Europe is now caught somewhere between war and peace.

In recent weeks, drones appearing mysteriously above airports and halting flights have made headlines. Those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Germany alone has three drone incursions a day on average—over military installations, defense-industry facilities and critical infrastructure points—according to a previously unreleased tally by German authorities.

Drones are part of an intensifying barrage that European leaders suspect Russia is directing at the continent over its support for Ukraine. It includes sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.

“We are not at war” with Russia, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said recently, “but we are no longer at peace either.”

For Russia and the West’s other adversaries, including China, Iran and North Korea, small-scale action can yield big payoffs. Moscow is bogged down militarily in Ukraine and so would struggle to engage members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in conventional combat. Instead, malicious activities that are often dubbed hybrid war or gray-zone conflict let the Kremlin challenge its adversaries without overt hostilities.

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Michael Claesson, Sweden’s chief of defence staff, told the Financial Times that Russia was combining "sabotage, special operations, even attacks against individuals" with attacks on critical infrastructure and "exploiting vulnerabilities in the information environment" in order… pic.twitter.com/Qtlm7vvZum

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 23, 2025

The lack of progress from governments at the COP30 climate talks in Brazil has left vulnerable communities at risk, Christian observers attending the summit have warned. As the talks came to a close on Friday, they called for renewed efforts, outside the formal UN process, to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels.

Climate campaigners have criticised wealthy countries for failing to deliver adequate financial support to help vulnerable countries with comparatively low emissions to adapt to climate change, and to fund the energy transition away from fossil fuels.

With low levels of finance on the table, Saudi Arabia and other fossil-fuel producing countries were able to block agreement on a road map (supported by dozens of countries, including the UK) to move away from coal, oil, and gas. A plan to produce a road map was eventually proposed informally by the Brazilian COP President, André Corrêa do Lago, and will be picked up at a separate conference to be hosted next year by Colombia and the Netherlands.

Patricia Mungcal, of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, said that a concrete plan to move away from fossil fuels would have been COP30’s “gift to humankind”. She praised the countries which had fought for its inclusion, including the Colombian delegates who had delayed the final plenary for more than two hours in protest.

Read it all.

The lack of progress from governments at the COP30 climate talks in Brazil has left vulnerable communities at risk, Christian observers attending the summit have warned#climatechange #cop30 #brazil https://t.co/kFw3KxfioX

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) November 24, 2025

President Donald Trump said he would immediately halt all trade negotiations with Canada, citing a Canadian advertisement against his signature tariffs plan featuring the voice of former President Ronald Reagan.

“TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

The ad in question comprises excerpts from an address Reagan gave in 1987 in which he defended the principles of free trade and slammed tariffs as an outdated idea that stifles innovation, drives up prices and hurts US workers.

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"Trump Terminates Trade Talks With Canada Over Reagan Tariff Ad" via @dwallbank , @decloet and Hadriana Lowenkronhttps://t.co/VygvQUuiEg

— Stephanie Hughes (@StephHughes95) October 24, 2025

It is….increasingly likely that governments will…resort to inflation and financial repression to reduce the real value of their high debts, as they did in the decades after the second world war. The machinery for such a strategy is in place at central banks, which have a large footprint in bond markets. Already, populists such as Mr Trump and Nigel Farage in Britain attack their country’s central banks with proposals that would weaken the defenses against inflation.

Price rises are unpopular—just ask the hapless Joe Biden—but they do not need political support to get going. Nobody voted for them in the 1970s or in 2022. When governments cannot get their act together, and run economic policies that are unsustainable, bouts of inflation just happen. By the time markets wake up, it is too late.

All the more reason to think ahead and reflect on how inflation harms the economy and society. It redistributes wealth unfairly: from creditors to debtors; from those with cash and bonds to those who own real assets such as houses; and from those who agree on contracts and wages in cash terms to those wily enough to anticipate higher prices. It causes what John Maynard Keynes called an “arbitrary rearrangement of riches”. And that could happen just as societies are grappling with other transfers of wealth that the losers will also see as unfair: in the labour market, as AI takes on routine office work; and through inheritance, as baby-boomers bequeath vast property wealth to those lucky enough to have the right parents.

This multi-pronged upheaval of fortunes could wreck the middle class, which binds democracies together, and scramble the social contract.

