. Are there more to come and is there any hope of restoring democracy? Lebanon’s tourism sector is bringing foreign money back into the economy, but it’s ...
08.30.2023 Game of drones: can Ukraine pull ahead? Three months into the counteroffensive, the military is reaping the fruits of several months of drone development. But as the war continues, will it be able to scale up its capacity and outpace Russia? New international laws cracking down on ...
08.29.2023 Teutonic plague: is Germany the sick man of Europe? Owing to a host of deep-rooted economic and political challenges, it could be the only G7 economy to contract this year. How might it turn the tide? More people want flashy, bigger electric vehicles, but are the added environmental costs ...
08.28.2023 Going non-nuclear: East Asia’s changing families From Japan to South Korea, from China to Taiwan, family structures are becoming less traditional. More premarital cohabitation, single parenthood and two-income households are influencing demographics—with worrying consequences. And we pay tribute to 50 years of hip-hop. The New York-born ...
08.25.2023 Fellow-BRICS road: a club expands The alliance was always based more on common fortunes than common interests. We ask what to make of the six new members, and whether the bloc’s motley nature undermines its purpose. Regulation has struggled in an era when children can ...
08.24.2023 Flight of the long knives: Prigozhin’s reported death History would suggest that the crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane was an assassination. Our correspondent considers what the supposed death of the Wagner Group’s leader means for Ukraine—and what it says about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Indonesia has fostered a more ...
08.23.2023 Vote with no confidence: Zimbabwe goes to the polls Arranging friendly media coverage, giving handouts to voters, stifling opposition rallies: once again the country’s ruling party has put its thumb on the scales. It has to, after decades of failed governance. Our correspondent visits fire-ravaged Lahaina in Hawaii, finding ...
08.22.2023 Home groan: China’s housing-sector crisis Once again, fears are ripping through the industry—this time starting from a firm once thought too big to fail. In an economy so dependent on housebuilding, that will have wide-ranging consequences. We take a ride in one of the autonomous ...
08.21.2023 Latin lessons: two contrasting elections Ecuador and Guatemala faced similar preoccupations with violence and corruption—one of Ecuador’s candidates was assassinated on the campaign trail—but their electoral outcomes were very different. What does that reveal about the region? Once rare in America, leprosy is on the ...
08.18.2023 Gun-shy: why Niger’s coup stands, for now For weeks, the regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to undo the putsch by force. But appetite for a military response—the ultimate deterrent in a coup-prone region—seems small and waning. Russia’s rouble has become one of the world’s worst-performing currencies, and ...
08.17.2023 Make ore break: Latin America’s commodities The region is home to most of the world’s known lithium. Given the mineral’s usefulness in batteries and electric vehicles, could it be on the cusp of a commodities boom? Germany’s auto industry is at risk. Volkswagen, one of its ...
08.16.2023 Through the fire: an update from Hawaii As the death toll surpasses 100, we report from Maui where fires have ravaged the island in the deadliest American wildfire in over a century. Why was this one so catastrophic? The plummet of coca prices in Colombia is messing ...
08.15.2023 “Witch hunt”, Part Four: Trump indicted, again The former president has been hit with a new set of charges, under a catch-all racketeering act that has been used to prosecute everyone from rappers to teachers. It’s Mr Trump’s fourth indictment, but perhaps the most unusual. Ukraine’s new, ...
08.14.2023 West-siding story? Turkey’s tactical shift Despite cosying up with Russia and accusing America of trying to topple him, the newly re-elected president now appears to be flirting with old allies. But there is reason to be sceptical. A global survey shows that liberal values may ...
08.11.2023 In the big leagues now: Saudi Arabia’s push into sport Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman says a presence in top-level global sport is one route to modernising; critics call the effort a distraction from the country’s appalling human-rights record. Brazil’s government is pushing reforms that are clearly calming investors, who ...
08.10.2023 Taken too soon: why so many Americans die young An appalling record compared with much of the rich world is not just down to drugs and guns. We ask what changes, both in policy and philosophy, might reduce the death toll. A heat-transporting ocean current in the Atlantic could ...
