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Israel and Hamas

All of our coverage of the conflict in one place

The best of the year

Our annual guides to the finest cultural treats

Boss Class

Our podcast on management asks how to motivate staff

Middle East & Africa

Israel strikes a hostage deal but promises the Gaza war isn’t over

Hamas is desperate to split Israel and turn a pause into a ceasefire

Leaders

The fallout from the weirdness at OpenAI

Sam Altman is set to return, but the episode holds deeper lessons


Leaders

Britain’s autumn statement got business taxes right

It also cynically handed out an illusory windfall




The world in brief

Israeli hostages will not be released by Hamas until Friday at the earliest, according to Binyamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser...

Party for Freedom, a far-right party led by Geert Wilders, is projected to take 35 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, according to the first exit polls—putting it significantly ahead of other parties...

OpenAI said it had agreed “in principle” that Sam Altman would rejoin the artificial-intelligence firm as its chief executive under a new board...

A vehicle exploded after crashing at high speed into a checkpoint on a bridge in Niagara Falls, killing the driver and passenger and injuring a border guard...


Another crypto boss falls

Changpeng Zhao may face jail time, while his firm pays a $4.3bn fine

Charlemagne: Tyrant, liberator, warmonger, bureaucrat: the meaning of Napoleon

It’s Napoleon’s continent, and Europeans are just living in it

Public spending on American infrastructure has fallen in real terms

That is despite a huge push by the Biden administration

Elinor Otto did not realise what giant strides she was making for women

The longest-working “Rosie the Riveter” died on November 12th, aged 104

Israel and Hamas

All of our coverage of the conflict in one place

The best of the year

Our annual guides to the finest cultural treats

Boss Class

Our podcast on management asks how to motivate staff

AI

Schumpeter: The many contradictions of Sam Altman

Is the boss of OpenAI a genius or an opportunist?

Inside OpenAI’s weird governance structure

Why investors had no say in Sam Altman’s sacking


The Sam Altman drama points to a deeper split in the tech world

Doomers and boomers are fighting for AI dominance


Your job is (probably) safe from artificial intelligence

Why predictions of an imminent economic revolution are overstated


War between Israel and Hamas

Inside Hamas’s sprawling financial empire

Why Israel is powerless to dismantle the group’s finances

What happens to Gaza after the war?

No one wants responsibility for running and rebuilding the ruined enclave


Many Arab governments would like to see Hamas gone

And they worry that the war in Gaza will upset their economic plans


Mapping Israel’s war in Gaza

Our satellite tracking of the conflict with Hamas, updated regularly



Explore our full coverage

World news

Does a civil-war-era ban on insurrectionists apply to Donald Trump?

So far, America’s judges have been reluctant to involve themselves in the 2024 election


Will North Korea’s new spy satellite make the region safer?

The Korean space race has big implications for the peninsula’s security


Did America thwart an Indian assassination plot?

Canada is not alone in worrying about Indian killers


Argentina and Javier Milei

In Argentina, Javier Milei faces a massive economic crisis

The radical libertarian is taking over a country on the brink

1843 magazine | Sex guru, cosplayer, economist: will Javier Milei be Argentina’s next president?

He has unorthodox ideas for reviving the economy. But his pugnacity and embrace of the far-right may do further damage to the country


Javier Milei argues that Argentina’s central bank should not exist

Nor is there a future with the peso, says the presidential front-runner


Video Film

Why is Argentina’s economy in such a mess?

Economic woes will be at the front of voters’ minds in the country’s forthcoming election


Business, finance and economics

Why house prices have risen once again

Across the rich world, they have brushed off higher rates. Can that last?


Ray Dalio is a monster, suggests a new book. Is it fair?

The founder of the world’s largest hedge fund comes under scrutiny


Is Japan’s economy at a turning point?

Wage and price inflation is coinciding with an exciting corporate renewal


Great reads

The Economist’s pick of the best television shows of 2023

Exceptional crime dramas, comedies and psychological thrillers have come to the small screen this year

New ways to pay for research could boost scientific progress

A new field hopes to apply science’s methods to science itself


Chaguan: Xi Jinping repeats imperial China’s mistakes

Lessons of a loyalty test that stifled innovation


1843 magazine | The Dutch farmers’ revolt

Can they convert protest to power at the general election?


Ukraine’s long war

The World Ahead Europe in 2024

The war in Ukraine may be heading for stalemate

Some big decisions will need to be made

The World Ahead Europe in 2024

Vladimir Putin cannot keep funding his war for ever

But after winning Russia’s presidential election in March, he will try


From Gaza to Ukraine, wars and crises are piling up

How diplomats and generals are running out of bandwidth



Visual storytelling

Inside a month of America’s school shootings

The hidden impacts of gun crime are devastating and poorly understood

Mapping Israel’s war in Gaza

Our satellite tracking of the conflict with Hamas, updated regularly


Western values are steadily diverging from the rest of the world’s

People’s principles were expected to align as countries got richer. What happened?


Large, creative AI models will transform lives and labour markets

They bring enormous promise and peril. But how do they work?


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