This week’s flurry of diplomacy aims to address what Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, says he wants. He cannot get it. Does an invasion of Ukraine hang in the balance?
At an annual jamboree of economists our correspondent finds an unusual focus on the future—in particular the future of home working. And why Cuba has an enormous trade in grey-market garlic.
Monocle’s Georgina Godwin brings us the day’s top stories live from Midori House in London.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week why the COP26 climate summit will be both disappointing—and crucial; the autumn of a patriarch in Turkey (11:23); and our Banyan columnist on the BJP’s battle with Bollywood (18:47).
We discuss Nato’s move to expel eight Russian diplomats and ask about the wider fallout for the military alliance. Plus: Peru’s cabinet shuffle and a round-up of the latest art news.
We discuss worsening relations between the EU and the US and ponder whether their immediate future might lie apart. Plus: Russian influence in Belarus and a preview of Salone del Mobile.
As both summitry and military near-misses proliferate, some want measured dialogue while others want markedly tougher talk. Our defence and Russia editors discuss world leaders’ diverging views on handling today’s Russia.
South Korea’s new opposition leader is giving voice to many young men who rail against the country’s feminist values. And what lies behind professional footballers’ frequent, flashy haircuts.
Five stories to know for June 14, 2021:
1. Following the G7 summit in England, Joe Biden attends a NATO summit in Brussels. The U.S. president will rally Western allies to support a U.S. strategy to contain China’s military rise as well as showing unity in the face of Russian aggression.
2. One of 14 people hurt in a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, died according to media reports. Two men opened fire at each other in a busy entertainment district. Police arrested one suspect and are searching for another.
3. Benjamin Netanyahu’s record run in office ended on Sunday with Israel’s parliament approving, by a razor-thin majority of 60-59, a new administration led by Naftali Bennett, a nationalist whose views mirror Netanyahu’s on many issues. In Tel Aviv, thousands turned out to welcome the result, after four inconclusive elections in two years.
4. The United States is looking into reports of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after warnings of an “imminent radiological threat” by a French company that helps operate it, CNN reported on Monday.
5. Bitcoin climbed just shy of $40,000 on Monday, after yet another weekend of price swings following tweets from Tesla boss Elon Musk, who fended off criticism over his market influence and said Tesla sold bitcoin but may resume transactions using it.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week: race in America, the green investment boom (10:00), and why NATO increasingly sees its soldiers’ phones as a liability (21:50).
Anne McElvoy asks the former German ambassador to the US, Wolfgang Ischinger, if America can still be relied upon as a “protective uncle” and how it should deal with China.
And, who will succeed Chancellor Merkel in 2021? Anne talks to German cabinet minister Jens Spahn, one of a proposed ‘dream team’ of candidates in the upcoming party leadership contest.
The secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Jens Stoltenberg, reacts to Emmanuel Macron’s stark warnings about the future of the alliance. Daniel Franklin, The Economist’s diplomatic editor, asks Mr Stoltenberg how NATO’s members can overcome their differences—should Europe have its own defence force and is Turkey at risk of drifting away from the alliance? Also, how should Article 5 be enforced in space?
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