Flagship

Far right surge in Portugal

A center-right party, the Democratic Alliance, won Portugal’s general election Sunday, although its narrow victory may mean it has to seek the support of the far-right Chega. Chega won at least 48 seats, quadrupling its representation in Lisbon’s Parliament. Portugal was considered an exception to the rise of the populist right across Europe, ostensibly rendered immune by its recent history of being run by a conservative dictatorship until 1974. The Democratic Alliance leader reiterated a vow not to rely on Chega to form a government, but the party’s slim lead — it took 79 of the 230 seats, beating the incumbent socialists by two seats — will make it hard to govern alone.

Mass hunger in Gaza

Huge numbers of Palestinians are suffering from hunger, with tens of thousands of pregnant women in particular facing high risks of malnutrition. Months of war in Gaza have left markets bereft of basic goods at the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan — typically a period of sumptuous family feasts following the daily fast. “People used to prepare and start the first day of Ramadan with festivities, decorations, lights and lanterns in the streets, markets and mosques,” an Al Jazeera reporter wrote. “The vast majority of those are now destroyed.” The issue of hunger is an increasingly global one: One expert who previously argued that large-scale famines would be a thing of the past conceded, “I was wrong. Famines are back.”

War and inflation top Ramadan worries

The Israel-Hamas war and persistent cost-of-living worries dominated the concerns of Muslims worldwide as the holy fasting month of Ramadan began. During the month, Muslims refrain from food and drink from dawn to dusk and typically gather in groups of friends and family to break fast and enjoy grand meals. Yet the plight of Muslims in Gaza have overshadowed the period: “I feel ashamed as I shop for meat and chicken for my family, while the people of Gaza are in famine,” one Saudi government employee told AFP. In Asia — home to the majority of the world’s Muslims — many are also grappling with “a rough year with the cost of living biting,” a Southeast Asia-focused journalist noted.

Big night for Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer dominated the Oscars, winning best picture and six other awards, including director, best actor and supporting actor. Emma Stone took best actress for Poor Things. But beyond the big-ticket U.S. productions, Japanese film had a memorable night: The Boy and the Heron, apparently the last movie by Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki, was awarded best animated feature, while Godzilla Minus One, a record-breaking Japanese-language smash hit, became the first ever entry in the almost 70-year history of the Godzilla franchise to win — or even be nominated for — an Oscar, taking home the Best VFX prize.

Middleton image raises questions

Reuters and the Associated Press both issued rare “kill” notices on a photo of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, withdrawing the image from circulation after saying it appeared to be manipulated. The Instagram image, posted on the U.K.’s Mother’s Day, was the first official picture of Middleton since she underwent unspecified abdominal surgery in January. The photo of her with her children has strange inconsistencies, such as her daughter Charlotte’s sleeve not aligning with her arm. Public speculation about Middleton’s whereabouts have mounted, and the photo — still available on the royal couple’s Instagram — sparked fresh conspiracy theories. It comes at a time of heightened concern about artificial intelligence-powered image manipulation, although this picture appears to have been altered with good old-fashioned Photoshop.

British Library cyberattack fallout

A cyberattack that crippled the British Library’s systems for months shows how security struggles to keep up with changing technology. The ransomware attack stole 600GB of files, and the damage to the servers was so extensive that the route of entry could not be determined. Although the library remained physically open, online access remains incomplete four months later. A postmortem report by the library said that the original systems are so outdated that they are incompatible with modern security protocols, meaning that the restoration of all the library’s digitized content — containing around 200 million items — will take years.

China’s Communist Party tightens grip

Beijing further embedded Communist control over the Chinese state at the conclusion of its annual parliamentary session. The shift — which entrenches Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s effort to consolidate power — “has great symbolic value,” one China watcher told Bloomberg, increasing the Communist Party’s status relative to the bureaucracy. The move came amid concerns Chinese officials are prioritizing cementing state control over addressing an economic slowdown: Beijing said it would target 5% growth next year, but “the simple truth is that the government still seems to be underestimating both the scale of the headwinds in the economy … and the systemic nature of these problems,” UBS’s former chief economist wrote in The Wire.

Lael Brainard, Director of the White House National Economic Council; Julie Sweet, CEO Accenture; and David Zapolsky, SVP, Global Public Policy & General Counsel, Amazon have joined the world-class lineup of global economic leaders for the 2024 World Economy Summit, taking place in Washington, D.C. on April 17-18. See all speakers and sessions, and RSVP here.

Chinese workers leaving Africa

The number of Chinese workers in Africa fell by 64% in less than a decade as Beijing’s investment in the continent plummeted. Chinese firms invested just $1.8 billion in Africa in 2022, down from a peak of $5.4 billion in 2018. The rapid fall largely reflects “the changing priority in domestic Chinese politics,” a report by Chatham House said. As economic growth falls to the slowest rate in decades, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made investment in security a priority. “If you decide to dramatically spend more money on something, you have to cut back on something else,” one China expert told the Financial Times.

