Jan 7th 2023

Exit wave

The world this week

Leaders

The end of magical thinking

A realistic path to a better relationship between Britain and the EU

The question of Europe has caused a decade of turmoil. Here’s how to use the next ten years better

Exit wave

How China’s reopening will disrupt the world economy

A tale of death, growth and inflation

A flock of seabirds close above a stormy with spindrift waves and an offshore windmill park in the background

Northern delights

Why the gusty North Sea could give Europe an industrial edge

Wind power is breathing life into a new green economy on its coasts

A volunteer seats near a Starlink terminal constructed for local residents at a street, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kherson, Ukraine, November 18, 2022. REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Internet from the sky

Starlink’s performance in Ukraine has ignited a new space race

Never mind the moon; look to low-Earth orbit

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 04: U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) listens in the House Chamber during the second day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 04, 2023 in Washington, DC. The House of Representatives is meeting to vote for the next Speaker after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to earn more than 218 votes on three separate Tuesday ballots, the first time in 100 years that the Speaker was not elected on the first ballot. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Unspeakable

What the Kevin McCarthy saga means for America’s Congress

Power struggles, public humiliation and a government shutdown may follow

Letters

On Britain’s constitution, Canada, Dutch auctions, bad translations

Letters to the editor

Briefing

Ukrainian soldiers Pavlo and Dorokhin retrieve a Starlink satellite connection hardware from a roof of a damaged university, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, from a recent missile attack in Kramatorsk Ukraine, December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

A murmuration of Starlinks

How Elon Musk’s satellites have saved Ukraine and changed warfare

And the worries about what comes next

Britain

Je regrette quelque chose

Assembling a better British relationship with Europe

The gender wars

Scotland’s new gender-reform law presents Rishi Sunak with a dilemma

Windrush

Britain’s offshore wind farms attract tourists

Bagehot

Britons in their thirties are stuck in a dark age

Europe

IVANIVSKE, UKRAINE - JANUARY 2: Emergency service workers extinguish a fire after shelling on the Bakhmut frontline in Ivanivske, Ukraine as Russia-Ukraine war continues on January 02, 2023 (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Hills to die on?

A Russian warlord’s savagery is sending a loud message to Moscow

Game-shooting in France

France reviews its hunting rules

Frenemies on the Oder

Why Poland loves to hate Germany

Charlemagne

Fifty years ago, the EU cracked the secret of its current success

United States

A man rides his bicycle near a light dusting of snow at Montrose Beach in Chicago, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Making little plans

Chicago’s woes are over-hyped

Business time

Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul have grand plans for New York City

McCarthy and the new House

Republicans struggle to elect a speaker of the House

Wealth warning

Pay-transparency laws do not work as advertised

Lexington

The great mystery of American politics

The Americas

TOPSHOT - Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (C), accompanied by his wife First Lady Rosangela "Janja" da Silva (R) and indigenous Brazilian leader and environmentalist Raoni Metuktire, known as Chief Raoni, after receiving the presidential sash from community representatives at Planalto Palace after his inauguration ceremony at the National Congress, in Brasilia, on January 1, 2023. - Lula da Silva, a 77-year-old leftist who already served as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010, takes office for the third time with a grand inauguration in Brasilia. (Photo by Sergio Lima / AFP) (Photo by SERGIO LIMA/AFP via Getty Images)

Big plans, not much money

Brazil’s new president faces a fiscal crunch and a fickle Congress

Middle East & Africa

2KA08T5 Jerusalem, Israel. 28th Oct, 2022. Itamar Ben-Gvir leader of the ultra nationalist far right party Otzma Yehudit, with supporters during a visit to the Mahane Yehuda open Market in Jerusalem. Israel's 5th national elections in four years will take place on Nov 1. On Nov 2 Israelis might wake up to a reality in which its nationalist far-right party, Religious Zionism which includes the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party will be the third largest party in parliament and a key member of a coalition led by opposition leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Credit Image: © Ey

Nothing’s gonna stop us now

Israel’s new government will test the ties with Arab states

The cost of the coup

Sudan’s troubled east is a microcosm of a wider crisis

Sex toys and taboos

Women in the Middle East are leading a revolt against prudish men

Asia

Asian geopolitics

Reinventing the Indo-Pacific

Cloud coup-coup land

A historic transfer of power in the South Pacific

Groping in the dark

Postponing India’s census is terrible for the country

Banyan

Pakistan and China find they have little leverage with the Taliban

China

The tsunami

China is overwhelmed, yet an even bigger covid wave may be coming

Chaguan

The Chinese Communist Party plans to avoid a zero-covid reckoning

International

JOHANNESBURG, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA - DECEMBER 25: People attend the Christmas Mass at Regina Mundi Catholic Church located Soweto town, Johannesburg, South Africa on December 25, 2022. (Photo by Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Late prelate

The death of Pope Benedict removes a problem for liberal Catholics

Joy and severity

Pope Benedict XVI was an iron fist in a white glove

Business

Technician standing on transfer vessel deck and in the morning and looking on offshore wind farm and offshore platform around in German north sea

Mare industriae

Can the North Sea become Europe’s new economic powerhouse?

Bartleby

How to have the most productive working day of your life

Bitter syrup

A scandal rocks India’s pharmaceutical industry

The Tesla conundrum

Investors conclude that Tesla is a carmaker, not a tech firm

Schumpeter

How to avoid flight chaos

Finance & economics

People celebrate the new year at a bar in Nanjing, in China's eastern Jiangsu province on January 1, 2023. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Life after covid-19

What the great reopening means for China—and the world

The sound of silence

Imagine an India without hawkers

Whydunnit?

Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty

Buttonwood

Will investors have another awful year in 2023?

Science & technology

Covid-19

All around the world, covid surveillance is faltering

Killing SARS-CoV-2

Acidifying the air may protect against covid

The changing nature of science

Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive

Culture

NAPLES, ITALY - 2021/03/05: A detail of the Pompeian mosaic known as Alexander the Great Mosaic, depicting the battle of Issus, located in the archaeological museum of Naples. (Photo by Marco Cantile/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Kings of the world

Alexander the Great and the birth of the modern world

Genetic engineering

“As Gods” is a valuable primer on a controversial science

Creepy fiction

“The Thing in the Snow” is a weird but wonderful novel

Courtly love

For the Tudors, love was an elaborate game

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

The secret is out

America’s 117th Congress accomplished a lot. So did its recent predecessors

The Economist explains

Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate are escorted by police officers outside the headquarters of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism in Bucharest (DIICOT) after being detained for 24 hours, in Bucharest, Romania, December 29, 2022. Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. ROMANIA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN ROMANIA TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

The Economist explains

Who is Andrew Tate, the misogynist hero to millions of young men?

Obituary

PELE died at the age of 82 after a long illness. ARCHIVE PHOTO: PELE, Brazil, action, in the match between Brazil and Italy at the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, 06/21/1970.

King of the beautiful game

Pelé went from poverty to football superstardom

By Invitation

Europe’s economy