Economics
Turkey Has Inflation, a Weakened Currency and an Earthquake Recovery Crisis. Erdoğan Could Still Win Again.
Turkey is voting again today after neither Recep Tayyip Erdoğan nor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu secured an outright majority in the first round of the presidential election two weeks ago. Erdoğan entered the runoff with the advantage…
The G7 Does Not Want to Stop Trading With China. It Wants to Stop Being Unable to Function Without It.
The leaders of the G7 met in Hiroshima this weekend with Ukraine dominating much of the summit. Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Japan, the G7 reaffirmed military, financial and diplomatic support for Ukraine and announced further…
America Can Afford to Pay Its Debts. Congress May Still Prevent It From Doing So.
The United States is approaching another debt-ceiling confrontation. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress that the federal government could become unable to satisfy all of its obligations as early as 1 June unless…
Sudan’s Generals Started a War Neither Can Easily Afford to Lose.
Two weeks ago, fighting began in Sudan between the regular military led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemedti. What initially looked like a…
India Is Becoming the World’s Most Populous Country. That Is Neither Good News nor Bad News Yet.
India is becoming the world’s most populous country. The United Nations Population Fund estimates India’s population at roughly 1.429 billion in 2023, marginally ahead of China’s 1.426 billion. The symbolic significance is enormous, particularly because…
Sanna Marin Became One of Europe’s Most Recognisable Leaders. Finnish Voters Still Judged Her Government on Finland.
Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats have lost Finland’s parliamentary election tonight, although describing the result simply as a rejection of Marin would be misleading. The Social Democrats actually increased their share of the vote compared with…
Macron’s Pension Reform May Be Constitutional. That Does Not Automatically Make It Politically Legitimate.
France’s retirement age is supposed to rise from 62 to 64 under a pension reform that President Emmanuel Macron argues is necessary to protect the financial sustainability of the country’s pension system. The policy itself…
If Banks Know Governments Will Rescue the System, Why Should They Ever Be Careful?
One week ago, Silicon Valley Bank was the sixteenth-largest bank in the United States. Today it no longer exists as an independent functioning bank, American authorities have guaranteed all of its deposits, financial markets are…
Georgia’s Government Says It Wants Transparency Over Foreign Influence. Protesters Think It Is Borrowing Russia’s Method of Silencing Critics.
For several nights this week, thousands of Georgians gathered outside parliament in Tbilisi carrying Georgian and European Union flags. Police responded with tear gas, water cannon and arrests as protesters attempted to prevent parliament from…
Two Trains Were Put on the Same Track. Calling That “Human Error” Does Not Explain Enough.
Late on Tuesday night, a passenger train travelling from Athens towards Thessaloniki collided head-on with a freight train near Tempi in central Greece. The passenger train was carrying around 350 people, many of them university…
Russia Does Not Need to Invade Moldova to Make Moldova Less Stable.
Moldova is not at war with Russia. Russian tanks are not advancing towards Chișinău, and Moldovan soldiers are not fighting Russian forces along the border. Yet the war in neighbouring Ukraine has increasingly made the…
Turkey Could Not Prevent the Earthquake. That Does Not Mean Every Death Was Unpreventable.
At 4:17 on Monday morning, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey near the Syrian border. Hours later, another enormous earthquake measuring 7.5 struck further north. Entire neighbourhoods collapsed across cities including Antakya, Kahramanmaraş, Adıyaman…