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Governments are living far beyond their means. Sadly, inflation is the most likely escape. Politicians should think ahead and reflect on how much harm that would do https://t.co/6H1nzpKQQS pic.twitter.com/RF2ACF0MzV

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 16, 2025

So here’s what we know. This year’s gold rally has come in fits and starts. The April move was about a loss of confidence in the Dollar, a move that’s since run out of steam. The move since Jackson Hole is about “global debasement” and coincides with three notable developments: (i) there’s a global rise in long-term government bond yields as markets increasingly worry about unsustainable fiscal policy in many places; (ii) the universe of safe haven countries has shrunk because Germany and Japan are at the forefront of the global rise in yields; and (iii) the few safe haven countries that remain – notably Switzerland – are small, with limited capacity to absorb safe haven inflows. These three forces are supercharging the rise in gold prices, which is really about the global deterioration in fiscal sustainability and growing risk that debt overhangs will be inflated away.

What we don’t know is who is driving the latest rise in gold prices. There’s endless rumors about another round of central bank buying, but I am skeptical. There’s a clear macro catalyst to the latest move in the form of Jackson Hole. I find it hard to believe that central banks in emerging markets will be trading such a catalyst. It’s more likely that this is a genuine market move, with a growing number of investors worried about fiscal sustainability and debasement. If that’s true, the gold move can go a lot further.

Read it all.

What's driving the crazy rise in gold prices? At its root, it's about fear that the Fed has capitulated to Trump and is easing into an economy where inflation is rising. This week's IMF/WB meetings may end the gold rally and replace it with a Dollar rally.https://t.co/fFtYIbm3tT pic.twitter.com/HhhBK2vISo

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) October 16, 2025

The American stockmarket has see-sawed lately amid a flare-up in trade tensions, but remains near its all-time high. The surge, fuelled by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, has drawn comparisons to the exuberance of the late 1990s that culminated in the dotcom crash of 2000. Though technological innovation is undeniably reshaping industries and increasing productivity, there are good reasons to worry that the current rally may be setting the stage for another painful market correction. The consequences of such a crash, however, could be far more severe and global in scope than those felt a quarter of a century ago.

At the heart of this concern is the sheer scale of exposure, both domestic and international, to American equities. Over the past decade and a half, American households have significantly increased their holdings in the stockmarket, encouraged by strong returns and the dominance of American tech firms. Foreign investors, particularly from Europe, have for the same reasons poured capital into American stocks, while simultaneously benefiting from the dollar’s strength. This growing interconnectedness means that any sharp downturn in American markets will reverberate around the world.

To put the potential impact in perspective, I calculate that a market correction of the same magnitude as the dotcom crash could wipe out over $20trn in wealth for American households, equivalent to roughly 70% of American GDP in 2024. This is several times larger than the losses incurred during the crash of the early 2000s. The implications for consumption would be grave. Consumption growth is already weaker than it was preceding the dotcom crash. A shock of this magnitude could cut it by 3.5 percentage points, translating into a two-percentage-point hit to overall GDP growth, even before accounting for declines in investment.

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The exposure of the world to US equities is at record levels. A stock market correction would have more severe and global consequences as compared to what followed the dot-com crash. The tariff wars and lack of fiscal space compounds the problem. The underlying problem is not… pic.twitter.com/LFaN4mNgqn

— Gita Gopinath (@GitaGopinath) October 15, 2025

From cars and computer chips to tanks and fighter jets, China’s new export restrictions represent a sweeping effort to control global commerce and have set off a renewed trade fight that pits Beijing against not only the United States but also Europe.

The new regulations, which take effect in stages on Nov. 8 and Dec. 1, apply to the entire world, sharply escalating China’s sway over critical manufacturing at a time of increased international fractures over trade. The restrictions led President Trump on Friday to threaten to impose new 100 percent tariffs on Chinese imports starting Nov. 1.

The rules go far beyond China’s limits since April on the export of rare earth metals, which are mined and processed mainly in China, as well as magnets made from those metals. In a series of announcements on Thursday, China extended its restrictions to worldwide shipments of electric motors, computer chips and other devices that have become central to modern life and are now manufactured mainly in China.

The regulations prohibit exports from China to any country of materials or components for use in military equipment. Among the items banned are the small yet powerful electric motors in missiles and fighter jets and the materials for crucial range finders in tanks and artillery that are used to zero in on distant targets.

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China’s New Export Curbs May Level a Heavy Blow Worldwide https://t.co/CX91lkUldK "The new rules apply to any shipments across national borders…European automakers, in particular, face a daunting task of seeking Chinese export licenses to move car parts within Europe"

— David Mulroney (@David_Mulroney) October 13, 2025

As of September 2025, Russia’s war in Ukraine has dragged on for three and a half years. Despite nine months of efforts by the United States to end the fighting, there remains no end in sight.

