Month: January 2024
Russia ups arms production
President Vladimir Putin was presented with production figures from the domestic arms industry. Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive officer of state-owned Rostec, announced that the company was now producing 50 times more ammunition for small arms in addition to the multiple-rocket launchers that have become notorious on the front lines in Ukraine, which itself has
African Satellite Cities
As cities burst their seams, advocates have long argued that building new “smart” ones on their peripheries would help alleviate such problems. If African cities are creaking, the future looks even more forbidding. Africa’s urban population has trebled since 1990. Over the next 26 years it may expand by another 900m people. By 2100, five
China hushing up court ruling
A decade ago China’s courts were ordered to upload all but the most sensitive of their rulings to a database called China Judgments Online, which was open to anyone. The platform grew to contain over 140m decisions. This unprecedented window into the system was a boon for civil-society groups, which could reference cases in their
India’s economy under Narendra Modi
Demonetisation may have accelerated India’s digitisation nonetheless. The country’s digital public infrastructure now includes a universal identity scheme, a national payments system and a personal-data management system for things like tax documents. It was conceived by Mr Singh’s government, but much of it has been built under Mr Modi, who has shown the capacity of
billions of frozen Russian assets
Early this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on countries worldwide to transfer the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets they were holding to Kyiv so that Ukraine could begin putting that money to work. Zelensky explained that the loss of these assets would be a painful blow to Russia and show the united
Fighting Graft in China
On January 10th a three-day annual meeting in Beijing of anti-corruption chiefs ended as usual with no public mention of military matters, such as the ousting last year of the defence minister, General Li Shangfu. He has not been seen in public since August (it was not until December that his successor, Admiral Dong Jun,
Europe Arming Ukraine and Itself
At the height of Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive, it was using some 7,000 shells a day, significantly more than the Russians. This has reversed: since last month, while Ukrainian forces have been rationed to 2,000 shells a day, the Russians have been firing five times that number. Russia’s economy is nearly 14 times the size of
The American great economy
For the past two years it has bounced around at levels last seen during the global financial crisis of 2007-09. Even with an improvement in December, it is still 30% below its recent peak on the eve of the covid-19 crisis in early 2020.From an array of hard data, there is reason to think that
Donald Trump campaigns in Iowa
The former president won the state comfortably in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. Yet his current popularity makes it easy to forget that his first electoral foray in Iowa did not go well: despite leading in surveys ahead of the 2016 caucuses, he had an anaemic on-the-ground operation and finished second behind a better-organised
Maritime navigation in danger
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has called for an end to the attacks on civilian vessels in the Red Sea, though he did not mention the Iran-backed Houthi militia responsible for those attacks. Hezbollah leader says Houthis will continue to target ships in the Red Sea and US actions have endangered all shipping.Hezbollah, founded in