The Economist Weekly Edition | April 11th 2026

Donald Trump is the war’s biggest loser 

 

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• Pakistan plays peacemaker

  The troubled country has cannily managed its ties with the warring parties

• Family businesses

  Many will not survive

• Hospitals after covid

  They are stuck in a deadly doom loop

• The parable of Kanye West

  The American rapper drags every British neurosis to an absurd extreme 

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Business

Into thin heir

A giant succession wave is coming for family businesses

Czechoslovak Group

How war has made a 33-year-old the Czech Republic’s richest man

Land of the setting sun

Japan’s mighty carmakers are in serious trouble

Mythical monster

How dangerous is Mythos, Anthropic’s new AI model?

Flipping the script

Why McDonald’s and KFC are growing like wildfire in China

Bartleby

The pros and cons of stretch goals

Schumpeter

Every company is now a media company—and every boss a star

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Finance & economics

The start of the deal

The third Gulf war will scar energy markets for a long time yet

Hard target

As Iran’s civilian economy crumbles, its military economy grows stronger

In Siena, with a proxy form

The latest Italian banking whodunnit has it all

Second helpings

Can the secondary market allay private-credit fears?

Buttonwood

Bye, bye to the Trump trades

Semi-baked

South Korea’s AI industrial policy meets the energy shock

Free exchange

One neat trick to end extreme poverty

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Science & technology

Strength in numbers

AI models could offer mathematicians a common language

Breathtaking discoveries

Mummified reptiles are revealing how breathing evolved

Panacea seer

Sir Demis Hassabis wants to automate drug design

The view from Artemis II

Earth and Moon, then and now

Well Informed

Should you take multivitamins?

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Culture

Blundering to Armageddon

A third world war is plausible. Here’s how to avoid one

Putting on heirs

He said he was an oligarch’s son. The lie had tragic consequences

Face value

What’s the most attractive genre of entertainment?

Unhappy meals

Why children become fussy eaters

World in a dish

The great comeback of cottage cheese

The disinformation state

How Vladimir Putin’s propaganda works