The Economist - 21 June 2025

Год выпуска: June 2025

Автор: The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group

Жанр: Экономика/Политика

Издательство: «The Economist Newspaper Ltd»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 84

How will this end?

How will this end? Leader, page 7.

• Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic is fraught with uncertainty. A special briefing section, from page 15.
• Donald Trump’s Iran strategy has been transformed by Israeli persistence and Iranian defiance, says Karim Sadjadpour: By Invitation, page 14.
• Mr Trump has an aversion to regime change: The Telegram, page 52.

Why many blue states are poorly run

• Democrats could do a lot better with the power they hold, page 21.

Graduates’ grim prospects

• The bottom has fallen out of the graduate job market, page 60.

How Al is upending the ad business

• Why admen are like cockroaches, in a good way: leader, page 10.
• Technology is turning the ad industry upside down once more, page 53.

Can men and women just be friends?

• The answer matters more than you think, page 50.

The world this week Politics

• Donald Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, as Israel continued its bombardment of the country. As Tehran’s residents began fleeing the city, Mr Trump publicly toyed with the idea of America joining military action. He also said that America knows the location of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, but will not “take him out...for now”. Israel’s devastating strikes on Iran have killed a number of senior regime officials, including General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces. The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and several other high-ranking IRGC commanders were also killed, as were at least nine nuclear scientists. Israel struck ballistic-missile bases, air-defences and nuclear facilities.
• The G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Canada, issued a statement affirming Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of Iranian threats to destroy it. The G7 called Iran the “principal source of regional instability and terror”, adding that the Islamic Republic must never have a nuclear weapon. Mr Trump left the summit a day early to deal with the crisis.
• The Israel Defence Forces is investigating reports by Gaza’s civil-defence agency that 51 Palestinians were killed and 200 wounded at a UN World Food Programme aid hub near Khan Younis. The Hamas-run agency did not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants and blamed Israeli forces. Shootings have taken place almost daily at a number of other new aid-distribution sites run by Israel and American security firms.
• Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo agreed on the terms of a peace deal at a meeting in Washington. A formal signing is expected soon. The Trump administration hopes that peace would pave the way for mineral deals. But past deals have usually unravelled.
• Some 200 people were killed in armed attacks in north-central Nigeria, with thousands more forced to flee their homes. The killings mark the latest escalation of a long-running conflict between farmers and herders. Locals say successive governments have neglected the problem.
• Following an extensive manhunt a 57-year-old man was arrested and charged with murdering Melissa Hortman, a Democratic representative in Minnesota’s state legislature, and her husband, and for carrying out a separate gun attack that wounded a Democratic state senator and his wife. The man was disguised as a policeman when he attacked his victims and had a list of scores of other targets.

At least it didn’t rain

• On Donald Trump’s birthday, a military parade was held in Washington to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the army. It was poorly attended. Spectators may have stayed away because of the threat of trouble. Hundreds of protests against the president were held across America under the slogan of “No Kings”, a reference to Mr Trump’s monarchical tendencies.
• Russia carried out more big bombardments of Ukraine, killing at least 28 people in one attack on Kyiv that lasted for hours, during which Russia deployed 440 drones and 32 missiles. One drone destroyed dozens of flats in a residential building. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, accused Russia of using cluster bombs filled with ball bearings to maximise casualties. Two people were killed in Odessa.
• Volodymyr Zelensky called on America and Europe to respond, suggesting they were now turning “a blind eye” to Russian brutality. Mr Zelensky had hoped to talk to Mr Trump at the G7 summit, but the American president’s early departure meant there was no meeting. Mr Trump earlier criticised the G7 for kicking Russia out of what was then the G8 in 2014 after it invaded Crimea, suggesting that this is what caused Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
• In Spain Pedro Sanchez came underpressure to resign as prime minister after a senior official in his Socialist party stepped down to answer claims in court of awarding public works for kickbacks. At a news conference Mr Sanchez insisted he had been unaware of the alleged corruption.
• Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s leftist president from 2007 to 2015 and vice-president from 2019 to 2023, was placed under house arrest to serve her six-year sentence for corruption. The Supreme Court recently rejected Ms Fernandez’s appeal against her conviction from 2022. A judge decided that as she is 72, she should serve her punishment at home wearing an electronic tag.
• In Thailand protesters called on Paetongtarn Shinawatra to resign as prime minister following the leak of a phone conversation between her and Hun Sen, Cambodia’s former strongman, who still wields considerable power. In the call Ms Paetongtarn seemed to dismiss the Thai army’s concerns over a border skirmish that has heightened nationalist fervour in both countries. Her government was on the brink of collapse after the second-largest party in the ruling coalition withdrew its support.
• The death toll from the Air India crash in Ahmedabad rose to at least 270. All but one of the 242 people on board died when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner failed to gain altitude after take-off. Around 30 people were also killed when the plane hit a hostel for medical students. There was one survivor, a 40-year-old British national, who pushed through a hole in the fuselage to crawl out of the wreckage. “I still can’t believe how I survived,” he said.
• Taiwan announced that it had completed a sea test of the first submarine to be built in the country. The submarine, the first in a fleet of eight, was built with technology from America and elsewhere, using a combat system made by Lockheed Martin. More testing needs to be done but Taiwan hopes to deploy two submarines by 2027.
• As part of an amendment to a broader crime bill, mps in Britain voted to end prosecutions of women for later-term abortions. Current rules forbid most terminations after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and doctors and clinics would still be required to abide by those rules. But women who take abortion pills at home (after ten weeks) would no longer be investigated by police.

