The Economist - October 11 2025

Год выпуска: October 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: 88

A NEW BEGINNING

• The breakthrough in Gaza marks a new beginning for the Middle East. Now a radically different kind of peacemaking is needed: leader, page 9.
• Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of Donald Trump's peace plan: briefing, page 17.

America’s fortress economics

• Trade and immigration restrictions are beginning to hurt America. It is just the start: leader, page 10.
• Donald Trump is victorious at the southern border. Will it stay closed? Page 21.
• Closed borders will make the country smaller, poorer and less innovative, page 68.
• Why Mr Trump’s brutal tarrifs have failed to break global trade, page 70.
• Soaring stocks are fuelling America’s economy. That is a vulnerability: Free exchange, page 74.

Canada under Carneyism

• To handle Trumpian America, Mark Carney wants to liberalise at home and lead a new free-trade revolution, page 27.

How to protect against cyber-attacks

• They are afflicting businesses. How to lessen the pain: leader, page 11.
• For a wave of attacks, blame cleverer, nastier criminals. And bitcoin, page 62.

Is dark chocolate good for you?

• Not really. But some of its ingredients may be: Well informed, page 78.

The world this week Politics

• After talks in Egypt, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal that will release the remaining Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, both living and dead. The deal is the first phase of Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the conflict and bring peace to Gaza. The first phase also entails Israel releasing large numbers of Palestinian prisoners and pulling its troops back to a “yellow line” in Gaza. There will be a surge of humanitarian aid into the strip to help desperate civilians. Mr Trump will visit the region in the coming days. The next stages of his plan include Hamas agreeing to disarm and the creation of a technocratic government in Gaza. The deal was announced soon after the second anniversary of Hamas’s massacre of almost 1,200 people in Israel.

It’s a start

• Syria held its first election since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December. There was no popular direct vote. Local committees in effect voted for two-thirds of the representatives in the People’s Assembly, which will be responsible for legislation during a transitional period. Only 13% of those selected were women or from ethnic minorities. A government spokesman said that Ahmed al-Sharaa, the interim president, might “compensate” forthose shortfalls when he chooses the remaining one-third of representatives.
• Protesters in Madagascar demanded the resignation of Andry Rajoelina as president, after he appointed an army general as prime minister following the dissolution of the government. Since late September the country has been shaken by protests against poverty and corruption.
• France was thrown into a fresh crisis when Sébastien Lecornu resigned as prime minister after less than a month in the job. The opposition in the National Assembly had threatened to hold a vote of no confidence after Mr Lecornu named a team of ministers that was essentially unchanged from the previous government that fell in early September. After resigning Mr Lecornu held talks with the opposition and said a consensus had emerged for Emmanuel Macron to name a new prime minister, his fifth in little over a year, and thus avoid fresh elections.
• A parliamentary election in the Czech Republic was won by the populist ANO party, heralding the probable return of its leader, Andrej Babis, as prime minister. Mr Babis previously held the office from 2017 to 2021. To do so again he needs the support of two smaller parties, the anti-green Motorists for Themselves and the fractious Freedom and Direct Democracy party, which wants to curtail mass migration.
• Dame Sarah Mullally, currently the bishop of London, was named the new archbishop of Canterbury. She will take up the position in March 2026, the 106th person and the first woman to hold the role. The archbishop is the most senior bishop in the Church of England and “first among equals” of the heads of the various churches that make up the worldwide Anglican communion. Although attendance at cofE services has plummeted over the past 40 years, there has been a revival of interest lately, notably among young people.
• National Guard troops were poised to enter Chicago to support federal immigration agents on the order of Donald Trump. Around 300 of the troops are from Illinois and 200 from Texas, causing Democrats to describe the deployment as an “invasion”. Illinois and Chicago have launched a legal challenge to the president’s order. Mr Trump is threatening to use his powers under the Insurrection Act to override the courts if he doesn’t get his way. He also called for the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago, both Democrats, to be jailed for not protecting immigration agents.
• James Comey, the director of the FBI at the time of its investigation into Mr Trump’s alleged links to Russia, pleaded not guilty of lying to Congress. The president in effect ordered the prosecution of Mr Comey, who intends to get the case dismissed for being purely vindictive.
• The shutdown of America’s government ended its first week with little sign that Republicans and Democrats were willing to compromise on a spending bill to end the impasse. The White House piled on the pressure by suggesting that federal employees who cannot work because of the shutdown will not be paid.
• Takaichi Sanae was elected leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and is poised to become prime minister, the first woman to hold the job. Ms Takaichi is often described as Japan’s Margaret Thatcher. A hardliner on immigration, which is becoming a salient issue in Japan, she is likely to return to a more muscular version of the economic policies introduced by her mentor, the late Abe Shinzo, and take a tougher approach with America over trade. Japanese stockmarkets soared in response to her victory.
• Reports emerged from Myanmar that 24 people were killed when the army dropped two bombs from a paraglider on protesters who were demonstrating against the governing junta. The incident happened in Sagaing region, large areas of which are under the control of local militias who are fighting the army in the country’s civil war.
• Australia strengthened its military alliance with Papua New Guinea; the agreement includes giving up to 10,000 Papua New Guineans an option of serving in the Australian armed forces and becoming Australian citizens. The main purpose of the deal is to shore up support for png in the face of China’s thrust for influence in the South Pacific.
• The American military struck another Venezuelan boat that was allegedly trafficking drugs, killing four men. Earlier, Colombia’s national police force announced the capture of the alleged head of the armed wing of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang that has expanded throughout Latin America and the United States, where it is designated as a terrorist organisation. The Colombian police were reportedly assisted by America and Britain in the arrest.

