The Economist - September 27 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: 84

FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA

• The president is trying to suppress his critics. He will fail: leader, page 7, and analysis, page 59.

How to spot a genius

• The world is desperate for bright minds, but talent is going to waste: leader, page 8, and analysis, page 53.
• How governments and firms can find stars, page 62.
• The economics of luring the best across borders: Free exchange, page 69.

North Korea: more dangerous than ever

• Donald Trump should beware: leader, page 9.
• Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship is becoming even more repressive and threatening: briefing, page 15.

Is Britain going bust?

• Even with a huge majority and plenty of time, Labour is drifting towards a fiscal crisis: leader, page 11.
• The party’s growth mission remains grounded, page 46.

The lethal flaw in LLMs

• Why Al coders need to start thinking like mechanical engineers: leader, page 10.
• Why Al systems may never be secure, and what to do about it, page 70.

The world this week Politics

• Donald Trump used his first speech to the UN General Assembly since winning re-election last November to lambast the organisation’s record on solving conflicts. With an eye on his desire for a Nobel peace prize, the president said, rather dubiously, that he had been more effective in reaching peace deals than the UN. “Your countries are going to hell,” he told the delegates. He also admonished countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada and France for officially recognising Palestine as a state, criticising them for rewarding terrorists. Israel said the formal recognition would embolden Hamas.
• After a meeting at the UN with Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Trump suggested that Ukraine could win back all the territory that has been seized by Russia, on the face of it an astonishing reversal of his hitherto position, which had emphasised accepting Russia’s claims. However, Mr Trump wants Ukraine to rely on “the support of the European Union” for its war aims, not America.
• Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretarygeneral, said the alliance had responded well to Russia’s latest infringement on its boundaries. NATO aircraft were scrambled to counter three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets that entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes. Russian drones recently infringed Polish and Romanian airspace. NATO promised to defend itself “in accordance with international law”. Poland’s foreign minister was blunter, telling Russia not to “whine” if one of its aircraft is shot down.
• In Denmark a number of drone sightings forced Copenhagen’s airport to close. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said she could not rule out Russian involvement. Drones were later spotted at four regional airports. Oslo’s airport also had to shut down, though no link has been established with the Copenhagen incident. The incursions came soon after a ransomware attack caused chaos to checkin systems at several European airports, including Heathrow.
• Police in Moldova arrested 74 people for allegedly trying to stir up disorder and violence ahead of a parliamentary election on September 28th. Maia Sandu, the president, accused Russia of instigating the plot, though pro-Russian parties claimed the arrests were an attempt to intimidate them ahead of a vote in which they are expected to do well.

Coming in from the cold

• Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, addressed the UN General Assembly, the first Syrian head of state to do so since 1967. Mr Sharaa’s Islamist armed group was removed from America’s list of terrorist organisations in July. In his speech the Syrian leader called for the lifting of sanctions, “so that they no longer shackle the Syrian people”.
• JNIM, the most prominent jihadist network in the Sahel, stepped up a campaign of economic sabotage in Mali. The group has sought to strangle the supply of fuel to the capital, Bamako, and impose blockades on two cities in the country’s west. Militants apparently belonging to JNIM, which is aligned with al-Qaeda, reportedly set up checkpoints on main roads and set fire to fuel tankers and public vehicles coming from neighbouring Mauritania and Senegal.
• People in Guinea voted for a new constitution in a referendum. Mamady Doumbouya, the head of the military junta, is now cleared to run for the country’s presidency, despite pledging not to do so when the army ousted the long-time president, Alpha Conde, in 2021. Critics called it a farce. Provisional results showed that over 90% of the electorate voted yes in a high turnout. Opposition parties were barred from campaigning.
• A sniper opened fire at an immigration-detention centre in Dallas, killing at least one detainee before killing himself. Officials and politicians suggested that the gunman was targeting law enforcement.
• Around 100,000 people packed a stadium in Glendale, Arizona, for a memorial service to Charlie Kirk, a Christian conservative activist who was shot dead at a college event in Utah. Mr Trump spoke at the memorial, which was attended by cabinet secretaries, senators, representatives and conservative media luminaries. The president alluded to a “spiritual reawakening” in America.
• A federal judge dismissed Mr Trump’s $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, just a few days after it was filed. The judge said Mr Trump’s document was too long and full of statements that did not pertain to the case. A legal complaint is “not a protected platform to rage against an adversary”, the judge said.
• A delegation from America’s House of Representatives paid a visit to China, the first official trip by congressmen in six years. The bipartisan group met Dong Jun, China’s defence minister, and discussed trade in critical minerals with government officials.
• Facing another run on its currency and with debt payments to the IMF due, Argentina was thrown a lifeline by America, which is willing to support the country’s struggling economy. Mr Trump, who thinks of Javier Milei, Argentina’s libertarian president, as an ally, said this would not involve a bail-out. Several options are being considered, such as America directly buying Argentina’s dollar-denominated bonds.
• In Brazil protests took place against a proposed amnesty for Jair Bolsonaro, the former president who has been sentenced to 27 years’ detention for plotting a coup. His allies in congress are attempting to fast-track a bill that could save him from jail. Meanwhile, prosecutors charged Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman, for trying to influence the case against his father. He described the charges as absurd.
• The International Criminal Court, which sits in The Hague, revealed its charges against Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity. Mr Duterte waged an extrajudicial war against drug gangs during his presidency of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, and before that during his three years as mayor of Davao city. Mr Duterte was taken into custody in March, and reelected as mayor of Davao in May while he was in detention.

