The Economist - September 6 2025

Год выпуска: September 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: 80

AMERICA'S MISSING OPPOSITION

• Donald Trump is unpopular. Why is it so hard to stand up to him? Leader, page 7.
• The Democrats are trying to talk less about pronouns, more about prices: briefing, page 14.
• Gaurav Kapadia on how to make the party relevant again: By invitation, page 13.

Boom time for arms dealers

• A ferocious global arms race is big business for South Korea and Turkey, page 49.

The economics of Europe’s hard right

• In many European countries hard-right parties are in, or close to, power. The economic consequences will be grave: leader, page 8.
• The hard right has moderated, but offers little hope of growth-boosting reform, page 59.

A new way to prevent cancer

• Encouraging the growth of healthy cells may prevent the spread of cancerous ones, page 67.

The perils of book-spurning

• Scholars fear that the decline of reading is making politics dumber, page 71.

The world this week Politics

• China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, threw down his biggest challenge yet to the West’s global leadership by holding Beijing’s largest-ever military parade and a summit of 26 leaders from other countries. China showed off its new weapons, including laser gadgets, nuclear missiles and robot wolves at the parade, which was attended by Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and leaders from Belarus, Iran, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Mr Kim travelled with his teenage daughter, Kim Ju Ae, who may be the North Korean dictator’s eventual successor.

A pipe dream

• Mr Xi held talks with Mr Putin on the eve of the parade and said they would work to create a “more just and equitable” global system. Russia announced that it had reached an agreement with China to build the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which is supposed to provide China with alternative supplies to the liquefied natural gas it imports from America, Qatar and Australia. There was no detail about who would pay for the project, which is not due to be built until the 2030s. China offered no comment on the supposed deal.
• Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, made his first trip to China in seven years and also held talks with Mr Xi. Both men spoke warmly of their relationship. Mr Modi has been trying to balance India’s relations with China and America, but has been caught off guard by America’s imposition of tariffs.
• In Thailand Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed as prime minister by the Constitutional Court, which decided she had violated ethics rules when she held a phone call with Hun Sen, a still influential former Cambodian prime minister, to discuss a border skirmish between the two countries. The ruling Pheu Thai party wanted to name a new prime minister, but Anutin Charnvirakul, the leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, is favoured to get the job when parliament holds a vote on September 5th.
• More than 1,200 people were detained in Jakarta, as the worst riots in decades beset Indonesia. The trouble began when students held demonstrations against the government’s plans to enhance benefits for politicians amid the country’s cost-of-living crisis. The protests turned violent when police ran over and killed a motorbike-taxi driver, and spread throughout Indonesia. Ten people have died overall.
• Two earthquakes and associated aftershocks struck Afghanistan, killing at least 1,400 people. The quakes hit the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on the border with Pakistan the hardest. The death toll is expected to rise.
• The worst floods in decades have devastated Pakistan’s Punjab province. Hundreds of people have died since late June when the deluge started. Thousands of villages have been hit hard, with their crops destroyed and fields under water. The resulting food shortage may fuel inflation. Meanwhile, 11 people were killed by a suicide-bomber in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, where militant separatists and Islamist extremists are active.
• Israel pushed ahead with its offensive in Gaza city, launching heavy strikes and starting to send ground forces into the area. Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up. Israel has ordered civilians to leave but many remain. Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes on Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, killed a number of Houthi officials, including the Iranian-backed militia’s self-declared prime minister.
• America denied visas to 80 Palestinian officials ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, at which several countries, including Britain and France, have said they will recognise Palestinian statehood. American officials were reported to have also suspended visas for most Palestinians wanting to visit the United States.
• Britain, France and Germany notified the UN Security Council that Iran was violating its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a multinational nuclear deal. Iran has 30 days to comply. If negotiations fail, UN sanctions that had been lifted by the JCPOA, including an arms embargo, will be reimposed.
• Around 1,000 people are thought to have died in a landslide in Sudan’s central Darfur region. It is the latest humanitarian catastrophe in the country, which has been mired in civil war for more than two years. Neither side in the conflict responded to calls for a temporary ceasefire in order to send help to the area.
• A 52-year-old man admitted to killing Andriy Parubiy, a former speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, in Lviv, Ukraine’s most westerly city. Mr Parubiy was a prominent figure in the Maidan protests that led to the downfall of Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s pro-Russian president in 2014. Ukrainian officials suspect Russian involvement, but the assassin claims it was an act of “revenge” against the Ukrainian authorities and that he had no Russian help.
• Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that Europe had a “pretty precise” plan to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. That earned a rebuke from Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, who said it was “fundamentally wrong” to talk publicly about such things ahead of any potential peace negotiations.
• At least 16 people were killed in Lisbon when the Elevador da Gloria, one of the three funiculars that traverse the Portuguese capital’s steep hills, crashed. The 140-year-old rail car transported residents and tourists from the Baixa to Bairro Alto neighbourhoods in the heart of the city.