Climb every mountain

• Kilian Jornet became the first man to climb 72 mountains in the contiguous United States that are at least 14,000 feet (4,267 metres) high within a month. The Spanish endurance athlete cycled 2,568 miles (4,133km) and ran 629 miles between the mountains over 31 days. He started in Colorado, where 56 of the “fourteeners” are clustered, moved on to California and finished at Mount Rainier in Washington state. Mr Jornet has said he is interested in how humans “can optimise our performance”.

The world this week Business

• OpenAI was at the centre of another big deal, agreeing to buy chips worth tens of billions of dollars from AMD and potentially take a io% stake in the company; AMD’s share price surged by over 40%. The transaction will see OpenAI deploy AMD’s graphicsprocessing units to expand its data-centre capacity, starting with AMD’s forthcoming MI450 chips in late 2026.
• SoftBank agreed to buy the robotics business of ABB, a Swedish-Swiss engineering company, for $5.4bn. A longtime believer in the future of robots, Masayoshi Son, Soft-Bank’s boss, said its “next frontier is physical Al”.
• With stocks soaring in anything related to Al, the Bank of England warned that “the risk of a sharp market correction has increased”. The central bank noted that the appreciation in the share prices of America’s big technology companies has augmented concentration within stock-market indices, with just the top five members of the S&P 500 accounting for nearly 30% of its market share. This suggests that an Al bubble could burst if the future profits that are predicted for the technology do not materialise.
• Fifth Third, an American bank with a strong presence in the Midwest, struck a $10.9bn deal to acquire Comerica, which operates throughout the Sunbelt, creating the country’s ninth-largest lender by assets. Comerica had been under pressure from an activist investor to put itself up for sale.
• The Net-Zero Banking Alliance made it official and decided to disband. The alliance was created with great fanfare four years ago to align the banking industry with climate-change targets and counted some of the biggest American and European lenders among its members. But many of the firms eventually withdrew amid a backlash against environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.
• The price of gold rose above $4,000 an ounce for the first time. With little economic data being released in America because of the government shutdown to inform their decisions, investors are piling into the traditional haven amid speculation that the Federal Reserve will make more cuts to interest rates. Worries about fiscal policy in America, Britain, France and Japan are also making gold more attractive.

Despite Donald Trump...

• The International Energy Agency forecast that the world’s global renewable power capacity will more than double by 2030, increasing by 4,600 gigawatts. That is roughly the equivalent of adding the combined power-generation capacity of China, the European Union and Japan. Solar will account for 80% of the increase. America is now expected to add 250GW of renewable capacity, 50% less than in the IEA’s previous forecast.
• Launched in the 1980s, Airbus’s A320 has become the world’s most-delivered aeroplane, according to reports based on data from Cirium, an aviationdata firm. Boeing’s 737, which debuted in the 1960s, had held the record for decades.
• Between them Airbus and Boeing have delivered 25,000 of both narrow-bodied jets.
• Industrial production in Germany shrank by 4.3% in August compared with July, driven by an 18.5% contraction in car manufacturing. That was in part because of factories’ holiday dates, though the industry faces many challenges, including tariffs. Car production in Germany is now at its lowest level in more than 20 years, bar the financial crisis in 2007-09 and covid-19.
• Jaguar Land Rover re-started some production for the first time since being hit by a cyberattack on August 31st. Some concerns have been voiced about the £1.5bn ($2bn) loan for the carmaker backed by the British government. Critics point out that JLR was reportedly uninsured against the attack and that the loan creates a moral hazard.

Tariff talks

• Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, met Donald Trump in the White House to discuss trade. Canadian officials described the talks as “positive”. Mr Trump went further, talking of the pair’s “mutual love”. The American president also held a phone call with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his Brazilian counterpart, which both sides said was friendly. Lula also pressed Mr Trump about trade.
• Paramount agreed to buy the Free Press, a news and analysis website, for $150m and appointed its founder, Bari Weiss, as editor-in-chief of CBS News, which is owned by Paramount. It is the media conglomerate’s first big acquisition under its new owner, David Ellison, who merged it with his Skydance production company. The deal is sweet revenge for Ms Weiss. She resigned from the New York Times in 2020 amid a spectacular falling out over the newspaper’s internal politics.

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