There has been a flurry of activity, from talks in Saudi Arabia to Oval Office meetings, and even a summit in Anchorage between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Europeans have spent nearly a year talking among themselves about providing a peacekeeping force, whenever a ceasefire is reached. Yet despite all this diplomacy, multiple meetings, and countless statements, Russia continues to pummel Ukraine’s cities and engage in a brutal, months-long ground offensive.

Russia believes it is winning the war of attrition—and that it can overpower and outlast Ukraine. Should Russia conclude that it cannot fully “win” and that destroying Ukraine’s military and toppling Ukraine’s democracy is impossible, that does not mean that Moscow will sue for peace. Instead, a next-best option for Russia is likely a forever war, waged at a lower, more sustainable intensity, that would prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union or NATO. This means that the prospects of the Kremlin seeking any diplomatic breakthroughs are extremely low.

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"Ukraine may need to escalate in order to de-escalate, all while maintaining its defensive line at the front," @maxbergmann and @MSnegovaya write.

Read more from @csiserep about the next chapter for Russia's war in Ukraine: https://t.co/4IOJGSkvT6

— CSIS (@CSIS) October 2, 2025

The windswept town of Ellendale, N.D., population 1,100, has two motels, a Dollar General, a Pentecostal Bible college—and a half-built AI factory bigger than 10 Home Depots.

Its more than $15 billion price tag is equivalent to a quarter of the state’s annual economic output.

The artificial-intelligence boom has ushered in one of the costliest building sprees in world history. Over the past three years, leading tech firms have committed more toward AI data centers like the one in Ellendale, plus chips and energy, than it cost to build the interstate highway system over four decades, when adjusted for inflation. AI proponents liken the effort to the Industrial Revolution.

A big problem: No one is sure how they will get their investment back—or when. 

The building rush is effectively a mega-speculative bet that the technology will rapidly improve, transform the economy and start producing steady profits. “I hope we don’t take 50 years,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at a May conference with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, referring to the initially slow adoption of electricity.

“Yeah, well, we’re all investing as if it’s not going to take 50 years,” replied Zuckerberg, who surmised at a recent White House dinner the company’s U.S. spending through 2028 was “probably going to be something like” $600 billion.

Read it all.

Media: "Spending on AI is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off? — There are growing, worrying signs that the optimism about AI won’t pan out. An @MIT report found 95% of organizations surveyed are getting no return on their AI product investments. A @UChicago economics paper… pic.twitter.com/qqE1XpcCs4

— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) September 26, 2025

You graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card [permanent residence in the United States],” promised Donald Trump on the campaign trail last year. As president, on September 19th, Mr Trump headed in the opposite direction. He proposed a charge of $100,000 on new applications for H-1B visas, a favourite of technology firms hiring foreign graduates. Each year 85,000 are issued by lottery (demand far outstrips that quota). Hitherto the cost of securing one has been about $2,500 in legal and filing fees.

Big tech firms dominate the visas (see chart 1). Amazon alone received more than 14,000 approvals in 2025 (renewals do not count against the 85,000 quota). Indian IT-services giants such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), also routinely rank among the top sponsors. And Indian citizens scoop most of the visas—about three-quarters of them in 2023. Apart from China (12%), no other country secures more than 2%. Many of Mr Trump’s supporters complain that this means jobs that could go to talented Americans go to Indian graduates instead. But the effects of the new charge may be more complicated than they expect.

Over the weekend many of America’s tech giants scrambled to advise employees on H-1B visas not to leave the country until the rules are clarified; whether exemptions will be made for some groups remains uncertain. The announcement has been most keenly felt, though, in India. In August Mr Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods, sparing only essentials such as electronics and pharmaceuticals. Now he has hit the country’s most successful sector. According to Goldman Sachs, services exports grew from $53bn to $338bn between 2005 and 2023, almost twice the global rate. That growth was driven by a boom in India’s population of engineers, particularly in computer science. The IT firms relied on sending engineers to America under the H-1B programme to serve clients, a cornerstone of their business model. For decades H-1Bs offered Indian techies a route to better-paid jobs in America. That path now looks far less certain.

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The perverse consequence of America’s $100,000 visa fees https://t.co/AbOuOhgZi6 via @TheEconomist

— Adi Gaskell (@AdiGaskell) September 23, 2025

As night falls over Ridgecrest on this first full day of New Wineskins 2025, the words of Jesus about new wine and new wineskins resonate with special clarity. From early morning MAP talks to diocesan gatherings, from practical workshops to moments of prayer ministry, the Spirit has been moving in diverse and unexpected ways. Tonight’s plenary session brought these themes into sharper focus, calling us to consider what it means to be vessels for the new wine of God’s kingdom in our own time.