One rule forthem...

• Britain’s deputy prime minister came under pressure to resign after admitting that she had underpaid tax on the purchase of a second home. In recent years Angela Rayner has been notably critical of politicians she says have avoided paying tax.
• The American military attacked a Venezuelan boat in the southern Caribbean that was allegedly transporting drugs to the United States, killing 11 people. Mr Trump said it was carrying “narco-terrorists”. Questions are being asked about the legality of the operation, which happened in international waters.
• Guyana held presidential and parliamentary elections in which Irfaan Ali was likely to win a second term as president. The economy grew by 44% in 2024 thanks to an energy boom. Guyana accused Venezuela of firing shots at a boat carrying election officials and ballots in the oil-rich Essequi-bo region, which Venezuela claims as its own.

The world this week Business

• Google breathed a sigh of relief after the judge who last year ruled that the company was an illegal monopolist decided that it would not have to break itself up. Instead it must share search data with smaller companies. The Justice Department had called for much harsher remedies, such as for Google to sell its Chrome browser, in what was the biggest tech antitrust case since a trial involving Microsoft in the early 2000s. The decision may influence other efforts to rein in big tech. The judge suggested that new competition to internet search from the likes of ChatGPT had “changed the course” of the case.
• Global bond markets came under more pressure amid a raft of investors’ concerns, from persistent inflation to unsustainable government debt. The yield on 30-year American Treasuries flirted with 5%, though yields on shorter-term bonds fell. Japan’s 30-year yield reached 3.29%, a record high. In Britain the yield on 30-year gilts hit its highest level since 1998, rising to 5.75%. Higher yields mean more expensive borrowing costs for governments.
• The price of gold rose above $3,500 a troy ounce for the first time, reaching $3,560. Investors are piling into the conventional safe asset because the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates later this month.
• In a blow to Donald Trump’s trade policy, an appeals court ruled that most of his reciprocal tariffs are illegal, finding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not grant a president “unlimited authority to impose” them (the decision does not affect Mr Trump’s duties on steel and aluminium). The tariffs will remain in place until October 14th to give the Trump administration time to take the case to the Supreme Court.
• American Eagle’s share price soared after it confirmed that its ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney (and Travis Kelce) had been a roaring success. The clothing company said the jeans promoted by Ms Sweeney, an actress, had sold out within a week, despite an online backlash about the ad mentioning her “genes”. Quarterly revenue far exceeded analysts’ expectations.

Claude’s money

• Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence startup best known for its Claude large language models, was valued at $i83bn following a round of fundraising. That is up from $6i.5bn after a previous round of capital-raising in March.
• Klarna launched its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, five months after postponing it amid the turmoil in markets caused by Mr Trump’s tariffs. The Swedish fintech firm could be valued at up to $14bn, according to reports, well below the $46bn it was thought to be worth in 2021 after a capital-raising exercise.
• A decade after merging in a transaction arranged by Warren Buffett, Kraft Heinz announced that it would split into two separately traded companies. One of them will focus on condiments and spreads and house the Heinz, Philadelphia and Kraft Mac & Cheese brands, and the other will contain the slower-growing Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables assets. Mr Buffett, who is stepping down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, admitted in 2019 that he was “wrong in a couple of ways on Kraft Heinz”. Berkshire is still the company’s biggest shareholder, with a 27.5% stake.
• A potential corporate battle loomed into view when Elliott Management, an activist hedge fund, revealed that it had bought a $4bn stake in PepsiCo with a view to pushing an “appropriately ambitious turnaround plan” to revive the company’s stock price. Elliott has a long track record of trying to shake up the companies it invests in, which most recently include BP and Southwest Airlines. PepsiCo said it welcomed “constructive input on delivering long-term shareholder value”.

In need of a Coffee-Mate

• In what turned out to be a week of upheaval in the consumer food and drinks industry, Nestlé sacked Laurent Freixe as its chief executive for not disclosing a romantic affair with an employee. He had been in the job for just a year. Philipp Navratil takes the reins at the world’s largest food company, which faces a challenge from cheaper rival brands.
• And in Japan Niinami Takeshi resigned as chief executive of Suntory, which owns the Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark whiskey brands as well as the Luco-zade, Orangina and Ribena soft-drink assets, amid allegations that he possessed supplements containing possibly illegal cannabis-derived substances. Mr Niinami is one of Japan’s best-known businessmen, and has been an economic adviser to several prime ministers. He says he was unaware that the supplements were illegal.

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