The Economist - 26 July 2025

Год выпуска: July 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: 124

The economics of snperintelligence

• If Silicon Valley’s predictions are even close to being accurate, expect unprecedented upheaval: leader, page 7.
• What if artificial intelligence made the world's economic growth explode? Page 18.
• Al labs’ all-or-nothing competition leaves no time to fuss about safety, page 15.
• Hats off to the “doomer industrial complex”. Anthropic’s business is booming: Schumpeter, page 57.

The world this week Politics

• The Republican leadership in America’s House of Representatives sent the chamber into an early recess to avoid a vote on releasing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a dead financier who trafficked underage girls for sex. A sense of crisis has gripped the White House, as normally loyal maga supporters of Donald Trump become incensed at the withholding of material on Epstein that may prove embarrassing to the president. Mr Trump has said he wants transparency, though he is suing the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, whose company owns the paper, for running a story that claims he wrote a bawdy note to Epstein in 2003, three years before the first criminal charges were laid.

Now is the time

• Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and 22 other countries called on Israel to end its war in Gaza, as the suffering of civilians had “reached new depths”. It said Israel should lift restrictions on aid and stop “drip feeding” supplies. Israel dismissed the statement as being “disconnected from reality”. Separately, 109 aid organisations and human-rights groups warned that mass starvation was an imminent threat to the population. Ceasefire negotiations are continuing in Qatar.
• Meanwhile, dozens of Gazans continued to be killed in Israel Defence Forces’ operations, many of them while trying to get food aid. Three people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s sole Catholic church. The IDF said it regretted the strike and claimed it was an accident.
• Fighting erupted in Congo’s eastern North Kivu region between M23 rebels backed by Rwanda and government-aligned forces, according to reports. Under pressure from America, which wants stability in the resource-rich region, the Congolese government had only just agreed to sign a peace treaty with M23 in August.
• In Mozambique Venancio Mondlane, the opposition candidate in last year’s presidential election, was charged with inciting the protests that followed the poll. The rigged election saw Frelimo, the party that has ruled the country for half a century, returned to power. Mr Mondlane says he is being targeted for exposing “massive electoral fraud”.
• Protests broke out in Ukraine against a bill that gives the president control over the country’s anti-corruption agencies. The prosecutorgeneral, who is answerable to Volodymyr Zelensky, will now oversee the agencies, which critics say will weaken the system for tackling graft. Western allies have insisted that Ukraine sustain strong anticorruption measures as a condition for receiving aid. Mr Zelensky maintains the legislation is necessary to purge the agencies of Russian influence.
• Ukraine and Russia held more peace talks in Istanbul. The latest round was proposed by Mr Zelensky after Mr Trump threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to a deal in the coming months. The Kremlin downplayed any hopes of a breakthrough, saying there would be no miracles.
• The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that countries must co-operate to combat climate change and that treaties impose obligations to reduce emissions. It also raised the possibility of paying reparations to countries, such as low-lying islands, affected by global warming. Although hailed by greens as a landmark decision, the ruling is non-binding. Some big countries such as America, China (by far the world’s biggest emitter) and Russia do not recognise the icj’s jurisdiction, and some others only half so.
• In Bangladesh an air-force jet crashed into a school in Dhaka, the capital, killing at least 25 children and six adults. The aircraft was a Chinese-made F-7 BGI. Police used teargas to disperse student protesters demanding answers for the crash from the country’s interim government.
• Japan’s beleaguered prime minister, Ishiba Shigeru, insisted that he would stay in office, after his Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner lost its majority in an election for the upper house of parliament. Voters are angry about taxes and immigration. The coalition lost its majority in the lower house last year. Demand for Japanese government long-dated bonds sank as investors fretted that Mr Ishiba’s departure would plunge Japan into political uncertainty.
• Trade was also an issue at the election, but two days after the poll Japan struck a deal with America that imposes a 15% tariff on goods imported from Japan. That is lower than the 25% duty Donald Trump had threatened to levy, but above the 10% rate that was in place during negotiations. Mr Ishiba put a positive spin on the pact, describing it as a win for Japan’s mighty car industry. The agreement places no restrictions on the volume of cars and car parts that Japan can export to America.
• Thailand closed its entire border with Cambodia, as tensions escalated over a disputed area. A Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed a military target in Cambodia, according to the Thai army. The two countries also exchanged artillery fire over the border, causing tens of thousands of villagers to be evacuated on the Thai side.
• Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice in Brazil who is leading the investigation into Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup, threatened to have him arrested for breaking a ban on appearing on social media. Mr Bolsonaro, the country’s president from 2019 to 2022, is being tried on allegations that he tried to stop the transfer of power to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which he denies. After Mr Bolsonaro gave an interview that news organisations posted online, Mr Moraes said the social-media ban extended to posts by third parties.
• Ten Americans who were being held in Venezuela on spurious grounds were released in exchange for more than 250 Venezuelans who had been deported by America to a prison in El Salvador. The prisoner swap was facilitated by Nayib Bukele, the Salvadoran president, who was described as a “good friend” to the United States by America’s special envoy for hostages.

