Can Ukraine’s counter-offensive succeed?

2024-02-16

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, has died in a penal colony near the Arctic Circle, according to the Russian prison service. Listen to this excerpt on Navalny’s life and career from our podcast series “Next Year in Moscow”.

Original podcast: Producers: Sam Colbert, Pete Naughton, Ksenia Barakovskaya, Lika Kremer; Sound design: Weidong Lin; Original music: Darren Ng; Executive producer: John Shields.

00:00 – Alexei Navalny has died
01:14 – Navalny’s poisoning
07:26 – Returning to Russia
11:40 – His political work
18:50 – Navalny’s prison sentence
21:27 – Alexei Navalny’s legacy

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter: https://econ.st/3QAawvI

Obit: Alexei Navalny didn’t just defy Putin—he showed up his depravity:
https://econ.st/3OMDcmq

Read our 2020

2024-02-08

Things look bleak in the Middle East after Binyamin Netanyahu scorned America’s push for an end to the fighting. But in private he’s said to be more flexible. Could diplomacy actually work?

00:00 – The Saudi normalisation deal
00:42 – Israel and Saudi Arabia’s history
01:10 – How to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
02:26 – Will the deal happen?

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter: https://econ.st/3QAawvI

To read more on the conflict, visit our Israel and Hamas hub: https://econ.st/3HPfwtU

Israel scorns America’s unprecedented peace plan: https://econ.st/3SO4knJ

How to end the Middle East’s agony: https://econ.st/3OCHrRw

Listen to our podcast on Antony Blinken: the hardest working man in diplomatic business: https://econ.st/3OyKkCQ

America’s shuttle diplomacy to

2024-02-01

What if text prompts enabled anyone to make a blockbuster movie, or even an entire box-set’s worth of TV? That is the promise of AI. This technology could one day prove as transformative to the movie business as sound, colour, or even the camera itself. Generative AI can already make videos in seconds which would normally take a visual-effects artist days to create. However it has yet to master photo-realistic video. The people at the forefront of this tech say it is only a matter of time.

00:29 How does AI-generated video work?
02:43 How long until feature films are generated by AI?
03:57 Can AI-generated videos be photorealistic?
04:36 How revolutionary is AI in film?
05:05 A dystopian threat to jobs or democratisation of the industry?

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2023-12-28

What are the stories set to shape 2024? From the biggest election year in history, to how to control AI and even taxis that fly, The Economist offers its annual look at the world ahead.

00:00 – The World Ahead 2024
00:33 – Vital votes
03:34 – Taxis take off
07:10 – AI rules
10:19 – Industry cleans up?
13:48 – BRICS build

Read more on The World Ahead 2024: https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead-2024

Read Tom Standage’s editor’s note on The World Ahead 2024: https://econ.st/3ROGB69

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter: https://econ.st/3QAawvI

Europe, a laggard in AI, seizes the lead in its regulation: https://econ.st/3GNsYOD

Taiwan’s presidential election will be a three-way race after all: https://econ.st/41ukOnz

China is watching closely who will be Taiwan’s next

2023-12-21

Sleep patterns differ across the world. From early-to-bed South Africans to Russians who hit the sack around midnight, we reveal the cultural nuances that shape global sleep schedules. Watch the film to find out where your country ranks in the lie-in-dex, and why it matters.

Read more about which countries get the best night’s sleep: https://econ.st/3GTRxt8

Find out why chinstrap penguins sleep thousands of times a day: https://econ.st/48pow45

Find out why people sleep at all: https://econ.st/3RSTTyw

Subscribe to The Economist: https://econ.st/3uwzp5y

What actually happens when we sleep? https://www.economist.com/films/2023/09/08/what-happens-when-we-sleep

Why sleep and songwriting make one of the greatest partnerships: https://econ.st/3GOigaB

2023-11-09

Accusations of election manipulation and the mishandling of classified documents are just a few of the criminal charges former President Donald Trump faces across four criminal trials as the race for the White House gets underway. But is he really in jeopardy or will he succeed in turning his legal woes to his political advantage?

00:00 – How much jeopardy is Trump really in?
00:31 – The cases
03:05 – The risks
04:02 – Trump’s campaign

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter: https://econ.st/3QAawvI

Donald Trump’s second term would be a protectionist nightmare: https://econ.st/45RSnR7

Part of Donald Trump’s base thinks he is fighting a spiritual war: https://econ.st/45URg31

A Trump Party in the Reagan Library: https://econ.st/3tWB2cv

Donald Trump is found liable for fraud in

2023-10-20

The Economist’s defence editor Shashank Joshi spoke to legal experts to find out whether Israel’s response to Hamas’s terrorist attack is lawful.

00:00 – Is Israel breaking the rules of war?
00:59 – Blockade
01:32 – Bombardment

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter: https://econ.st/3QAawvI

Is Israel acting within the laws of war?: https://econ.st/3tzVBv7

Joe Biden steers a risky course after a Gaza hospital blast: https://econ.st/3ty6RIl

Mapping Israel’s war in Gaza: https://econ.st/3M5xECv

Hamas tunnels under Gaza will be a key battlefield for Israel: https://econ.st/490c8ZG

To save Palestinian lives in Gaza, open the crossing into Egypt: https://econ.st/3M3PzJu

A short history of Gaza: https://econ.st/408EJYR

Israel faces the danger of fighting on a second front:

2023-10-19

Scientists are hoping to build the world’s first clinically approved artificial womb. The purpose is to save the lives of more premature babies.

00:00 The dangers of premature birth
01:49 How to build an artificial womb
04:17 How does it work?
05:54 When will artificial wombs be rolled out?

Sign up to The Economist’s weekly science newsletter: https://econ.st/46wOpyv

Read our full quarterly report on fertility: https://econ.st/3S1LZnj

Watch our film about the booming surrogacy industry: https://econ.st/3QfjpgX

How to build an artificial womb https://econ.st/3PRLFEW

“Reproductive techno-horror” is a burgeoning genre on screen https://econ.st/3tsEf3t

New ways of making babies are on the horizon https://econ.st/45u8fsM

Mouse “embryoids” can now be grown from stem cells