Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Tough Roe to go: abortion and the midterms
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When America’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the conventional wisdom was that it would help...
Third time’s the charm? Britain’s new prime minister
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rishi Sunak becomes Britain’s prime minister today, making him the third in the past seven weeks. ...
Number three for Xi: power in China
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Xi Jinping won a third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Our correspondent e...
No wilt to go on: let us bid Truss goodbye
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Economist’s comparison of Liz Truss’s staying power to that of a lettuce captured global ima...
Redrawing the lines: cocaine policy in Latin America
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Regional leaders recognise the abject failure of the war on drugs. We speak with Colombia’s presid...
Variety in the price of life: inflation and the midterms
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the next instalment of our American midterms series we visit Rhode Island to see how inflation—...
Hell hath no fury: a look inside Iran’s protests
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Unrest is only spreading and the authorities trying to quell it are looking increasingly desperate. ...
Helmsman’s high water: China’s Communist Party Congress
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
State media have taken to calling President Xi Jinping “the helmsman”; at the five-yearly meetin...
Witness self-protection programme? Trump and the Capitol riot inquiry
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The former president may well ignore the January 6th committee’s summons; the whole affair may be ...
Gilt trip: Liz Truss’s hobbled leadership
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paroxysms in the market for gilts—British-government bonds that were once safe-haven assets—reve...
Don kingmaker: Trump and the midterms
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The latest instalment of our series asks how much difference Donald Trump’s imprimatur has made to...
Help them, Obi: one hopeful candidate in Nigeria
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our correspondent meets with Peter Obi, who has a handsome poll lead and an appeal that spans the co...
Crimea and punishment: Russia’s reprisals
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An attack on the Kerch bridge—a pet project of President Vladimir Putin that links Russia with ann...
The gains in Ukraine: stalled Russia plainly wanes
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ukraine’s army has pushed Russian forces back in the south and east. We ask how they’ve managed ...
Bloody and forgotten: Conflict in eastern Congo
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our correspondent reports from eastern Congo, where a three-decade-long conflict has killed thousand...
It does mean a thing: America’s swing voters
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the next instalment of our midterms series, we head to the suburbs of Atlanta in search of that r...
Misplaced Truss? Britain’s ruling party meets
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Liz Truss has had a bruising first few weeks in office. Amid policy U-turns and plumm...
Poll vaulter: Brazil’s surprise election result
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jair Bolsonaro, the incumbent president, did unexpectedly well—giving his campaign a boost and for...
Form-annex trick: Russia’s Ukraine-seizure bid
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After a series of sham referendums, President Vladimir Putin is expected to annex four partly occupi...
Lula loop: meeting Brazil’s presidential front-runner
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president, looks well-placed to win a third term. But w...
Off the top of their heads: Iran’s widespread protests
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Women are burning their hijabs on bonfires and hacking off their hair—but the unrest has come to b...
In for a penny, in for a pounding: Britain’s economic gyrations
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The markets are so far entirely unconvinced that the new administration’s Reagan-esque economic pl...
Giorgia on my mind: Italy’s far-right government
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Italians have voted decisively for a coalition of right-wing parties, with Giorgia Meloni, leader of...
Empire State v real-estate empire: Donald Trump’s legal woes
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, announced a sweeping lawsuit against Donald Trump, his...
Inflation nation: The Fed raises rates, again
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America’s Federal Reserve made its third straight 0.75% interest-rate hike, with Jerome Powell, th...
The 300,000 body problem: Russia mobilises and threatens
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This morning Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would call up more troops to fight in Ukraine, sai...
Charles in charge: the future of the Commonwealth
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth II was devoted to the Commonwealth, a club of countries that are home to one-third of the ...
The first draft is history: Chile’s rejected constitution
19 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Two years in the making, the country’s new foundational document was summarily swatted down in a r...
Minority report: the Rohingya, five years on
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Five years after a brutal campaign that drove nearly 750,000 out of Myanmar and into Bangladesh, con...
Xi sells sanctuary: a telling Putin meeting
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the presidents of China and Russia meet in Uzbekistan, we examine their friendship. They have muc...
Cautiousness in the Caucasus: Azerbaijan and Armenia clash
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A conflict smouldering since a war in 2020 has again caught alight; Azerbaijan may feel emboldened b...
Joule of denial: Russia’s energy games
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Vladimir Putin hopes the threat of cutting off fuel supplies this winter will weaken Europe’s supp...
Russian rush-out: Ukraine’s stunning gains
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia has lost in a week what cost it months to gain in eastern Ukraine. We ask what the lightning ...