The evening began with testimony and song. Missionaries from across the globe shared stories of challenge and perseverance, of hardship endured and victories won. Their words bore witness to a truth at the heart of mission: that God is faithful, even in places of resistance and suffering. Between these stories, voices rose in worship, music offered not as performance but as prayer, reminding us that mission is born in the presence of God. A mosaic of art and song from around the world followed, filling the hall with a glimpse of Revelation’s vision of every tribe, tongue, and nation gathered before the throne. It was more than a cultural showcase; it was a foretaste of the kingdom to come, and a reminder that mission is not simply about proclamation but also about beauty, creativity, and joy.

Into this atmosphere stepped the Rev. Gabriel Ochoa of Recife, Brazil. Rev. Ochoa is a pastor, church planter, and visionary leader in Brazil’s Anglican movement. His ministry has centered on planting vibrant communities of faith and training leaders to shepherd the next generation. His words tonight were marked by urgency, vulnerability, and hope.

He began with a phrase that struck him deeply: “People love what other people are passionate about.” He asked us a piercing question: When we speak about the next generation, about church planting, how passionate are we? 

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Day one of @newwineskins 2025 ends with powerful reminders: passion for the next gen, vocation as mission, and beauty as witness. The Spirit is still pouring new wine into new wineskins. https://t.co/BRvkKd68Fa

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) September 19, 2025

The question of who qualifies as an evangelical and how many evangelicals exist worldwide continues to puzzle scholars, church leaders and mission researchers alike. That was the central theme of a Sept. 2 webinar hosted by the World Evangelical Alliance and released publicly Sept. 5, featuring two leading voices in global religious demography.

Dr. Gina A. Zurlo, editor of the World Christian Database and a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, and Jason Mandryk, longtime editor of Operation World, outlined both the difficulties and the necessity of measuring a movement that is increasingly diverse and shifting rapidly toward the Global South.

Both experts agreed that unlike Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or even Pentecostalism, evangelicalism has no universally agreed-upon definition. This makes the task of counting adherents unusually complex. Yet, they stressed, reliable figures are crucial for understanding how Christianity is changing worldwide.

Mandryk opened with a blunt assessment: “There is no such thing as the evangelical.”

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Data from 2 studies show evangelical Christianity’s center of gravity has shifted from the US & Europe to African, Asian & Latin American regions.

Estimated to be approaching 1 billion globally, the evangelical population in China has now surpassed the UShttps://t.co/6B8knAxydH

— Julie Roys (@reachjulieroys) September 10, 2025

The Chinese government is using companies with expertise in artificial intelligence to monitor and manipulate public opinion, giving it a new weapon in information warfare, according to current and former U.S. officials and documents unearthed by researchers.

One company’s internal documents show how it has undertaken influence campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and collected data on members of Congress and other influential Americans.

While the firm has not mounted a campaign in the United States, American spy agencies have monitored its activity for signs that it might try to influence American elections or political debates, former U.S. officials said.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly the new frontier of espionage and malign influence operations, allowing intelligence services to conduct campaigns far faster, more efficiently and on a larger scale than ever before.

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The Chinese government is using A.I. to personalize its information warfare. Disinformation can be tailored victim by victim. https://t.co/8rIwsVurb1

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 7, 2025

President Trump’s extensive tariffs have already started to generate a significant amount of money for the federal government, a new source of revenue for a heavily indebted nation that American policymakers may start to rely on.

As part of his quest to reorder the global trading system, Mr. Trump has imposed steep tariffs on America’s trading partners, with the bulk of those set to go into effect on Aug. 7. Even before the latest tariffs kick in, revenue from taxes collected on imported goods has grown dramatically so far this year. Customs duties, along with some excise taxes, generated $152 billion through July, roughly double the $78 billion netted over the same time period last fiscal year, according to Treasury data.

Indeed, Mr. Trump has routinely cited the tariff revenue as evidence that his trade approach, which has sowed uncertainty and begun to increase prices for consumers, is a win for the United States. Members of his administration have argued that the money from the tariffs would help plug the hole created by the broad tax cuts Congress passed last month, which are expected to cost the government at least $3.4 trillion.