Neigh, I say unto you

• Amid all the high-minded speechifying at the UN assembly, Mongolia’s president used part of his address to praise the historical contribution of the world’s 60m horses. Khurelsukh Ukhnaa lauded our trusty steeds for being “integral to human livelihoods, culture and civilisations”, as he promoted his initiative for a UN World Horse Day. There are more horses than people in Mongolia, which is renowned for its equine culture.

The world this week Business

• Tech firms scrambled to respond to Donald Trump’s proposal to charge $100,000 for H-1B visas. Large tech companies use the visas to employ foreign graduates; an H-1B currently costs around $2,500. The initial confusion about whether the change would apply to existing visa holders was cleared up by the White House, which said it would not. Amazon, Microsoft and others had told staff on an H-1B not to leave America in case they couldn’t re-enter. Indian nationals account for 75% of the visas. Although many in Silicon Valley support the programme, Mr Trump claims it undercuts American workers.

Centre of the Al universe

• The bullish mood surrounding artificial intelligence reached new heights when Nvidia announced that it planned to invest up to $ioobn in OpenAI in order to expand data-centre capacity. Under the deal, which could be the biggest-ever investment in a private company if the $ioobn is fully committed to, OpenAI will buy as many as 5m of Nvidia’s graphic processing units to increase its capacity to ten gigawatts (GW). The pair described the agreement as “the biggest Al infrastructure deployment in history”. Nvidia also dug into its deep pockets to declare that it was taking a $5bn stake in Intel.
• Following the announcement, OpenAI said it would open five new data centres in America in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank under the Stargate project, increasing Stargate’s planned capacity to nearly 7GW and taking investment in the project to $400bn. The full $500bn, 10GW commitment should be reached by the end of the year, according to OpenAI, ahead of schedule.
• Stockmarkets rose following the news about Nvidia and OpenAI. Investors were also pleased by Micron’s earnings; the chipmaker’s revenue grew by 46% in its latest quarter, year on year.
• Alibaba’s share price reached a four-year high in Hong Kong after it also outlined a partnership with Nvidia and forecast more investment in Al infrastructure. The company already offers cloud services in numerous countries, including America, and is expanding to Brazil, France and the Netherlands this year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tech Index of the city’s 30 leading tech companies has risen by 40% in 2025, compared with a 17% increase in the NASDAQ.Composite.
• Although it is lagging behind in the Al race, Apple’s focus on its core products is paying off. Its stock jumped following the release in shops of its latest devices, including the iPhone Air, erasing its recent losses and turning positive for the year. Demand is reported to be strong for the new products.
• The contours took shape of a deal orchestrated by Mr Trump to allow TikTok to continue operating in America. American investors will buy a majority share in TikTok’s American business, helping ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to divest it. Oracle will oversee the app’s algorithms and data security. Separately, Oracle announced that Safra Catz was stepping down as chief executive after 11 years in the job. The CEO’s role will now be shared between Clay Magouyrk, who headed Oracle’s cloud division, and Mike Sicilia, who led its applications and Al unit.
• Pfizer made an audacious attempt to enter the market for weight-loss drugs by agreeing to buy Metsera in a deal that could be worth up to $7-3bn. It is the biggest acquisition yet by an established pharmaceutical company of a weight-loss business; Metsera’s experimental treatments are said to be promising.
• Porsche’s stock struggled to recover from the hammering it took when it announced a delay to its roll-out of electric vehicles and issued another profit warning. Volkswagen, the luxury carmaker’s parent company, said it would take a €5.1bn ($6bn) hit to operating profit this year as a result.
• Porsche blamed “market conditions”. Its new range of SUVs, which it had planned to be fully electric, will now be offered as petrol-engine and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
• A judge granted a temporary injunction against the Trump administration’s order to stop work on the Revolution Wind pro ject off the coast of New England. The ruling is a huge relief for Orsted, the developer of the project, which has had to shore up its finances by selling newshares to stockholders at a discounted price. Mr Trump described renewable energy as a “joke” during his speech at the UN this week.

There’s a new king in town

• Michelob Ultra is now America’s bestselling beer brand, according to Anheuser-Busch, which brews it, citing figures from Circana, a market-re-search firm. Modelo Especial, brewed in Mexico by Constellation Brands, held the title for two years. Earlier this year Constellation noted a slide in sales among its Hispanic customers, who account for half of Modelo’s revenues.

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