Beyond the call of duty: Britain’s queen dies
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The death of Queen Elizabeth II marks the end of an era. We explore her long, dutiful reign and how ...
Playing his Trump card: Bolsonaro and the election
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Brazil, fears are growing that if Jair Bolsonaro loses in October, as polls suggest is likely, he...
America’s next top model: predicting the midterm results
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our model, built to predict the outcome of this year’s midterm elections, tips Republicans to take...
Deed of Truss: Britain’s new leader
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As Liz Truss becomes prime minister, we ask whether her meat-and-potatoes tax-slashing agenda will w...
Cereal numbers: the fall in food prices
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The worst predictions for costs have not come to pass, partly because Russia is selling plenty of wh...
No quiet on any front: Ethiopia’s clash of conflicts
02 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After a five-month hiatus, violence has returned to the northern region of Tigray—but that is just...
Ready, steady, slow: Ukraine’s bid for Kherson
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The long-trailed counter-offensive to retake the Russian-occupied regional powerhouse and symbolical...
Iron Curtain call: Mikhail Gorbachev
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The leader who oversaw the Soviet Union’s collapse had only intended to reform it. But the propaga...
Home truths: a global property wobble
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As interest rates rise, lots of pandemic-era property trends are fading—but not every market is eq...
The third horseman: famine stalks Somalia
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our correspondent reports from Somalia, which stands on the brink of famine thanks to a drought, soa...
Them that’s got shall have: student-debt relief
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America’s federal government will spend hundreds of billions of dollars cancelling student-loan de...
Cell-by date: Malaysia’s ex-PM is jailed
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Najib Razak, prime minister during the massive 1MDB scandal in which billions went missing, lost his...
Putin on the fritz: Six months of war in Ukraine
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin expected to seize Ukraine easily. Instead he met fierce resistan...
How the father figures: a mysterious Moscow killing
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Speculation is rampant as to who killed Darya Dugina, the pundit daughter of a Russian ultra-nationa...
Plant of attack: Ukraine’s occupied nuclear-power station
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tensions are rising at Zaporizhia, which Russian forces are using as a military base. We ask what th...
Debtor luck next time? Meeting Sri Lanka’s new president
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We pay a visit to the presidential offices just weeks after protesters stormed them. Things seem cal...
Tax brakes: Britain’s PM contenders on the economy
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a clear lead hardens and the appointment of a new prime minister looms, both contenders are makin...
The WY and the wherefore: Liz Cheney’s loss
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wyoming’s sole representative in the House, once a Republican leading light and now a pariah for h...
Class action: Kenya gets a new president
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The names are familiar but the establishment-choice and rabble-rouser roles are reversed. That the v...
Poorer, hungrier, safer? Afghanistan one year on
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rights for women and girls have regressed by decades; the economy is cratering. Yet, for many rural ...
Crimea punishment: A Russian airfield in ruins
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The airbase in Crimea lies in ruins. Ukraine hasn’t claimed credit, many suspect they carried out ...
Teflon Don: Trump’s legal woes
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump endured an FBI raid, questioning in a civil lawsuit and an adverse court ruling, all in...
Latin-ex Democrats: Republicans and Hispanic voters
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our series on America’s mid-term elections begins with a visit to a citizenship class in Dor...
Strike repose: Hamas sits out Gaza violence
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A ceasefire is holding after a weekend of deadly strikes. We ask why Hamas, the Palestinian movement...
Greenlighted: American climate legislation
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Sunday America’s Senate passed the most-ambitious climate legislation in the country’s histor...
Our summer special: a despot, a magic trick and a star
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a bumper episode, we highlight a summer’s-worth of deeply reported stories from 1843, our siste...
Real rate of return: Ukraine’s Kherson bid
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As Russia’s campaign in the eastern Donbas region loses steam, our correspondent finds Ukraine’s...
Nancy meeting you here: a tetchy Taiwan trip
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The visit of America’s speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has Chinese tempers fl...
Not-so-safe house: America kills al-Qaeda leader
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For decades Ayman al-Zawahiri was the chief ideologue of the terrorist group. We ask what his death ...
Blistering pace: monkeypox spreads
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the first fatal cases outside Africa are reported, we investigate the response to the disease, an...
Deus ex Manchina: American climate legislation’s revival
29 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden’s climate legislation stalled, in large part because Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s seni...
Getting more interesting: the Fed raises rates
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America’s central bank has raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point—its fou...
Kicking the canister down the road: EU energy policy
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia cut the gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by half in what many see as retaliatio...
Two to make a quarrel: the battle to be Britain’s PM
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The campaigning is a bit nasty, by British standards, as Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak vie to become Con...
