Monocle on Saturday, April /15, 2023: Georgina Godwin and the weekend’s biggest discussion topics. Yossi Mekelberg goes through the newspapers and Isabella Jewell marks the centenary of the gory Norwegian tradition of Påskekrim.
Category Archives: Politics
Preview: New York Times Magazine – April 16, 2023

The New York Times Magazine – April 16, 2023:
The R.T.O. Whisperers Have a Plan

A niche group of consultants is trying to get you back to the office. It’s not going too well.
Being the boss doesn’t mean you get exactly what you wish for. That’s what Craig Knoblock discovered when he tried to get his employees to come back to the office in the fall of 2021.
You Call This ‘Flexible Work’?

Labor fought for a long time to draw a bright line between work and home. It took almost no time at all to erase it.
When Your Boss Is an App

Gig work has been silently taking over new industries, but not in the way many expected.
For most Americans, the concept of “gig work” has been synonymous with a handful of Silicon Valley giants — companies like Uber and DoorDash, Instacart and TaskRabbit. There was a moment in the 2010s when pundits told us to expect the “Uberization of everything”: a future in which the typical worker would move from job to job or task to task, finding either independence and flexibility in freelancing or, more realistically, the precarity of working for platforms that may be light on benefits and aggressively exploitative of labor.
News: German FM Visits China Amid Taiwan Stress, North Korea Defectors

The Globalist, April 14, 2023: Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, visits China amid tensions over Taiwan. Meanwhile, South Korea announces that it will test North Korean defectors for radiation exposure and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, heads to Vietnam. Plus: we’re joined by Sony’s Photographer of the Year.
Previews: The Economist Magazine – April 15, 2023
The Economist – April 15, 2023 issue:
The lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

The world’s biggest economy is leaving its peers ever further in the dust
Can the West win over the rest?

In a more transactional world the price of influence is going up
Emmanuel Macron’s blunder over Taiwan

The French leader has made a dangerous situation worse
News: US Documents Leak, Myanmar Junta Airstrike, Erdogan Seeks Reelection
The Globalist, April 13, 2023: The US intelligence leak continues to cause a stir as documents suggest that Serbia might have provided lethal aid to Ukraine.
Plus: Myanmar’s junta accepts responsibility for a deadly airstrike, Erdogan launches his re-election campaign and a famous statue from the British Museum returns to Tahiti.
News: Macron’s ‘Taiwan Stance’ Backlash, Ethiopia Unrest, IMF Bank Warning
The Globalist, April 12, 2023: Emmanuel Macron confronts hecklers on a state visit to the Netherlands to present his vision for Europe’s future, as his comments on Taiwan spark international outrage.
Plus: unrest in Ethiopia, the cities introducing tourism taxes and the Spanish restaurant set to reopen as a museum.
News: Philippines-U.S. Begin Joint Military Exercises, Brazil’s Lula Visits China
Opinion: Environmental Gains, Gender-Medicine, Democrats Helping Trump
April 10, 2023: A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, the case for hugging pylons, not trees. Also, the transatlantic divide on gender-medicine (10:30) and why do Democrats keep helping Donald Trump? (17:55)
The case for an environmentalism that builds

Economic growth should help, not hinder, the fight against climate change
The sheer majesty of a five-megawatt wind turbine, its central support the height of a skyscraper, its airliner-wingspan rotors tilling the sky, is hard to deny.
News: Russian ‘Scorched Earth’ Tactics In Ukraine, Biden Travels To Ireland
Sunday Morning: Stories From London And Helsinki

April 9, 2023: Emma Nelson, Latika Bourke and Steve Cannane on the weekend’s biggest talking points. We also speak to Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, in Portugal and hear from our Helsinki correspondent, Petri Burtsoff.