Hi Quartz members,
Another week spent fixated on a rumpus in the United Kingdom.
Liz Truss, forty-four days after shaking hands with Elizabeth II and assuming power, a month after the queen’s funeral, four weeks after unveiling a radical supply-side economic agenda that was gallingly labeled miniature, a fortnight after vowing to be steadfast while markets retched at the plan, and days after reversing course on nearly the entire package of tax cuts and corporate subsidies, finally capitulated to party elders who supported everything about the idea except how it played out in practice, becoming the shortest-tenured prime minister since George Canning died of tuberculosis in 1827.
Tories remain in charge, and will now pick their fifth leader in six years—or their third, if it’s Boris Johnson, who was flying back from holiday in the Dominican Republic to mount a comeback. The oddsmakers still favor Rishi Sunak, who was runner-up to Truss last time around, which was last month.
It is difficult to look away. And, sure, lettuce enjoy the memes. But the UK’s routine convulsions since its Brexit vote in 2016 should ultimately be seen as the domestic squabbles of an entrenched plutocracy over the scraps of a stagnant economy that is now, largely by its own choice, of declining relevance to the rest of the world, but still incredibly gifted at comedy.
Too harsh? Perhaps. But to cleanse our palettes between this week and next, the rest of this email is filled exclusively with news from off the island. Nothing about the Conservative leadership race or the shelf life of produce, just recent developments from everywhere else that we think will prove much more important, if not quite as shambolic.
COUNTER-PROGRAMMING
- China indefinitely delayed its third-quarter GDP data, which it was due to publish on Tuesday. The release would have come at a sensitive time, Mary Hui reports, just two days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a rousing and confident address at the opening of the 20th Communist party congress, where he will be elected to a third term this weekend. Chinese GDP is always received skeptically, even in good times, so not releasing the data at all, ironically, “says all you need to know.”
- United States smelting giant Alcoa could not conceal a surprising quarterly loss, which it blamed on falling prices for aluminum, a classic recession signal, Ananya Bhattacharya reports. When the economy is doing well, prices for metals rise because they’re being used to make things. Commodity prices falling is a clear signal that overall demand is slowing, and another indication the US could fall into recession.
- Uganda may dislodge Kenya as the financial capital of eastern Africa, Faustine Ngila reports. Kampala, the Ugandan capital, is becoming more attractive to investors, including large pension funds. A new report credits the change of fortune in Uganda to growing foreign-exchange markets and better regulation.
- India’s trade deficit with China exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. Despite tensions between the two giant economies, a nationalist turn in India, and Narendra Modi’s “make in India” campaign, India’s reliance on Chinese goods only continues to increase, Niharika Sharma reports.
- Switzerland said it would destroy 9 million doses of expired Covid-19 vaccines that it didn’t need, even as much of the world still awaits its first jab. Annalisa Merelli reports that rich countries have established a kind of vaccine nationalism, securing all the doses they could get their hands on, even as large parts of the world struggled to get any at all.
MORE QUARTZ STORIES TO SPARK CONVERSATION
- The world is burning. Can Silicon Valley put out megafires?
- Time: Understand how you use it, create more of it, maximize it, and sustain it
- US home buyers and sellers are facing the worst market in a decade
- The Kroger-Albertsons merger raises one big question: Why now?
- India is at least 99 new coal projects away from net zero
- Climate activists are slamming Egypt’s record on human rights ahead of COP27
GREAT STORIES FROM ELSEWHERE
💿 Music on ice. Within a mountain on the archipelago of Svalbard lies the Arctic World Archive. The vault of digital historical documents, including Rembrandts and Vatican manuscripts, may soon expand to include music through an initiative called the Global Music Vault. As Pitchfork reports, the project will safeguard songs on silica glass for up to 1,000 years, but the ambitious undertaking still faces many challenges, including the question of what should be preserved.
🤖 Behind the AI. Developments in AI have produced digital art marvels and allegedly sentient chatbots, but the industry itself is far from automated. An essay from Noema Magazine sheds light on how human exploitation has powered revolutionary advances in machine learning. With tech giants touting human-centered design, while also treating millions of workers around the globe like machines, the story suggests it may be time to reexamine what “AI ethics” exactly means.
🍽 Jellyfish, anyone? Some adventurous chefs are trying to make jellyfish the new tomato in Italy. It certainly won’t be an issue catching the gelatinous ocean-drifters: Jellyfish populations have exploded in the Mediterranean (as well as off the coast of Japan), in part due to the warming of waters from climate change. A story in Hakai Magazine explores what it might take to make the abundant invertebrates appetizing to diners.
😱 Gone Girl cruise. When author Gillian Flynn announced a cruise down the Danube based on her international hit thriller Gone Girl, Slate writer Imogen West-Knights snapped up a ticket, boarded the Avalon Waterways ship, and recorded the “deranged” eight-day experience. The trip, which included bloody handwritten notes, a macabre tour of the Austrian countryside, and a hefty amount of prepaid alcohol, was not the femme fatale experience one might expect.
Thanks for reading! And don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, or topics you want to know more about.
Have a weekend free of British politics,
—Zachary M. Seward, editor-in-chief
Additional contributions by Julia Malleck and Alex Citrin-Safadi