The Seriously Flawed Office

• Britain’s Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a former banker for rigging LIBOR, a benchmark interest rate that was used throughout the global financial system. Tom Hayes was found guilty in 2015 for his alleged part in a scandal that shook the banking industry. The court found that the jury may not have been properly directed in the case. It also quashed the conviction of Carlo Palombo, a former trader, for manipulating Euribor, another benchmark rate. The Serious Fraud Office brought the charges against both men.

The world this week Business

• Donald Trump announced plans to relax regulations governing the development of artificial intelligence in America, including penalties for states with stern rules on deploying Al. Mr Trump aims to unify an increasingly fragmented legal landscape for Ai among the 50 states, and to massively expand Ai exports to America’s allies. The president also signed an order intended to root out ideological bias in Al models, or “woke Marxist lunacy”, as he described it.

Not on the same page

• A report surfaced that OpenAi and SoftBank are at odds over the direction of the Stargate project, a $500bn Al investment that was announced in January with the support of Mr Trump. The companies are struggling to co-ordinate the construction of data centres. Countering the narrative, OpenAi said it had entered into an agreement with Oracle, another Stargate partner, to develop 4.5 gigawatts of datacentre capacity, though it did not say where or how it would be funded.
• Mr Trump described Jerome Powell as a “numbskull” and said he would be out of his job as chairman of the Federal Reserve within eight months. The president is waging a public war against the Fed for not cutting interest rates fast enough, though he said recently that he would not sack Mr Powell. Adding to the pressure, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, called on the central bank to “conduct an exhaustive internal review of its nonmonetary policy operations”, accusing it of “mission creep”.
• Alphabet’s quarterly net profit rose by 19%, year on year, and revenue from Google’s search and advertising business grew by 12%. That helped alleviate concerns from investors that Al chatbots are eating into its core search business, for now.
• Meanwhile, an Al system developed by Google’s DeepMind was awarded the “gold” standard at the International Mathematical Olympiad, an annual event where pre-univer-sity students compete to solve six exceptionally difficult maths problems. It was the first time an Ai reached the top standard at the competition. OpenAl said it had notched up a similar score to DeepMind, though it did not officially enter the contest.
• Chevron sealed its $53bn acquisition of Hess, after winning a lengthy legal dispute that had delayed the takeover. Hess owns a big stake in Guyana’s fast-growing offshore oilfields, but ExxonMobil had challenged the takeover, claiming it held the rights to negotiate the stake with Hess. Exxon said it disagreed with the ruling by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, but respected the arbitration process. Earlier, the Federal Trade Commission lifted its ban on John Hess, the chief executive of Hess, joining Chevron’s board of directors.
• UniCredit, one of Italy’s biggest banks, withdrew its hostile takeover bid for Banco bpm, a smaller rival, and criticised the government for trying to block the deal. The European Commission has also chastised the government for meddling in the takeover process.
• Elon Musk warned of a “few rough quarters” ahead for Tesla, as the carmaker reported a big drop in sales and net profit. Mr Musk pointed to the loss of incentives in America to buy electric vehicles as one source of Tesla’s troubles. A $7,500 federal tax credit for ev purchases ends in September. The company did not update its outlook, saying it was “difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade.”
• General Motors’ profit plunged in the second quarter, as it took a $1.1bn charge related to the cost of tariffs imposed on cars imported from its factories in South Korea, Mexico and elsewhere. The company said it expects those costs to abate in coming months. Meanwhile, Stellantis recorded a net loss for the first half of the year, mostly because of charges related to its business, but also because of a €300m ($350m) hit incurred from tariffs.
• Coca-Cola registered another decline in North American sales of its trademark drink, as health-conscious Americans seek alternatives to soda. The company is introducing a new version of Coca-Cola made with cane sugar, a change that was trailed by Mr Trump a week ago. Some people think cane sugar is healthier than high-fructose corn syrup, which has been used to sweeten Coke for decades. Both versions will be available.

Duty free

• Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, raised the possibility of switching the registration of new Boeing aircraft deliveries to Britain to ensure it avoids the cost of potential tariffs from the EU. Ryanair is based in Ireland, an EU member; the bloc is considering stiff duties on Boeing planes delivered to the region if it can’t reach a trade deal with America.

скачать журнал: The Economist - 26 July 2025