Tucker Carlson: the US is not going to defend Taiwan
2026-03-20
"The US is not going to defend and cannot defend Taiwan"—Tucker Carlson tells The Economist’s editor-in-chief that America has reached the limits of its power and has to now share it with China.
How big is the energy shock from the Iran war?
2026-03-13
The Gulf war has brought traffic in the Strait of Hormuz almost to a halt, sparking an energy shock that will reverberate around the world. Our editors analyse the impact on this week’s Insider episode.
Is this how the Western alliance dies?
2026-01-23
Donald Trump’s pursuit of Greenland—and his willingness to use intimidation and economic coercion to get it—could deal a deathblow to the post-war order. Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Edward Carr, deputy editor, and a panel of our expert journalists discuss whether the diplomatic spat could be the end of the West as we know it.
What we know about the Ukraine peace plan
2025-12-01
Plagued by corruption and weakened on the battlefield, Ukraine now risks being beaten at the negotiating table, too. If it does not show that it is willing to talk peace, it risks losing American support. Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, and Edward Carr, deputy editor, and a panel of our experts dissect the latest peace plan and what it means for Ukraine.
00:00 – What we know about the negotiations
03:30 – Who leaked the Steve Witkoff-Yuri Ushakov call?
04:48 – The details of the “peace plan”
06:35 – What the deal could mean for Ukraine
Watch the full show: https://econ.st/4indiU2
Read our coverage of the war: https://econ.st/48sr43i
Ukraine may be a step closer to peace, or to destruction: https://econ.st/4rqtCaB
If the fighting ends in Ukraine, the infighting in
How Chinese money is funding Mexican drug cartels
2025-11-29
What connects a drug cartel in Mexico with a flat purchase in New York? The Economist explores how Chinese underground banking networks launder billions of illicit dollars every year, often on American soil.
Five new books to read this autumn
2025-10-15
Looking for your next book to read this autumn? Rachel Lloyd, our deputy culture editor, shares five of our favourite novels that have been published recently. To see the rest of our top picks, click the link: https://econ.st/4q8uwrG
Meet the inventor of the invisibility cloak
2025-10-09
How do you make an object invisible? Alok Jha, host of the Babbage podcast, speaks to Professor Sir John Pendry, the theoretical physicist whose pioneering work on metamaterials has redefined how scientists can manipulate space and light.
00:00 – What are metamaterials?
02:38 – Where did the idea of the ‘invisibility cloak’ come from?
08:46 – What was it like when you first came up with these ideas?
Listen to the full episode: https://econ.st/4mUVFM8
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Where did liberal ideas come from?
2025-10-08
One of the greatest threats to liberalism now comes from within the very western democracies it helped build. But this latest challenge is just one of many in its long history.