Video timeline: 00:00 – Why is Qatar hosting the World Cup? 00:57 – World Cups are expensive competitions 01:56 – Qatar’s human rights violations 02:36 – Qatar’s place in the Gulf 04:43 – Qatar distinguishes itself from its neighbours 05:50 – Qatar bids to host the World Cup 07:18 – Qatar’s neighbours issue a blockade 10:12 – What might happen after the World Cup?
Read our defence of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup: https://econ.st/3XcOC5A
Ordinarily a football World Cup would be a moment for celebration, a time to savour sport’s power to unite nations and a glorious distraction from the problems of the day. Not this time: the 2022 tournament has been mired in controversy since it was awarded to Qatar 12 years ago.
Another dubious global milestone was reached this week as the world’s population passed 8 billion, according to UN estimates. In a the first of a series of dispatches from the frontline of population growth, Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports from India, which next year will overtake China as the planet’s most populous nation, on what the shift means for the world.
The US midterm elections saw the Democrats fare better than expected, retaining control of the Senate despite looking likely to lose control of the House by a small margin to the Republicans. The more consequential outcome may be for Donald Trump: Chris McGreal and David Smith ask if the former president’s grip on the GOP is weakening, and if his rival Ron DeSantis’s time may be coming.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, climate policy is off target, (10:40) Qatar’s World Cup isn’t quite over the goal line and (18:35) why do people who worry about exams do worse?
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how to talk to Mr Putin, the rise of performative work (9:45) and the lingering effects of covid-19 on elite footballers (15:00).
Soccer has its roots in the working class. So how did working class entertainment known as the ‘people’s game’ become a coveted business that remade fans into customers with billion-dollar deals?
Five stories to know for April 19: Shooting in Louisiana, Shooting in Austin, Texas, Derek Chauvin trial, Alexei Navalny and UEFA statement on the breakaway Super League.
1. Five people were hospitalized after being shot and injured in Shreveport, Louisiana, in the third multiple shooting reported in the United States with 24 hours.
2. After an Austin, Texas shooting, police searched for a former deputy sheriff believed to be the suspected gunman. Three people died.
3. Derek Chauvin trial: jurors will hear closing arguments before they begin deliberating on whether the way former Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of a dying George Floyd in last year’s arrest was second-degree murder.
4. An ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said she was braced for bad news on the health of the hunger-striking opposition politician when his lawyers see him again, after they were kept away over the weekend.
5. European soccer’s governing body UEFA will hold a crisis meeting, hours after 12 of the continent’s leading clubs shocked the football world by announcing the formation of a breakaway Super League.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how resilient is democracy? Nordic politics (11:00) and remembering Diego Maradona (19:34)
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