At a crucial moment they encapsulate the dilemma of how to handle populism
A backlash against abortion bans is energising the middle ground in America
They are saving like never before. But even that may not bring interest rates down
Economies must adapt to baby busts instead
As birth rates plunge, many politicians want to pour money into policies that might lead women to have more babies. Donald Trump has vowed to dish out bonuses if he returns to the White House. In France, where the state already spends 3.5-4% of gdp on family policies each year, Emmanuel Macron wants to “demographically rearm” his country. South Korea is contemplating handouts worth a staggering $70,000 for each baby. Yet all these attempts are likely to fail, because they are built on a misapprehension.
Governments’ concern is understandable. Fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere and the rich world faces a severe shortage of babies. At prevailing birth rates, the average woman in a high-income country today will have just 1.6 children over her lifetime. Every rich country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1, at which a population is stable without immigration. The decline over the past decade has been faster than demographers expected.
The death of the president changes the power dynamic
A new generation of AI chips is on the way
The rainbow nation needs an alternative to decline under the ANC
Rishi Sunak’s election call makes no sense, but is good news
Its collapse could be sudden and irreversible
At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global gdp, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year.
The assignment of judges to cases should be random, not political
Under Lawrence Wong, the city-state has a new chance to change
Despite Xi Jinping’s protestations, China does have an overcapacity problem
How to pacify the world’s most violent region
The American-led financial order is giving way to a more divided one
Ten years ago your correspondent was fidgeting nervously in a meeting room at vtb Capital, the investment-banking arm of Russia’s second-biggest bank, just across the road from the Bank of England. During the recruitment process for a graduate job, things had taken a worrying turn. A Russian missile had shot down mh17, a passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, while it was passing over Ukraine. Plenty of Russian firms were already under Western sanctions owing to the annexation of Crimea earlier that year. Now sanctions were being ramped up, and vtb Capital’s parent bank was a prime target. Hence the fidgeting: how to ask the slightly alarming man across the table whether there would even be a vtb in a few months’ time?
More co-ordination and better access to data are needed to fight lies
America’s reckless borrowing is a danger to its economy—and the world’s
Should American universities call the cops on protesting students?
Novels starring hot fairies are selling millions of copies
Why leaving the ECHR would be a bad idea for Britain
America, China and the battle for supremacy
Intelligence sources are concerned about the country, which is surrounded by Italy
The musician is at the height of her commercial, but not her creative, power
With the right changes, it can continue as an engine of global growth, say Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton
The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, a city in Uttar Pradesh, in January was a matter of supreme importance to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister; attendance was thus de rigueur for those seeking his approval. The attendant courtiers included not just politicians, officials and foreign dignitaries but also India’s biggest corporate bosses. Uttar Pradesh is not their normal stamping ground, and Ayodhya has not until recently been much of a destination for tycoons. Now it has 115 hotels under construction, and some of those January visitors may soon be finding reasons to return.
They are not doomed to be poor and anxious
The Congress party is set for a drubbing in the world’s biggest election
Instead it should try a novel response to Iran’s missile attack: restraint
It will disappoint China’s people and anger the rest of the world
That will make inflation trickier to handle in future
Donald Trump’s threat to dump allies would risk a nuclear free-for-all
Artificial intelligence holds huge promise in health care. But it also faces massive barriers
Better diagnoses. Personalised support for patients. Faster drug discovery. Greater efficiency. Artificial intelligence (ai) is generating excitement and hyperbole everywhere, but in the field of health care it has the potential to be transformational. In Europe analysts predict that deploying ai could save hundreds of thousands of lives each year; in America, they say, it could also save money, shaving $200bn-360bn from overall annual medical spending, now $4.5trn a year (or 17% of gdp). From smart stethoscopes and robot surgeons to the analysis of large data sets or the ability to chat to a medical ai with a human face, opportunities abound.
After the energy crisis, Europe faces surging Chinese imports and the threat of Trump tariffs
Ukraine must prepare
Melting ice sheets do more than raise sea levels
Boomers Daily 