Today

Party likes it 1959: Cuba in crisis

<p>The country’s Communist Party leadership continues to cling to old ideals amid on-again, off-again diplomacy with America—and the people’s suffering <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2025/11/18/cuba-is-heading-for-disaster-unless-its-regime-changes-drastically?ut ... Show More

23m 15s

Yesterday

Wage against the machine: the distortions of minimum pay

<p>For decades governments have found minimum-wage rises a politically expedient means of redistribution. But the onward <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/11/20/why-governments-should-stop-raising-the-minimum-wage?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_so ... Show More

22m 16s

Nov 24

Emission creep: a contentious COP closes

<p>It is telling and troubling that the annual climate talking-shop’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2025/11/22/cop30-ends-with-a-whimper?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownote ... Show More

25m 51s

Oct 2024

Shoal searching: the South China sea simmers

A constellation of islands, reefs and rock-piles has been the source of disputes for decades. As a new phase in the conflict begins, how to calm things down? In the first of a series of first-person dispatches, we speak to a student in Gaza (09:50). And after a conservation succe ... Show More

24m 48s

Oct 6

One peace at a time: hopeful Gaza talks

As negotiators gather in Egypt, appetite for a short-term peace seems high on all sides. But there is much ambiguity surrounding a lasting accord. In New York, renters fear being evicted far less than they once did—but pity flat-hunters. And remembering Kim Seong Min, a North Kor ... Show More

22m 54s

Oct 2

Space invaders: Russia’s NATO nose-thumbing

Russia’s dark-fleet maritime operations and brazen incursions into NATO airspace appear to be precision-engineered to test Western resolve. We ask how this new phase of aggression may end. Our correspondent reports from Madagascar, where young people are leading unprecedented ant ... Show More

24m 45s

Feb 2025

Get your Strait facts: China’s quiet Taiwan push

We investigate China’s under-the-radar push to get other countries to change their official language on Taiwan’s independence. Would it make a difference in a bid to reunify by force? The case of a nurse jailed for killing babies exposes deep problems with British justice (10:10) ... Show More

22m 41s

Sep 23

States of disarray: the UN at 80

Coffers running low and an increasingly absent principal member: the United Nations has never looked so precarious. We discuss its future amid uncertain geopolitics. The generative-AI explosion has mostly been driven by so-called large language models—but small ones look ever mor ... Show More

25m 13s

Sep 16

Honey, we shrunk the kids: population fall

Falling fertility makes a global decline in population inevitable. That will change the shape and make up of societies. But it may not make us poorer. Are large language models really woke? And reading is on the wane – and why that matters. Listen to what matters most, from globa ... Show More

23m 46s

Oct 7

Renewable energy now world's biggest power source

Solar and wind power have overtaken coal as the world’s leading source of electricity for the first time on record. Record solar expansion and steady wind growth is driving the shift, with China and India among the countries leading the clean energy charge. On the second annivers ... Show More

29m 44s

Oct 3

Chainsaw out of gas? Milei’s experiment wobbles

A telling local-election loss, persistent allegations of scandal and an American pledge to prop up the peso: much is chipping away at the experiment of Argentina’s President Javier Milei. Long after the twin troubles of a pandemic and interest-rate rises, America’s commercial-pro ... Show More

25m 43s

Sep 2024

Beyond the bullets: we go to Ukraine

We take a look at the grim conditions in and prospects for the frontlines in the country’s east and north. But not all of the fighting is military in nature. We examine a far wider cultural revival going on (10:59), in music and fashion and long-forgotten ingredients and methods ... Show More

27m 30s

Sep 25

Home truths: Ukraine’s internal strains

A snapshot of the country reveals deepening military and economic problems—and, perhaps above all, political ones. America’s efforts to clamp down on skilled-worker visas will have far-reaching unintended consequences. And globally, more children today are obese than underweight. ... Show More

21m 15s

Shoal searching: the South China sea sim...