From Q to C, with love

• MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence service, appointed its first-ever woman as chief. Blaise Metreweli, formerly head of Q branch (technology) will be known as “C” from October. Will James Bond bond with his new boss?

The world this week Business

• Oil prices jumped in reaction to the war between Israel and Iran, with Brent crude rising to $77 a barrel, its highest price since early February. Prices tapered off after the International Energy Agency said that global production is expected to outstrip demand this year, which will cause oil inventories to increase. Markets were also jittery about disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The jamming of ship transponders caused two oil tankers to collide near the strait. Around 1,000 vessels in the area experienced interference with their global-positioning systems from June 12th to 15th, according to Windward, a shipping-technology firm. Persistent GPS jamming is a rising maritime threat, it said.
• The state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, better known as ADNOC, led a consortium offering $19bn to take over Santos, an energy exploration company in Australia and a large supplier of natural gas in that country. Santos’s board said it was inclined to accept the bid, which if completed will be the biggest-ever takeover of an Australian company.
• The Federal Reserve maintained its benchmark interest rate at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. The Fed lowered its estimate of growth in the American economy this year, to 1.4%, and raised its forecast for unemployment. Its “dot plot” still suggests there will be two more rate cuts this year.
• Responding to a spike in the yields on long-dated Japanese government debt, the Bank of Japan decided to slow the pace of reductions in its bond-purchase programme. This would “allow yields to move more freely under market forces”, explained the bank’s governor, Ueda Kazuo. The central bank left its key interest rate on hold at 0.5%.

The president’s metal

• Donald Trump approved Nippon Steel’s takeover of US Steel, closing a deal that had faced uncertainty ever since it was first announced in December 2023. Joe Biden had blocked the acquisition in the last days of his presidency citing national-security concerns, and Mr Trump also initially opposed it. Mr Trump’s order says that those risks will be “adequately mitigated” in the agreement, which gives the American government a “golden share” in us Steel that allows it to veto unfavourable decisions, such as transferring jobs outside America. US Steel will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
• The Paris Air Show, the biggest such event in the aviation industry, took place against the backdrop of the Air India crash. Rafael, an Israeli defence company, said it would sue the French government, after its booth at the show along with those of other Israeli defence firms were walled off for displaying what the government described as “offensive” weaponry. Rafael’s systems form part of Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
• Kering, a French luxury-goods company that includes the Gucci, Saint Laurent and McQueen brands in its assets, appointed Luca de Meo to be its new chief executive in the hope of turning round its struggling business. Mr de Meo currently runs Renault. The French carmaker’s share price plunged after the announcement of his departure, which comes amid uncertainty in the car industry over the effects of tariffs. At Kering Mr de Meo will replace François-Henri Pinault as CEO. A member of the controlling family, Mr Pinault had held the job for 20 years.
• Meta took a 49% stake in Scale Al, a startup that specialises in data annotation for artificial intelligence, labelling and tagging data to improve the accuracy of al Alexandr Wang, Scale’s founder, will join Meta to help develop its Al efforts. In its race to secure a dominant position in AI, Meta is also offering $ioom to top staff at OpenAl to switch companies, according to Sam Altman, OpenAl’s boss. None of his “best people” had taken the offer, said Mr Altman.
• The Pentagon gave a $200m contract to OpenAl to “develop prototype frontier Al capabilities to address critical nationalsecurity challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains”. At the same time OpenAl launched an initiative to provide its services to America’s federal, state and local governments under one umbrella, which includes customising its models for national security.

The sword of Damocles

• Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, wrote a memo to his employees expounding its advances in Ai, but also warning staff that some of their jobs would be at risk during the next few years as the technology is rolled out across the company. As Amazon builds ever more AI agents “We’ll be able to focus less on rote work and more on thinking strategically,” he said, comparing agents to “teammates”. He urged his workers to “use and experiment with Al whenever you can”.

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