WINTERS IN LIMA, Peru’s capital, are dreary. By now the city is normally enveloped in a cold mist. This year, though, daytime temperatures are around 21°C (70°F). Ice-cream sellers are still doing brisk business at Lima’s beaches. “Will there be a winter this year?” ask headlines in local newspapers.
Get ready for some big British celebrations in 2030. By then, if Rishi Sunak is to be believed, the country will be “a science and technology superpower”.
In an attempt to stave off more banking turmoil, regulators in California took control of First Republic Bank, a regional lender based in San Francisco, and placed it into federal receivership. Much of the bank was then sold to JPMorgan Chase following a bidding auction.
Elon Musk said he would launch a new artificial-intelligence platform called TruthGPT as a rival to ChatGPT and other generative-AI bots, somewhat contradicting his recent call for a moratorium on developing such technology.
Oil prices rose sharply after OPEC+ announced a surprise cut to production. The cartel said it wanted to support stability in the market, which is another way of saying it didn’t like the dip in oil prices in mid-March. It also wanted to deter speculators who have been betting on softer oil prices.
The Economist is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally that focuses on current affairs, International Business, politics, Technology, and Culture.
The Economist is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally that focuses on current affairs, International Business, politics, Technology, and Culture.
The adage that Europe is forged in crisis may be about to acquire a refinement. By the time a response to any given crisis is operational, which takes a while in a 27-country bloc, there is a good chance that the crisis will be more or less over.
“It is time for the left to come to power,” says Nicole Gómez, a student in Bogotá. “We are tired of the inequality, and of everything staying the same.” She and the rest of the Colombian electorate go to the polls on May 29th to elect a new president. The right-wing incumbent, Iván Duque, is stepping down after his constitutionally-allotted one term in office.
For a brief moment on May 23rd, it seemed as if American policy towards Taiwan had undergone a sudden and dramatic change. Asked if America would “get involved militarily” to defend Taiwan in case of an invasion, President Joe Biden replied that it would.
In a message to Chinese aerospace engineers and researchers for “Youth Day” earlier this month, President Xi Jinping shared his ambitions for the industry. Young workers should advance the cause of Chinese self-reliance, he said, following in the footsteps of their predecessors who developed a home-grown nuclear weapon, missile and satellite, with little help from outsiders, in a campaign in the era of Mao Zedong called “Two bombs, one satellite”.
The motives for mass murder vary. The teenager in Buffalo who on May 14th shot and killed ten people, most of them black, was driven by racial paranoia. The 68-year-old who killed one and injured five on May 16th in a Californian church hated Taiwanese people.
By invading ukraine, Vladimir Putin will destroy the lives of people far from the battlefield—and on a scale even he may regret. The war is battering a global food system weakened by covid-19, climate change and an energy shock.
The Economist is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally that focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture.
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The Economist
