Russian President Vladimir Putin tripled down on the war in Ukraine in a short but defiant televised speech. Politically, he announced that a series of referendums on joining Russia would be held in the conquered territories of eastern Ukraine. Militarily, he repeated previous not-so-veiled threats to use nuclear weapons, and announced a mobilisation of 300,000 reservists to be thrown into ...

When Indonesia’s Joko Widodo visited Ukraine and Russia this summer, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi explained the president was “choosing to try to contribute, instead of choosing to be quiet.” And yet now, with the world at a perilous juncture, he has bafflingly chosen silence. Jokowi, as the president is known, is once again sitting out the United Nations’ General Assembly, ...

  The US dollar has surged almost 14% from its low last year in trade-weighted terms. This has led to a huge terms of trade shock (the price of exports compared with the price of imports) affecting any country that imports a lot of energy, which trades in dollars. On top of that, in Europe and the UK, at least, ...