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Trump’s Tariffs Are Making Money. That May Make Them Hard to Quit. https://t.co/0IaBKVoYff

— tony romm (@TonyRomm) August 3, 2025

Worldwide, people in more countries are living better lives and expressing more hope for the future than they have in years.

In 2024, a median of 33% of adults across 142 countries rated their lives well enough to be classified as “thriving,” continuing a trend of steady improvements in life evaluation going back more than a decade.

Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index, based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, asks people to rate their current and future lives on a ladder from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). Those scoring 7+ for the present and 8+ for five years ahead are “thriving,” while those rating both 4 or below are “suffering.” Everyone else is “struggling.”

Understanding how people evaluate their own lives is an important measure of human progress, unlike traditional economic metrics like GDP, which, while related to living standards, fail to capture whether people are living well.

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The world is becoming happier. More people across more countries say they are living better lives today and are hopeful for tomorrow, and fewer are suffering. 33% of adults across 142 countries rate their lives as "thriving", and the trend suggests even better times to come 🌍😊 pic.twitter.com/hqUk9N3nLu

— Mark Henry (@Mark_J_Henry) July 30, 2025

Fentanyl fueled the worst drug crisis the West has ever seen. Now, an even more dangerous drug is wreaking havoc faster than authorities can keep up.

The looming danger is an emerging wave of highly potent synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which often pack a far stronger punch than fentanyl. Nitazenes have already killed hundreds of people in Europe and left law enforcement and scientists scrambling to detect them in the drug supply and curb their spread.

The opioids, most of which originate in China, are so strong that even trace amounts can trigger a fatal overdose. They have been found mixed into heroin and recreational drugs, counterfeit painkillers and antianxiety medication. Their enormous risk is only dawning on authorities.

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"Stronger Than Fentanyl: A Drug You’ve Never Heard of Is Killing Hundreds Every Year: Ultrapotent nitazenes." @WSJ

"The opioids, most of which originate in #China, are so strong that even trace amounts can trigger a fatal overdose." https://t.co/Kfqkr8ohwq pic.twitter.com/SoEsoQZc4E

— Ryan Berg, PhD (@RyanBergPhD) July 30, 2025

Six months ago, few people would have anticipated that the United States would place a 15 percent tariff on exports from Japan, one of America’s closest and most longstanding allies. President Trump had campaigned on the idea of a 10 percent universal base-line tariff, plus a higher levy on China, but it was not clear whether he would follow through.

But on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump announced a trade deal that included a 15 percent tariff on Japanese products — the highest rate those goods have faced in decades — there was a palpable sense of relief. Stock markets in Asia and Europe rose. The Japanese Nikkei 225 surged by over 3.5 percent, while shares of Japanese automakers, which will also be charged a 15 percent tariff on their exports to the United States, jumped more than 10 percent. The reaction is a testament to just how quickly and completely Mr. Trump has transformed the world’s expectations regarding tariffs.

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Trump’s Tariffs Are the Highest in a Century. But After His Threats, They Seem Like a Relief. https://t.co/eevtXIQ4cC via @NYTimes

— ISMAIL (@iamaniku) July 23, 2025

The emergence of a new form of capitalism—call it the teflon economy—may be behind these shifts. On one side of the equation, firms are better than ever at dealing with shocks, meaning that markets continue to function even at a time when politics breaks down. On the other side, governments offer their economies unprecedented levels of protection.

Start with supply chains, which have received a number of shocks in recent years. The conventional narrative that they are prone to “failure” is largely wrong. During the pandemic some commodities became a lot more expensive—but this was a consequence of an enormous surge in demand, rather than falling supply. Semiconductors are a classic example. In 2021 chipmakers shipped 1.2trn units, some 15% more than the year before. The industry did not really suffer a “supply crunch”. Rather, it responded efficiently to an extreme surge in demand.

According to the New York Fed’s supply-chain pressure index, bottlenecks have remained in line with the long-run average, even in the face of Mr Trump’s trade war. We find similar results in our analysis of 33,000 commodities that America imported from 1989 to 2024. For each year, we counted the number where imports declined from the previous year by more than 20%, even as the price of those imports rose by more than 20%. This hints at situations where a supply chain genuinely “fails”. We calculate that the failure rate has been trending down over time. 

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Foreign-policy types talk of an age of unprecedented disorder—and markets barely notice https://t.co/eUWlhOsi7G

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 15, 2025

The Rutland police officers and a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent who came to investigate Mr. Blanchard’s death sensed a rare opportunity. With a new body and the overdose not yet public, they wanted to find the source of the fatal heroin while evidence was fresh and undisturbed.