08.09.2023 Trust the processor: America’s CHIPS Act one year on Big-money legislation to bring microprocessor manufacturing to the country is off to a reasonable start—but dominance of the industry is and will probably remain distant. Britain was once a leading light when it came to international aid; we ask why ...
08.08.2023 Bloc can tackle? ECOWAS and Niger’s coup The Economic Community of West African States may yet try to restore President Mohamed Bazoum militarily. Either way, Niger’s status as a bulwark against jihadism is threatened. America’s Republican hopefuls are courting Moms for Liberty, a pressure group with some ...
08.07.2023 Back to front: visiting Ukraine’s firing line As diplomatic efforts played out in Saudi Arabia our correspondent recounts travels along the nearly unbroken front line of the war—finding frustrated but determined soldiers and exhausted, fearful civilians. We examine the row around Japan’s plan to release wastewater from ...
08.04.2023 Too big tech: is Alphabet approaching a growth ceiling? As the tech giant approaches its 25-year anniversary, there are questions of just how much more it can possibly grow. Investors are used to stratospheric returns. Is it time to manage expectations? Nested behind the appearance of social discontent in ...
08.03.2023 Industrial waste: the world’s misguided manufacturing policies The industrial arms race is on. For many political reasons, countries with the means are throwing billions of dollars into local industries. But when will leaders realise that it might harm their economies? Japan’s refugee policy was already stringent, but ...
08.02.2023 Big-claims court: Donald Trump’s latest indictment The former American president is facing a new set of unprecedented legal challenges linked to his claims that he won the 2020 election. These charges are perhaps the most serious ones yet, but how will they affect his campaign? A ...
08.01.2023 Strong arms: North Korea’s pandemic era weapons program The country is not new to seclusion, but under the aegis of the pandemic, Kim Jong Un tightened borders even more. His regime has enjoyed the extra control, but are things finally opening up? The world’s biggest rice exporter is ...
07.31.2023 Putsched out: Niger’s coup d’état Following years of military takeovers in the region, Niger is the West’s last solid ally in the Sahel. But with this coup, and growing alignment with Russia, these relations are in jeopardy. Why is a policy to decongest London proving ...
07.28.2023 Trading criminality for autocracy: El Salvador A country that was not long ago gripped by gang violence and crime is slowly emerging from fear, thanks to a brutal roundup of young men by a wildly popular, social-media-savvy president. The streets may be safer, but now it ...
07.27.2023 With a grain assault: a deal abandoned Russia’s axeing of the Black Sea grain deal reveals a war machine running out of options. We explore how to get the deal back on track. A month-long mystery surrounding China’s absent foreign minister has grown deeper: now his memory ...
07.26.2023 Forewarned before armed: how to predict war Military types need not wait until mass movements of troops to know a conflict is coming. We examine a raft of subtle and not-so-subtle market moves that would precede a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. France’s quiet volte face on the ...
07.25.2023 Squash court: Israel’s controversial law reform A seemingly small change to the Supreme Court’s powers to adjudicate “reasonableness” represents a significant risk to the country’s democratic functioning—and 30 weeks of popular protest about it will continue. Our correspondent looks into why Vietnam’s schools produce such excellent ...
07.24.2023 Small-Vox symptoms: Spain’s elections After no party won a majority, forming a government may take weeks—or another election. But predictions that Vox, a far-right party, might enter government failed to materialise. Russia’s navy is repainting its vessels in a bid to frustrate munitions powered ...
07.21.2023 Palace intrigue: the Kremlin after the mutiny It has been a month since the head of the Wagner group led a march on Moscow. Although it failed, Putin appears considerably weaker. What does this mean for outcomes on the battlefield? India is facing record-breaking rainfall as monsoon ...
07.20.2023 Runaway soldier: American detained in North Korea Little is known about why he fled across the border into the hermit kingdom, but securing his release will require some tactical diplomacy. Given the tense relationship between both countries, is Kim Jong Un prepared to come to the table? ...

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