Leaders
The stakes in Gaza
American power: indispensable or ineffective?
How Joe Biden manages the war between Israel and Hamas will define America’s global role
How to destroy an economy—and get away with it
Argentina’s election result is the worst of all possible outcomes
Sergio Massa, the economy minister, will now go head-to-head with Javier Milei
Think, then act
Governments must not rush into policing AI
A summit in Britain will focus on “extreme” risks. But no one knows what they look like
The green transition
Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium
Lithium is relatively scarce and mostly refined in China. Sodium is neither
Briefing
Dread and disagreement
Why Israel’s invasion of Gaza has been delayed
Bibi and his generals are divided
Biden’s bandwidth
The overstretched superpower
America could face wars in the Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan
Escalation in the Middle East
Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE want to keep links with Israel
Are the Abraham accords over?
The scavenger power
Iran’s ayatollahs play the Middle East’s most dangerous game
They want to escalate without triggering full-blown war
The day after
Can the Palestinian Authority control Gaza if Hamas is ousted?
It may be lucky to keep control of the West Bank by the end of this war
Letters
On Israel and Gaza
Letters to the editor
Britain
Fight for the power
Britain must overhaul the way it approves infrastructure
The ghosts at the feast
Liz Truss and Jeremy Corbyn still haunt British politics
Not that by the by
Do by-election results in Britain matter?
Family division
Britain’s family-court system is overwhelmed
Europe
An Ataturk complex
Instead of undoing Ataturk’s legacy, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed it
Seabed skulduggery
Who is sabotaging underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea?
Much at stake
The French debate the future of steak frites
What have you got left?
Ukraine’s allies are scrambling to bolster its air defences
The same old Balkan tinderbox
A mysterious attack in northern Kosovo rattles everyone
United States
Losing their religion
The Republican Party no longer believes America is the essential nation
Birds of New York
How to make NYC work better for its winged inhabitants
Oh my gourd
The economics of pumpkin patches
Middle East & Africa
An interview with the president
Senegal’s president asks if democracy can work in Africa’s coup-belt
Pesticidal farmers
Nigeria is awash with dangerous pesticides
A king who stoops not to conquer
History will complicate King Charles’s visit to Kenya
The Americas
The enduring power of Peronism
Argentina’s presidential election delivers a surprise result
Paraguay’s population puzzle
Over a million Paraguayans disappear in the latest census
How to lose friends and irritate people
Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s left-wing president, is floundering
Asia
Present perfect
What gift would you give Narendra Modi?
Back to the future
Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan, again
Intrigue at court
Jokowi is building a political dynasty
Warabistan
Meet the Japanese Kurds
China
Treading gingerly
Why China and India are watching the Dalai Lama closely
Chaguan
How China sees Gaza
Business
The impossible job
Pity the modern manager—burnt-out, distracted and overloaded
Of evils and evals
The world wants to regulate AI, but does not quite know how
A year in the life of Meta
How Mark Zuckerberg escaped a metaverse-sized hole
Business oasis
The mood at Davos in the desert is one of anxiety
Finance & economics
Under the microscope
How health-care costs stopped rising
Making a statement
Xi Jinping steps up his attempt to rescue China’s economy
Trade nightmares
America and the EU demonstrate protectionism’s ratchet effect
Consumerzzzzzzzzz
Welcome to the age of the hermit consumer
Free exchange
Israel’s war economy is working—for the time being
Science & technology
A battery ReNaissance
Firms are exploring sodium batteries as an alternative to lithium
Two seats, no pilot
China approves the world’s first flying taxi
Listening to the jungle
AI can catalogue a forest’s inhabitants simply by listening
Culture
Art hubs and snubs
The arts in Paris are booming—and trying to nip at London’s heels
The long (over)haul
One of Berlin’s star attractions is closing for 14 years
A true-life African murder mystery
CIA plots, coups and a gold-capped molar in Congo
(Back) home on the range
Ken Burns chronicles the sad fate of the American buffalo
The architecture of death
Drug lords’ tombs are monuments to opulence
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