The trail led investigators to the onetime owner of a Manhattan wine bar with a secret life importing heroin; a Bronx man who perfected a potent mix of ingredients to create Flow; and a murderous drug crew that hawked it on New York’s streets and branched out to Rutland after finding it could charge more there.

And for one New York prosecutor, the investigation led to a place both surprising and familiar. Flow was ravaging not just the Bronx neighborhood the prosecutor was trying to make safer — it had become a plague in the Vermont city where she had been born.

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An absolute masterpiece of reporting and storytelling by @BenWeiserNYT

How a Single Overdose Unraveled an Empire of Heroin https://t.co/Y2f6rHU8Fp via @NYTimes

— Stacey Stowe (@staceystowe) July 10, 2025

For the first time in decades, the rich world is embarking on mass rearmament. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the threat of conflict over Taiwan and President Donald Trump’s impulsive approach to alliances have all made bolstering national defence an urgent priority. On June 25th members of NATO agreed to raise their target for military spending to 3.5% of gdp, and allocated an extra 1.5% to security-related items (Spain insisted on a loophole). If they achieve that target in 2035, they will be spending $800bn more every year, in real terms, than they did before Russia invaded Ukraine. The boom goes wider than NATO. By one estimate, embattled Israel splurged more than 8% of its gdp on defence last year. Even doveish Japan plans to stump up.

Such vast sums could reshape the global economy, by squeezing public finances and shifting activity within countries. As politicians sell the benefits of rearmament to voters, many will claim that military spending will bring economic gains as well as security. Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, promises defence will offer “the next generation of good, secure, well-paid jobs”. The European Commission says it will bring “benefits for all countries”. However tempting politically, such arguments are wrong. Using defence spending for economic objectives would be a costly mistake.

The most obvious economic consequence of bigger defence budgets will be to strain public finances. Debts are already high and the financial pressures on governments, caused by ageing populations and higher interest rates, are mounting. The average nato member, excluding America, will need to raise annual defence spending by 1.5% of gdp.

Read it all.

How the defence bonanza will reshape the global economy

As they spend big, politicians must resist using one pot of money to achieve many goalshttps://t.co/p7w5mjGcho

— Juhani Huopainen (@Huopainen) June 26, 2025

There are three broad paths forward in the wake of the U.S. decision to join Israel’s war on Iran.

First, Iran could admit defeat, explicitly or implicitly. The relative geopolitical calm would ease pressure on oil prices and allow stocks to continue on their bullish path.

Second, Iran could escalate the conflict by retaliating against sensitive targets, including direct attacks on oil exports. The ensuing economic harm could range from modest to severe, depending on how the conflict spreads.

Third, Iran could go through some version of regime change, through a coup, a domestic uprising or some other unforeseen circumstances. How that plays out is difficult to forecast.

Read it all (subscription).

Where the Iran War Goes From Here. 3 Scenarios for Oil and Stocks. https://t.co/NzzGDtGIbg

— Barron's (@barronsonline) June 22, 2025

In cities, both big and small, across large swaths of Europe and North America, it is becoming common to see groups of Africans engaging with the Christian faith.  

As African migration — driven largely by economic hardship and the search for better opportunities — continues to grow, churches are becoming more than just places of worship.

Churches have evolved into spiritual lifelines and vital community hubs that help preserve cultural identity, reinforce moral values and provide a sense of belonging far from home. In addition to preserving the African way of worship, these churches have also made Christianity vibrant across large parts of North America and Europe, where faith has lost much of its cultural and societal importance.

African Christians are increasingly occupying a prominent place within the multicultural religious and social landscape of these communities. In the past four years, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have topped the list of African countries with the highest numbers of immigrants to the United Kingdom. Alongside this trend, there has been a notable surge in African churches across the U.K. and Europe.

This dynamic has taken on many forms. For instance, services in these African-dominant churches are characterized by energetic singing, dancing and lengthy preaching. The doctrine is typically rooted in Pentecostal or evangelical traditions, with emphasis on divine intervention, prosperity, healing and spiritual warfare. Many incorporate African music styles into worship.

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As African migration to Europe and North America — driven largely by economic hardship and the search for better opportunities — continues to grow, churches are becoming more than just places of worship. https://t.co/UBBL4RYqSB

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) June 11, 2025

The first Augustinian Pope, Leo XIV is the second Roman Pontiff – after Pope Francis – from the Americas. Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, however, the 69-year-old Robert Francis Prevost is from the northern part of the continent, though he spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected head of the Augustinians for two consecutive terms.

