The Economist - December 6 2025

Год выпуска: December 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 Al is rewiring childhood

• Artificial intelligence presents dazzling opportunities for children—and ominous risks: leader, page 11.
• At home and at school, Al is transforming young lives: briefing, page 20.

Who should run the Fed?

• Chris Waller, not Kevin Hassett, should lead America’s central bank: leader, page 16.
• The most likely next chair has become a partisan hack, page 64.

America’s exodus of Chinese talent

• To China’s delight, many highly skilled Chinese are returning home, page 37.

The biology of autism

• It might not be a single condition. That understanding will lead to improved interventions, page 70.

Our word of the year

• An unappetising symbol of a messy time, page 75.

The world this week Politics

• Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s mediators in the Ukraine war, went to Moscow for a meeting with Vladimir Putin and his senior advisers to discuss a proposed peace plan put forward by the Americans. Nothing concrete came out of the discussions. Donald Trump admitted it was unclear what the next steps would be. Ukraine said Russia was wasting the world’s time. Mr Putin reiterated his threat that he is ready for war with Europe, which has been shut out of negotiations. A gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels ended with the usual show of support for Ukraine, but nothing new emerged from the summit. Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, said that only Mr Trump could break the deadlock.
• After the talks in Moscow American and Ukrainian negotiators were due to meet again in Florida. Ukraine has a new chief negotiator following the resignation of Andriy Yermak, who was also Volodymyr Zelensky’s politically powerful chief of staff, amid an investigation into a corruption scandal that has shaken the government to its core. Mr Yermak denies any wrongdoing.
• Mr Putin, meanwhile, prepared for a trip to India to hold talks with Narendra Modi, the prime minister. The pair will discuss trade, weapons sales and energy. India has been a big buyer of Russian oil in recent years, despite sanctions. The Kremlin is using the visit to show Europeans that Russia is not isolated and has healthy relations with big developing countries.
• As counting continued in a presidential election in Honduras the result was too close to call, with Salvador Nasralla, the liberal candidate, vying for victory with Nasry Asfura, a conservative. Mr Trump has thrown his support behind Mr Asfura, believing he can work with him to thwart drug-traffickers. But to the astonishment of observers, Mr Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, a former Honduran president who was convicted in America last year of conspiring to import cocaine. He claimed that Mr Hernandez, who has now walked free from a 45-year prison sentence, was unfairly treated.

Troubled waters

• Pete Hegseth, America’s secretary of war, came under pressure to explain his actions in the American military’s bombing of a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean on September 2nd. A follow-up strike on the vessel killed two people who were clinging to the wreckage. Mr Hegseth says he didn’t “stick around” to watch the second strike on the military’s live feed, but thinks the admiral who ordered it had done the right thing amid “the fog of war”.
• The Trump administration suspended the processing of immigration visas for people from 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran and Somalia. It comes amid Mr Trump’s crackdown on immigration after the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington by an Afghan national. One of the guards has died. The president has now turned his ire on Somali migrants, describing them as “garbage” who are not welcome in America. He is reportedly preparing to order federal immigration agents to target Minneapolis and St Paul, which have the largest communities of Somalis in America.
• The Republicans held on to a congressional seat in Tennessee at a special election, though the party’s margin of victory was narrower than in the general election a year ago. The Democrats closed the gap in the mostly rural seat even though they fielded a left-wing candidate, who had said she “hates” Nashville and country music. The seat covers part of the city.
• Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, asked Isaac Herzog, the president, for a pardon in his trial on charges of fraud. Since Mr Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and insists he will be exonerated, he is, in effect, simply asking for an end to his trial and all charges against him to be dropped.
• Israel announced that it would reopen the crossing at Rafah, between Gaza and Egypt, to allow Palestinians to leave the territory. Palestinians will have to get Egyptian and Israeli approval to do so. Egypt wants Israel to allow Palestinians to enter Gaza too, but Israel has not yet agreed to this.
• The electoral commission in Guinea-Bissau, where soldiers recently took power in a coup, said it would be unable to publish results of the country’s presidential election as armed men had destroyed most of the ballot papers. The announcement is unlikely to quell speculation that the coup was a ruse to cover up the election result.
• The death toll from flooding and landslides on the Indonesian island of Sumatra passed 800. Cyclonic rains also caused havoc in Thailand, where over 180 people have died, and Malaysia. More than 450 were killed by storm flooding in Sri Lanka. Hundreds more have died or are missing across the region. One million people were evacuated from their homes amid the deluge.
• Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, said a committee led by a judge would investigate the city’s most fatal fire in 77 years, as the number of dead rose to 159. Bodies are still being recovered from the tower blocks. Anti-corruption authorities have arrested 15 people in connection with the fire.
• The president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, instructed the armed forces to tighten security along the border with Afghanistan after the killing of five Chinese nationals in attacks that originated from the Afghan province of Badakhshan. One of the incursions used drones to drop grenades. The Taliban government in Afghanistan pledged to cooperate and pool security resources with its neighbour.
• David Lammy, Britain’s justice secretary, outlined plans to scrap jury trials in cases likely to carry sentences of three years or less in order to clear a backlog in the courts. Some suspects wait years to be brought to trial. Mr Lammy backed away from a more radical proposal to do away with juries for sentences of under five years. Critics argue that the government is tampering with a cornerstone of British justice that harks back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