US evacuates staff from Haiti

The U.S. airlifted non-essential staff from its embassy in Haiti as the country spiraled further into chaos. Gangs have taken control of large swaths of the Caribbean nation, including almost all of the capital Port-au-Prince. In a show of force, a Haitian gang leader threatened civil war and genocide if Prime Minister Ariel Henry — who is stranded in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, unable to return to Haiti over security concerns — does not resign. Haitians have meanwhile viewed proposals for foreign intervention with skepticism: They carry scars over “abuses that came with” previous missions, the Associated Press reported last year.

Lawsuit could reveal Banksy identity

A legal row could force Banksy, the anonymous British artist, to reveal his identity. Banksy’s company Pest Control started providing certificates of authenticity for Banksy works after various fakes were sold: A certificate boosts an artwork’s value significantly. But two art collectors say Pest Control has refused to confirm the authenticity of 2003’s Monkey Queen despite having had three years to do so. Speculation over the artist’s identity has gone on for years — The Guardian noted that hypothesized Banksies include musicians from Massive Attack and Gorillaz, and the presenter of a former British children’s TV show. If the suit reaches court the artist’s identity would necessarily be revealed.

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How the sandworm turns

J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, did not like Dune. Those of us who love both books may find that sad — in some respects Dune is to modern science fiction what Tolkien’s work is to modern fantasy, i.e. basically the foundational document — but it is still the case: He wrote to a friend that “I dislike Dune with some intensity,” but “in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent.” He did not elaborate further, and never gave any public comments on Frank Herbert’s work.

On Whither the West?, the philosophically inclined author Scott Mauldin thinks he can explain the antipathy: Tolkien’s and Herbert’s imaginary universes embody diametrically opposite views of ethics. The two main camps of moral philosophy are deontology, the idea that acts are good or bad in themselves, and consequentialism, the idea that the moral value of an act depends on its consequences. Tolkien favored the first, says Mauldin: In his works, the road to evil is to “commit small acts of evil that nonetheless work toward a greater good.” In Dune, on the other hand, characters perform “millennia-long evil, countless acts of barbarity and oppression, to achieve a possible good.”

A rich jewel

Ethiopia is one of Africa’s quiet economic success stories. It has not always been so — readers of a certain vintage may always associate it with the appalling 1983-1985 famine which killed over a million people. As recently as 2002, it was the poorest country in Africa, with inflation-adjusted average annual earnings of $197. In 2022, that figure was $1,028, and triple that if you take into account purchasing power. The nation is on course to be considered “lower middle-income,” rather than “low income,” by next year.

Yaw Asamoah, a writer with an interest in economics and Africa, has written a three-part investigation into Ethiopia, with the third covering the country’s post-2000 economic miracle. “Ethiopia’s economy is unique in Africa,” he writes, as it is neither a huge exporter of mined goods or petrochemicals: Its biggest foreign earnings are its national airline, tourism, and coffee. It has introduced market-friendly reforms, loosened permits on land use, and boosted agricultural mechanization. “If Ethiopia can refine its export manufacturing strategy,” writes Asamoha, “Ethiopia can catch up to other developing nations like Bangladesh or Vietnam.”

A conspiracy of dunces

People often think of conspiracy theorists as ignorant. How can you believe that the world is flat, when you can just look at the evidence? But, says the anonymous writer Bentham’s Bulldog, most conspiracy theorists have looked at the evidence — and often they have an argument for why you shouldn’t believe it. When it comes to the roundness of the Earth, “I, like most people who think the earth is round, probably know less about it than most people who think the earth is flat.”

The problem conspiracy theorists have is not a shortage of knowledge. Often they have huge stores of knowledge, because they’re deeply invested in the topic. People who hubristically think they wouldn’t fall for these ideas are often wrong: “The reason most people reject conspiracy theories is that they are conformists — they just believe things that sound normal.” That’s often a good heuristic: “If smart people mostly think your belief is crazy then it probably is.” But that’s useless when you’re arguing against people who do believe those things, because they will know the object-level facts and you will not.

A Vietnamese architect won a prestigious award. Nguyễn Hà, the founder of Hanoi-based ARB Architects, won this year’s Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. Her work includes the sweeping Đạo Mẫu Museum and Temple, which reuses thousands of tiles from demolished buildings and features brick towers in a lychee orchard near Vietnam’s capital, The Architectural Review reported, as well as the conversion of a former weekend home into a temple. “Nguyễn sees what isn’t visible and finds a project that isn’t a project,” the judges said, praising how she “preserves important practices of craftsmanship, achieved through resilience and persistence.”

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