The new Bishop of Rome was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian descent, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph.

He spent his childhood and adolescence with his family and studied first at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and then at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where in 1977 he earned a Degree in Mathematics and also studied Philosophy. 

On September 1 of the same year, Prevost entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.) in Saint Louis, in the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel of Chicago, and made his first profession on September 2, 1978. On August 29, 1981, he made his solemn vows.

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Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, recently elected as Pope Leo XIV, was born in Chicago in 1955 to a family of French, Italian, and Spanish descent. His mother, Mildred Martínez, was of Spanish heritage, while his father, Louis Marius Prevost, had French and Italian roots. pic.twitter.com/7Djzrlu3RP

— Koen Vleminckx (@KoenVX) May 8, 2025

Christians around the world are celebrating Easter.

All Christians, from Orthodox and Western churches, are observing the holiday on the same day this year – not often the case because the churches use different calendars.

In Greece, the sky lit up with fireworks, while worshippers in Jerusalem lit candles at the church where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead, which is remembered at Easter.

Here is a look at how some have been celebrating the holiday as days of festivities culminate in Easter Sunday.

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In pictures: Easter celebrated around the world from Greece to Iraq https://t.co/kK2brsmn7I

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 20, 2025

The US economy is set to lose billions of dollars in revenue in 2025 from a pullback in foreign tourism and boycotts of American products, adding to a growing list of headwinds keeping recession risk elevated.

Arrivals of non-citizens to the US by plane dropped almost 10% in March from a year earlier, according to data published Monday by the International Trade Administration. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates in a worst-case scenario, the hit this year from reduced travel and boycotts could total 0.3% of gross domestic product, which would amount to almost $90 billion.

Foreign tourism has been a tailwind for the US in recent years as the cessation of pandemic-era restrictions sparked a resurgence of international travel. But many potential visitors are now rethinking their vacation plans amid increased hostility at the border, rising geopolitical frictions and global economic uncertainty.

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The US economy is set to lose billions of dollars in revenue in 2025 from a pullback in foreign tourism and boycotts of American products https://t.co/FXHmaBn5kY

— Bloomberg (@business) April 15, 2025

The  Sudan conflict, which began two years ago on Tuesday, is “the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement crisis”, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) has said.

The fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support forces (RSF) has spread across most of the country (News, 21 April 2023).

About 150,000 people are estimated to have died during the conflict, the BBC reports. CAFOD reports that ten million people have been internally displaced, and more than three million have fled into neighbouring countries.

The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is hosting ministers from donor countries and the wider region at a conference in London, on Tuesday, to encourage a ceasefire and the protection of civilians.

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Get Sudan peace talks up started, international conference is urged https://t.co/DhDh0X4yar

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 15, 2025

Serious questions now exist around the wisdom of owning American assets that until recently were the envy of a risk-obsessed world.

Amid the manic moves, key trading patterns even bear soft echoes with emerging markets. All told, fear is spreading that Trump’s bid to rewrite the terms of global trade risks imperiling America’s privileged status in the financial system.

“You honestly feel like you’re seeing stuff wrong sometimes. You have to check the scaling on your graphs because prices are moving so quickly,” said Charlie McElligott, managing director of cross-asset strategy at Nomura Securities International Inc. “It’s just a constant stream of bells and popups on the desks right now. Automated messages like risk limits and risk alerts. It’s maximum overstimulation, maximum dopamine saturation.”

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Fear is spreading that Trump’s bid to rewrite the terms of global trade risks imperiling America’s privileged status in the financial system https://t.co/JsjnRyp27E

— Bloomberg (@business) April 11, 2025

In short, the U.S. economy will suffer enormously in a large-scale trade war with China, which the current levels of Trump-imposed tariffs, at more than 100 percent, surely constitute if left in place. In fact, the U.S. economy will suffer more than the Chinese economy will, and the suffering will only increase if the United States escalates. The Trump administration may think it’s acting tough, but it’s in fact putting the U.S. economy at the mercy of Chinese escalation.

The United States will face shortages of critical inputs ranging from basic ingredients of most pharmaceuticals to inexpensive semiconductors used in cars and home appliances to critical minerals for industrial processes including weapons production. The supply shock from drastically reducing or zeroing out imports from China, as Trump purports to want to achieve, would mean stagflation, the macroeconomic nightmare seen in the 1970s and during the COVID pandemic, when the economy shrank and inflation rose simultaneously. In such a situation, which may be closer at hand than many think, the Federal Reserve and fiscal policymakers are left with only terrible options and little chance of staving off unemployment except by further raising inflation.