Diplomatic pressure

• The British government again delayed a decision on whether to give permission for China to build a new mega-embassy in London. There are concerns that the complex will be a hub for Chinese espionage. Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has said China poses a national-security threat, though he wants to maintain close business relations with the country. A decision on the embassy will now be made on January 20th, according to reports.

The world this week Business

• The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation pledged $6.25bn to fund investment accounts for 25m American children, the largest-ever charitable donation for children in the US. The funding will place $250 into accounts under the auspices of Invest America, a national programme. The child must be aged ten or under, born before January 1st 2025 and live in an area where the median income is less than $150,000. Mr Dell said this would encourage families to save for their children. The Treasury has started a programme to deposit $1,000 in investment accounts for children born between January 1st 2025 and the end of 2028 until they are 18.

Vorsprung dutch Technik?

• Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, formally asked the European Union to exempt plug-in hybrids and highly efficient petrol cars from a ban on sales of combustion engines that comes into force in 2035. Germany’s mighty car industry has struggled with the transition to fully electric vehicles. Mr Merz said the reduction of emissions should be carried out in a way that is “innovation-friendly and technology-neutral”.
• According to reports, Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAl, has warned his colleagues that they must focus on improving ChatGPT or risk falling behind rival generative-Al models, such as Claude, developed by Anthropic, and Gemini, Google’s Al. Mr Altman described it as a “code red” situation for OpenAl. He is delaying the development of other initiatives, including advertising services and a personalised morning roundup for users based on their data, to focus on ChatGPT. Meanwhile, Anthropic was said to be preparing for an IPO as soon as next year, which could be one of the biggest-ever stockmarket flotations.
• Facing criticism that it is falling behind its rivals in artificial intelligence, Apple appointed a new executive to oversee the technology. Amar Subramanya has been recruited from Microsoft, which he joined only a few months ago. Before that Mr Subramanya worked for Google on its Gemini chatbot. His quick departure from Microsoft, where he was tasked with beefing up the company’s own Al technology, is indicative of the fierce competition for top Al talent.
• The boom in all things related to Al is powering Taiwan’s economy, which grew by 8.2% in the third quarter, year on year, its best performance since the aftermath of the pandemic. Exports were up by 32%. TSMC, which has its headquarters in Taiwan, manufactures around 90% of the world’s most advanced chips for the likes of AMD, Apple and Nvidia. Foxconn, best known for assembling the iPhone, has recently attained most of its revenues from making servers and other data-centre equipment. GDP is expected to expand by 7.4% this year, far above China’s growth rate.
• Two of the biggest private providers of figures on house sales in China were ordered by the government to suspend their monthly data releases, according to a report. November’s figures, which are expected to register a sharp decline in sales among China’s struggling developers, have not been released.
• American Eagle’s share price soared after it reported record sales over the Thanksgiving weekend and lifted its outlook for the year. The clothing retailer has been boosted by the success of its advertising campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, a film star. The ads aroused controversy when they were released for intermingling “genes” with “jeans”.
• Starbucks agreed to pay $38.9m to settle with New York for not providing stable work rosters for its employees in the city. The company maintains that New York’s regulations are too complicated, triggering violations for even minor changes to schedules that create a “domino effect”, even when workers swap shifts for health appointments. Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor, said his administration will be there for the workers in the city “every single step of the way”.
• Prada completed a deal to buy Versace for $1.4bn, well below the $2bn that its former owners, Capri Holdings, paid in 2018. The acquisition closed on the birthday of Gianni Versace, who was murdered in 1997. Donatella Versace, his sister, who stepped down as creative director at the luxury-goods firm in March, has welcomed the deal.

Greens V AI

• BP pulled out of a proposal to develop a giant hydrogen plant in northern England. The plant was considered to be a nationally significant infrastructure project and part of the government’s aim to reach net-zero emissions. But the owners of the land now want to build a giant data centre instead. They claim that this, too, will be of critical national importance.

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