Latest Interviews

One dam thing after another? Ukraine and reconstruction

Rosie Bloor, Oliver Jones, Avantika Chilkoti, Anne Rowe

One year after Russia's destruction of the Khovka Dam flooded an area the size of Kiev and displaced one million people, Ukraine faces stalled reconstruction in four active front-line oblasts while prioritizing critical water infrastructure over immediate dam replacement. In India, Narendra Modi's loss of a single-party majority forces the long-reinvented leader to adapt his coalition style after ending his English-language interview ban, a strategy shift following his 2007 confrontation with Karan Thapar. Meanwhile, Cambridge Egyptologist Barry Kemp's death at 84 concludes a four-decade excavation of Amarna that disproved total societal conversion to Akhenaten's monotheism and revived the memory of a city lost for three millennia.

Modi’s mess: a shock election result spells uncertainty for India

Modi, Rosie Bloor, Jason Palmer, Jeremy Page, Anjani Trivedi, Emily Steinmark

Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a third term with his BJP party relying on coalition partners after failing to win an absolute majority, forcing a shift from centralized governance to a consensus-based approach. In parallel, foreign investment in Africa contracted by $32 billion due to global economic headwinds, prompting businesses to pivot toward regional supply chains despite persistent logistical hurdles like visa restrictions. Meanwhile, researchers from the University of Milan successfully demonstrated that running along a suspended circular wall could simulate lunar gravity using only two minutes of daily exercise, offering a potential low-tech solution for long-term space health.

The big gag: Hong Kong’s crackdown on freedom

June Mendoza, Rosie Bloor, Emma Irving, Simon Rabinovich, Anne Rowe

Following the 2020 national security law and subsequent Article 23 implementation, Hong Kong authorities have secured 14 convictions out of 17 defendants in the "Hong Kong 47" trial while arresting activists for social media posts, effectively aligning the territory's political freedoms with mainland China. Concurrently, the US startup ecosystem is experiencing a surge in business formation that has increased by approximately 80% since 2020, driven by a geographical shift toward smaller cities and a pivot toward AI-focused ventures despite tight interest rates. In the cultural sector, British artist June Mendoza died at age 99 after a career defined by painting over 400 likenesses of subjects ranging from royalty to strangers, often utilizing barter systems to exchange her art for goods.

Out on a ledger: Trump convicted

Trump, Ora Okunbiyi, Jason Palmer, Sumi, Kenneth Werner, John McDermott

Former President Donald Trump became the first U.S. ex-president criminally convicted on 34 felony counts, a verdict he attributes to political retaliation while likely facing a suspended sentence and using the outcome to bolster his fundraising ahead of the November election. Simultaneously, South Africa's African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, forcing President Cyril Ramaphosa into difficult coalition negotiations between pragmatic centrist partners and populist allies. In personnel news, The Economist's Auret van der Merwe transitioned from on-air host to its Africa correspondent in Lagos to lead coverage of the continent's emerging business and cultural landscape.

The Intelligence: Rishi Sunak’s report card

Rishi Sunak, Jason Palmer, Ora Ogunbiyi, Matthew Holhouse, Ana Lankas, Katrin Braik

Britain's July 4th general election concludes Rishi Sunak's technocratic yet polarizing tenure, pitting a disunited Conservative Party struggling with a twenty-point polling deficit against a disciplined Labour opposition amidst a global security landscape resembling the Cold War. Concurrently, Latin America faces a homicide crisis driven by shifting drug markets, prompting Ecuador to adopt El Salvador's "iron fist" military strategies despite expert warnings that the region's wealthy, diversified gangs differ fundamentally from the impoverished extortion networks previously targeted. In a third distinct domain, climate-induced ice melt is altering the Earth's rotation by redistributing mass toward the equator, a phenomenon that temporarily offsets core-driven acceleration and delays the technical need for a negative leap second in global timekeeping systems.

The life of Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny, Sam Colbert, Pete Naughton, Ksenia Barakovskaya, Lika Kremer, Weidong Lin, Darren Ng, John Shields

Russia's primary opposition leader Alexei Navalny, confirmed poisoned with the state-exclusive nerve agent Novichok, died in solitary confinement at penal colony IK6 after years of systematic physical torture by Russian authorities. Despite enduring severe deprivation, including forced standing sleep and isolation from the outside world, Navalny maintained a defiant stance against the Kremlin's strategy of intimidation until his death in prison. The event underscores the Russian state's continued suppression of dissent, having recently sentenced other opposition figures to decades in prison to dismantle democratic movements.

How AI is generating a revolution in entertainment

Alfie, Ankit, Tobias, Harry Yeff, Marcus Hutton, Tom Wainwright

The event details how artificial intelligence is reshaping the music, film, and entertainment industries through data-driven discovery, generative creation tools, and predictive analytics like Cinelytic. While these technologies promise trillions in economic growth and lower barriers for under-resourced creators, they simultaneously spark significant labor disputes over job displacement and intense legal battles regarding copyright and consent. Stakeholders remain divided on whether these advancements will ultimately enrich human creativity or lead to a market flooded with derivative content.

Is nuclear fusion the future of clean energy?