When it comes to real war, if you have reason to be afraid of being invaded, it would be suicidal to provoke your adversary before you’ve armed yourself. That is essentially what Trump’s economic attack risks: given that the U.S. economy is entirely dependent on Chinese sources for vital goods (pharmaceutical stocks, cheap electronic chips, critical minerals), it is wildly reckless not to ensure alternate suppliers or adequate domestic production before cutting off trade. By doing it the other way around, the administration is inviting exactly the kind of damage it says it wants to prevent.

This could all be intended as just a negotiating tactic, Trump’s and Bessent’s repeated statements and actions notwithstanding. But even on those terms, the strategy will do more harm than good. As I warned in Foreign Affairs last October, the fundamental problem with Trump’s economic approach is that it would need to carry out enough self-harming threats to be credible, which means that markets and households would expect ongoing uncertainty. Americans and foreigners alike would invest less rather than more in the U.S. economy, and they would no longer trust the U.S. government to live up to any deal, making a negotiated settlement or agreement to deescalate difficult to achieve. As a result, U.S. productive capacity would decline rather than improve, which would only increase the leverage that China and others have over the United States.

The Trump administration is embarking on an economic equivalent of the Vietnam War—a war of choice that will soon result in a quagmire, undermining faith at home and abroad in both the trustworthiness and the competence of the United States—and we all know how that turned out.

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Trade Wars Are Easy to Lose
My latest. Escalation with China will be Trump's economic equivalent of the Vietnam War. The US will lose bigly. https://t.co/xXRAoMGqHe via @ForeignAffairs

— Adam Posen (@AdamPosen) April 9, 2025

After the terror, the euphoria. When, on April 9th, President Donald Trump postponed for 90 days the most illogical and destructive of his tariffs, after a meltdown in financial markets, the s&p 500 index of American stocks rose by 9.5%, its fastest daily rise in nearly 17 years. The darkest scenarios for the world economy that had been envisaged by investors until that moment are now unlikely. It seems there is some limit to the market falls the president will tolerate on his watch. After the chaos that had followed Mr Trump’s announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs a week earlier, that is no small source of comfort for the world.

But do not mistake the consolation of having avoided disaster for good fortune. The scale of the shock to global trade set off by Mr Trump is still, even now, unlike anything seen in history. He has replaced the stable trading relations which America spent over half a century building with whimsical and arbitrary policymaking, in which decisions are posted on social media and not even his advisers know what is coming next. And he is still in an extraordinary trade confrontation with China, the world’s second-biggest economy.

Investors and companies everywhere have been put through the wringer. Global markets crashed in response to Mr Trump’s first tariff announcement. The S&P 500 fell by about 15%. Long-dated Treasuries sold off, as hedge funds were forced to unwind their leveraged positions. The dollar, which is supposed to be a safe haven, fell. After the tariffs were delayed, stockmarkets enjoyed a vertiginous climb. Between its low and high on the day, Nvidia’s value fluctuated by over $430bn.

Even after the tariff pause, however, Treasury yields remain elevated. Global stocks are 11% below their highs in February—and justifiably so

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The Economist cover 👀 pic.twitter.com/yIs3oe0hpS

— MAKS 24 🇺🇦👀 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) April 10, 2025

If you failed to spot America being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far” or it being cruelly denied a “turn to prosper”, then congratulations: you have a firmer grip on reality than the president of the United States. It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era.

Speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House, the president announced new “reciprocal” tariffs on almost all America’s trading partners. There will be levies of 34% on China, 27% on India, 24% on Japan and 20% on the European Union. Many small economies face swingeing rates; all targets face a tariff of at least 10%. Including existing duties, the total levy on China will now be 65%. Canada and Mexico were spared additional tariffs, and the new levies will not be added to industry-specific measures, such as a 25% tariff on cars, or a promised tariff on semiconductors. But America’s overall tariff rate will soar above its Depression-era level back to the 19th century.

Mr Trump called it one of the most important days in American history. He is almost right. His “Liberation Day” heralds America’s total abandonment of the world trading order and embrace of protectionism. 

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“Ruination Day”: The new Economist cover amid Trump’s tariff war.

Trump has launched a global trade war, calling it a “Liberation Day.” As an economist, I know a thing or two about tariffs. So here are some predictions of what we should expect if this tariff war continues.

1/n pic.twitter.com/9uvVTcskmr

— Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@rshereme) April 3, 2025