With the grain, assault: Ukraine’s iffy deal
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Missile strikes on the port of Odessa have dimmed hopes for a UN-brokered deal to get Ukraine’s gr...
Duty unbound: the January 6th hearings
22 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last night, the committee investigating the events of January 6th 2021 said that Donald Tr...
Knock-down, Draghi-out fight: Italy in turmoil
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For the second time in a week, Prime Minister Mario Draghi has tendered his resignation as his motle...
Variable-fate mortgage: China’s protests
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Property developers are going belly-up, home-buyers are not paying mortgages, protests after a banki...
To a greater degree: widespread heatwaves
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Vast stretches of the temperate world are baking or burning, and as climate change marches on widesp...
Steal girders: Brazil’s fraught coming election
18 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Jair Bolsonaro, an unabashed fan of Donald Trump, is telegraphing that he may not accept a...
Jeddah mind trick: Joe Biden in Saudi Arabia
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia this morning, having spent two unremarkable days in Israel and the W...
A bird out of hand: Elon Musk and Twitter
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Elon Musk wants out of his deal to buy Twitter for $44bn. Twitter wants the Delaware chancery court ...
Bravery behind bars: Alexei Navalny imprisoned
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, has been transferred to a brutal prison...
Field work: The race to succeed Boris Johnson
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The race to succeed Boris Johnson begins today. Numerous Conservative MPs have thrown their proverbi...
Gota goes: Sri Lanka’s president resigns
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s president, announced he will step down on Wednesday after protesto...
Tragedy in Japan: the killing of Abe Shinzo
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Japan’s prime minister from 2006-07 and 2012-20 died after being shot at a campaign event. Our Tok...
Send out the clown: Boris agrees to go
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Boris Johnson is standing down as Britain’s prime minister. We consider his legacy and impact on B...
Rishi, you were here: Boris Johnson’s woes
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, Britain’s finance and health ministers respectively, resigned yesterd...
Pressure gauged: the road to recessions
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hints are turning to hard data: economic slowdowns are coming. We ask about the threat of recessions...
Southern strategy: the coming bid to retake Kherson
04 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The city remains Ukraine’s only provincial capital to be taken by Russian forces—can Ukraine ove...
Power strip: SCOTUS’s environmental ruling
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America’s Supreme Court has essentially shorn the Environmental Protection Agency of its agency in...
Son rise: the Philippines’ next President Marcos
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It is a remarkable turnaround for a notorious family: the late dictator’s son just took the reins....
Uprising tide: the coming inflation-driven unrest
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a global period of belt-tightening, popular anger will spill over. Our correspondent visits place...
A force awakens: NATO’s new game plan
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
War in Ukraine has stiffened the alliance’s spine; leaders meeting this week will refashion troop-...
Comings to term: America’s abortion-rights rollback
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court ruling has convulsed the country; passing the question of abortion rights to the s...
Shooting from the hip: The Supreme Court expands gun rights
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yesterday, America’s Supreme Court issued its most important Second Amendment ruling in more than ...
Pride and prejudice: China’s LGBT crackdown
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In much of the world, things are improving for sexual minorities. The opposite is true in China, whe...
Eastern encroaches: Ukraine’s losses in Donbas
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia is making steady, piecemeal gains in the region; Ukrainian forces are simply outgunned. That ...
Estranged bedfellows: Israel’s government collapses
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A motley collection of parliamentarians, now without its whisper-thin majority, has crumbled. That w...
Stuck in the middle with few: Macron’s parliamentary pasting
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
resident Emmanuel Macron has lost his majority in France’s National Assembly as voters flooded bot...
Menace to democracy: The January 6th hearings
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In its third public hearing yesterday, the committee investigating the January 6th Capitol insurrect...
Powell to the people: The Fed raises rates
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America’s central bank raised rates by .75% yesterday—the biggest increase in almost 30 years. W...
Planes have changed: Britain’s controversial asylum policy
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The European Court of Human rights foiled Britain’s plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda yesterd...
No magic bullet: a Congressional agreement on guns
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mass shootings in Buffalo, Tulsa and Uvalde appear to have broken a longstanding impasse over federa...
Nyet effects: Russia’s resilient economy
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Western sanctions are intended to starve Russia’s economy and hinder its ability to wage war in Uk...
Revolting: The January 6th committee’s public hearings
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The committee investigating the Capitol attacks of January 6th 2021 held the first of several public...
Second time’s the charm? Somalia’s new president
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is Somalia’s first-ever reelected president. In an interview with our corres...