The Globalist Podcast (December 22, 2023) – A pacy round-up of the day’s main news stories, anchored from London by Emma Nelson.
Also, Chris Cermak reports on ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Ford’s Theatre in Washington.
Tag Archives: Japan
News: France Political Crisis Over Immigration, Japan-U.S. Patriot Missiles
The Globalist Podcast (December 21, 2023) – French president Emmanuel Macron faces a political crisis over a hardline immigration bill and Japan looks to formalise a policy change that will enable it to export several dozen Patriot missiles to the US.
Plus: the day’s newspapers, the latest headlines in the UAE and a review of the Christmas films that you need to see this year.
The Economist Magazine – December 23, 2023 Preview
The US Navy confronts a new Suez crisis
Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping threaten global trade
For the world to prosper, ships must reach their ports. They are most vulnerable when passing through narrow passages, such as the Strait of Malacca or the Panama Canal. So a recent surge of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, the only southern conduit into the Suez Canal, poses a grave threat to global trade. The Houthis, militants in Yemen backed by Iran, have fired over 100 drones and missiles at ships linked to more than 35 countries, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians. Their campaign is an affront to the principle of freedom of navigation, which is already at risk from the Black Sea to the South China Sea. America and its allies must deal firmly with it—without escalating the conflict in the Middle East.
Economists had a dreadful 2023
Mistaken recession calls were just part of it
Spare a thought for economists. Last Christmas they were an unusually pessimistic lot: the growth they expected in America over the next calendar year was the fourth-lowest in 55 years of fourth-quarter surveys. Many expected recession; The Economist added to the prognostications of doom and gloom. This year economists must swap figgy pudding for humble pie, because America has probably grown by an above-trend 3%—about the same as in boomy 2005. Adding to the impression of befuddlement, most analysts were caught out on December 13th by a doveish turn by the Federal Reserve, which sent them scrambling to rewrite their outlooks for the new year.
Views: The Zen Beauty Of Japanese Gardens In Kyoto
Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 16, 2023
Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?
America’s presidential election is a test of that proposition
Journalists should not spend much of their time writing about journalism. The world is more interesting than the inky habits of the people who report on it. But this week we are making an exception, because the discovery and dissemination of information matters a lot to politics. Don’t take our word for it: “A popular government,” wrote James Madison in 1822, “without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Were Thomas Jefferson offered a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he said that he would choose the press (though that is probably going a bit far).
Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable
America should deter it from escalating the Gaza war, but also engage with it
Twelve months ago Iran was reeling from protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman who had been arrested for showing too much hair. Its theocratic regime was increasingly isolated, as Arab states forged closer ties with its enemy, Israel. The economy was a mess, adding to popular anger at Iran’s ageing supreme leader and inept president. The Islamic Republic had not seemed so vulnerable in decades.
Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 9, 2023
Israel and Palestine: How peace is possible
A peace process can go wrong in many ways, but a real possibility exists that it could go right
How to stop over-medicalising mental health
What the world could learn from Britain’s flawed approach
A messy contest is coming to a head behind Donald Trump
Our poll tracker sheds light on that competition. It may yet matter
Autumn Tours: Saiho-ji Moss Temple, Kyoto, Japan
Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 2, 2023
A new age of the worker will overturn conventional thinking
Around the rich world, wage gaps are shrinking
Few ideas are more unshakable than the notion that the rich keep getting richer while ordinary folks fall ever further behind. The belief that capitalism is rigged to benefit the wealthy and punish the workers has shaped how millions view the world, whom they vote for and whom they shake their fists at. It has been a spur to political projects on both left and right, from the interventionism of Joe Biden to the populism of Donald Trump. But is it true?
A religious revolution is under way in the Middle East
Can it survive the Gaza war?
Old stereotypes are haunting the Middle East once more. The biggest butchery of Israeli civilians since the state’s creation, carried out on October 7th, has been followed by a slaughter of Palestinian civilians. America, which has funded, armed and defended Israel is again an object of ire. So are its Western allies. Together they are blamed for facilitating Gaza’s pummelling and the displacement of its people. A truce which began on November 24th, and which was set to expire as The Economist went to press, had led to the release of 81 hostages and 180 Palestinian detainees as of November 28th.
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Dec 1, 2023
Times Literary Supplement (December 1, 2023): The new issue features Godzilla returns! – Japan’s nuclear nightmare; Fear of flying at 50; Woolf and the Monuments woman; The lure of Vesuvius, Christmas Books and more…
Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 25, 2023
Progress on climate change has not been fast enough, but it has been real
And the world needs to learn from it
The agreement at the conference of the parties (cop) to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent cops, decreeing that this year’s should see the first “global stocktake” of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer.
Lessons from the ascent of the United Arab Emirates
How to thrive in a fractured world
In Argentina Javier Milei faces an economic crisis
The radical libertarian is taking over a country on the brink
Boomers Daily 