Charlotte Howard

Following record-breaking plasma temperatures at 100 million degrees Celsius, private fusion startups like Tokamak Energy and US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems are racing to achieve commercial net energy production by the 2030s. This ambitious timeline relies on overcoming significant engineering hurdles in materials science and containment through a collaboration between global firms and public research bodies such as the UK's Atomic Energy Authority. With over $6 billion in investment fueling more than 42 private entities, the industry aims to deliver stable, low-waste baseload power as a critical solution for global decarbonization.

How green is the energy revolution really?

Charlotte Howard

Triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the global energy crisis initially boosted fossil fuel reliance but ultimately accelerated clean energy investment to surpass fossil fuel infrastructure spending. While record capital flows are driving rapid expansion in solar, wind, and electric vehicles, the transition faces persistent hurdles including grid bottlenecks, critical mineral shortages, and political resistance demanding faster decarbonization. Analysts estimate these geopolitical pressures have fast-tracked the green shift by five to ten years, yet significant gaps remain in meeting global net-zero targets by 2050.

Hoax school shootings: inside America's epidemic

In February 2023, a coordinated wave of sophisticated SWAT hoaxes targeting schools across the United States, including a specific incident at Aspen Elementary School that triggered a lockdown for 500 students and deployed over 90 first responders, highlighted the rise of organized criminal enterprises utilizing dark web services and AI-generated voices. Investigators linked these events to known swatters and characterized the attacks as potential domestic terrorism after finding consistent scripts and high-tech anonymization tactics that evade traditional tracking. While 16 states have since elevated these offenses to felonies and VoIP providers like TextNow have tightened security measures, the FBI continues to struggle with identifying perpetrators due to the anonymity provided by VPNs and cryptocurrency payments.

Why the baby business is booming

Jessica, David Smotrich, Nima, Hamish, Alan White, Nick, Emma, Catherine Wade, Mian Ridge

Valued at over $14 billion with projections reaching $130 billion, the global surrogacy industry is rapidly expanding due to rising infertility rates and restrictive laws in home countries that drive demand toward unregulated hubs. While the United States and Ukraine have historically served as major centers, tightening regulations in Asia and safety crises in Africa have forced a geographic shift that exposes gestational surrogates to severe exploitation and high maternal mortality. Experts now advocate for comprehensive international legal frameworks to replace bans with regulated standards, ensuring protections for children, intended parents, and surrogate workers across a market spanning costs from $30,000 to $200,000.

Winning the long war in Ukraine

The Ukrainian counter-offensive has transitioned the conflict into a protracted war of attrition, prompting leadership to reject short-term victory timelines in favor of long-term endurance strategies. Kyiv is increasingly leveraging deep-strike drone campaigns against Russian strategic assets and the home front to shatter Kremlin narratives without triggering major escalation, thereby encouraging allied nations to reconsider supplying advanced weaponry. With peace negotiations deemed futile as both sides bet on exhaustion, the conflict's trajectory now depends on societal resilience and economic stability rather than immediate territorial gains, with analysts predicting the war will only end when Russia's leadership determines the human and financial costs are unsustainable.

AI and our future with Yuval Noah Harari and Mustafa Suleyman

Yuval Noah Harari, Mustafa Suleyman

In a forecast for AI capabilities by 2028, Mustafa Suleiman and Yuval Noah Harari envision frontier models that will autonomously negotiate, execute multi-step actions, and interface with external APIs. While Suleiman frames these tools as engineered systems requiring deliberate constraints to prevent unintended agency, Harari argues that the technology's potential for independent idea creation marks the end of human-dominated history and introduces unique existential risks. To address these challenges, both speakers advocate for a "coalition of the willing" to enforce bans on harmful practices like human-impersonation bots, emphasizing the need for international cooperation over a geopolitical race to the bottom.

The future of money: three ways to go cashless

Following a pandemic-driven acceleration in digital adoption, the global payments landscape now revolves around three distinct models: the high-fee credit card ecosystems of the West, China's dominant closed fintech networks, and India's government-backed Unified Payments Interface. While Western banks and processors like Visa and Mastercard leverage interchange fees to fund consumer rewards and protections, China's Ant Financial and Alibaba faced regulatory blockades after their market dominance threatened financial stability. Conversely, India's interoperable UPI system processes one-third of the nation's GDP by enabling direct bank-to-bank transfers and data ownership, effectively creating a nonprofit alternative that prevents single-entity control over financial infrastructure.

The biggest bank heist in history (and why you've never heard of it)

Nicolas Pelham, Hussein Kanbar Agha, Jonathan Beckman, Mustafa Kadhimi, Mohammad Soudani, Thea Jahar-Lafda

In August 2022, a systematic theft of $2.5 billion from the Iraqi General Commission for Taxes was exposed, with the central plotter Noor Zahair bypassing official controls to distribute funds to five shell companies. Although Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi's administration initially arrested Zahair as part of a political maneuver against the pro-Iranian Fatah Alliance, the subsequent government collapse led to Zahair's release and the issuance of arrest warrants for the investigators. The operation exemplifies a broader pattern of grand corruption where the majority of the stolen cash remains missing and is allegedly reinvested into Baghdad's construction boom while key figures evade lasting legal consequences.