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The world this week
Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon
This week’s covers
Leaders
MAGAlomania
Donald Trump’s economic delusions are already hurting America
The president and reality are drifting apart
Winston Starmer
Britain’s leader has found purpose abroad. He needs it at home too
But do the clothes fit?
The death of giving
The demise of foreign aid offers an opportunity
Donors should focus on what works. Much aid currently does not
Friedrich Merz speaks during a press conference on planned major investments, in Berlin, Germany on March 4th 2025
Well done, Mr Merz
A fantastic start for Friedrich Merz
The incoming chancellor signals massive increases in defence and infrastructure spending
A Team Dover Airman loads weapons cargo bound for Ukraine onto a C-17 Globemaster III during a security assistance mission at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware
America and Ukraine
The lesson from Trump’s Ukrainian weapons freeze
And the grim choice facing Volodymyr Zelensky
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa talks to attendees during a national dialogue, in Damascus, Syria, February 25th 2025
Helping Syrians
Lifting sanctions on Syria seems mad, until you consider the alternative
Without a reprieve, the country will become a failed state
Letters
On America and Europe, artificial intelligence, building development, Japan, book blurbs, the penny
Letters to the editor
By Invitation
European security
Camille Grand on why Ukraine’s future turns on security guarantees
War’s other victims
It’s time to treat sexual violence in war as torture, writes a UN rapporteur
Briefing
A young girl poses with an HTS fighter and his AK-47 in Damascus
New regime, old problems
Syria has got rid of Bashar al-Assad, but not sectarian tensions
Its new rulers seem torn between reassuring minorities and appeasing their jihadist base
A long queue outside a bakery in Damascus
Liberty, poverty, asphyxiation
Syria’s economy, still strangled by sanctions, is on its knees
It will not improve until they are lifted
Asia
Muslim devotess offer prayer at Jama Masjid, Parliament street in New Delhi
Faith estate
A new law targets India’s third-biggest landowner: Allah
Aid in Asia
Donald Trump’s cuts to USAID will hurt Asia, too
Applying pressure
Indonesia’s shakedown of Apple comes to an end
Kiwi exodus
Why New Zealanders are emigrating in record numbers
A scary new game
Asian allies fear being dumped by Trump
China
A group of Chinese hostesses at the opening session of the National Peopls's Congress in Beijing
The National People’s Congress
China’s leaders reveal their plan to cope with 2025
Out and about
Chinese warships circumnavigate another island: Australia
Demon child on the silver screen
A new film is breaking box-office records in China
United States
Empty seats are seen after Democratic members of Congress walked out during an address by President Donald Trump
The headless opposition
Democrats are struggling to respond to Trump
Rebuilding Cuomolot
Andrew Cuomo plots a comeback in New York
On Musk’s scent
Three principles are at play in the cases concerning DOGE
The freeze-out
DOGE shutters the government’s in-house tech consultancy
Stop press
Donald Trump deploys new tactics to manage the media
Right click
The women vying to make conservatism fashionable online
Lexington
Donald Trump’s Washington reaches a new partisan peak
The Americas
An illustration of Mark Carney wearing an ice hockey shirt with the Candadian Liberal Party logo on the front. He has a pointed foam hand raised in the air.
Anatomy of a surge
Canada’s Trumpian nightmare is the Liberal Party’s dream
Up in arms
Mexico claims US gunmakers sold weapons to cartels
Funky Brazil
A new kind of Brazilian music is poised for a global boom
Middle East & Africa
A Somali internally-displaced person (IDP) child looks out from her family's makeshift home in Maslah camp on the outski
Africa after aid
Why some Africans see opportunity in foreign-aid cuts
Fragile ceasefires in the Middle East
Israel’s army adopts a high-stakes new strategy: more terrain
All at once now
Lebanon’s new government must do three big things immediately
Europe
A collage of Trump and on one side and Zelensky and Starmer hugging on the other. There are pieces of maps around too.
The old world wakes up
The dangerous tension in Europe’s response to Trump
All Gaullists now
Europe sounds increasingly French
Coping with the switch-off
Donald Trump’s chokehold on Ukraine
Farewell to arms
Kurdish rebels in Turkey declare a ceasefire
Malign influencers
Romania is caught between Putin, Trump and Europe
Charlemagne
Can Friedrich Merz get Europe out of its funk?
Britain
Collage featuring Keir Starker with fragmented maze pieces and stars around.
Eat that, Acheson
Sir Keir Starmer finds a role
Keir cordial
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are forging a tight link
Making growth legal
Britain’s government may be about to waste its best chance of success
Free to blaspheme?
A thorny debate in Britain around the definition of “Islamophobia”
The people v the critics
Jack Vettriano was a fantastic painter
Bagehot
How Mumsnet changed Britain
International
This is a digital illustration depicting a plastic ziplock bag containing a white powdery substance, which is often associated with illicit drugs. However, instead of actual powder falling into the bag, a stream of binary code (1s and 0s) is pouring in.T
Illegal narcotics
The tech bros selling drugs by drone
The Telegram
America First is a contagious condition
Business
An illustration of a large red boxing glove punching downwards on a blue pickup truck and crushing its roof.
Crash barriers
America's carmakers win a tariff reprieve, but still face a tricky dilemma
From cars to tanks
As Germany’s defence stocks go ballistic, armsmakers are tooling up
Hunger games
Catering to protein-rich diets is a tasty business
No longer narrowing
The pay gap between men and women won’t go away
Bright and breezy
Mistral, Europe’s biggest AI startup, is blowing hot
Bartleby
The behaviour that annoys colleagues more than any other
Schumpeter
The world’s trustbusters hint that they want more deals
Finance & economics
Commercial trucks cross over the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario
Bridge to nowhere good
Trump’s tariff turbulence is worse than anyone imagined
International finance
Aid cannot make poor countries rich
Buttonwood
Why silver is the new gold
Bukele buckles
El Salvador’s wild crypto experiment ends in failure
Free exchange
It is not the economic impact of tariffs that is most worrying
Science & technology
An illustration of hands and arms going through a nest of lines.
Show your stuff
AI models are dreaming up the materials of the future
Fully woolly
Mice have been genetically engineered to look like mammoths
Where the air is clear
Satellites are polluting the stratosphere
Well informed
Is posh moisturiser worth the money?
Culture
Scales holding a .338 calibre round on the left and a basketball on the right
A basketball star for a bullet tsar
Prisoner swaps are controversial, but there are sure to be more
Let them eat (and make) cake
Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show is out of touch with the times
A (bit)coin toss
Why the art market is growing more friendly to crypto
Let the camera troll
AI unleashes a weird new genre of political communication
Back Story
Surreal “Severance” brilliantly captures the reality of office life
Dream on
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: novelist or polemicist?
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Rose Girone with her daughter Reha
Knit one, purl one
Stitch by stitch, Rose Girone kept her family going
