Abbie Fielding-Smith

He was a Texan dad who had never left America. Then he got deported to Laos Trump’s crackdown is sending people to a homeland they’ve never seen before

this such a moving story. in this week's print edition

www.economist.com/1843/2026/02...

I have always wondered about this! Can't wait to read

TOM we need to talk. We have just invented what I think may be a fantastic board game based around Greek myths. The concept is solid but the design, as you can see, is not the work of professionals

The Venezuelan regime is rapidly consolidating its grip on power The democratic opposition is left out in the cold

It's as if America toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and then put Qusay in charge. "There is no sign that the United States’ demands include less repression. Instead the regime is taking the opportunity to crack down." www.economist.com/the-americas...

Chart from The Economist showing the annual income in 1798 of various professions and of Jane Austen characters

Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...

"In scale, these proposals would mean deporting greater numbers and a greater proportion of the population than former Ugandan President Idi Amin’s deportation of Ugandan Asians"

I'm reading Middlemarch at the moment and had to actually sellotape a sheet of paper over the cover so I didn't have to look at this

John F. Kennedy: The Soviet plan to encircle West Berlin with a giant concrete wall guarded by men with guns, dogs and searchlights is unfunded, unworkable and falling apart.

Haggis Pakora

Reminder: The existence of these in most Scottish supermarkets and corner shops is proof that anyone shilling for the notion that multiculturalism can't work on this island is a charlatan

How Tether became money-launderers’ dream currency The stablecoin is fuelling a global shadow economy. And it’s never been more respectable

If you're interested in Tether, I wrote this for the Economist about an NCA operation into a Russian cash-for-crypto money laundering scheme.

www.economist.com/1843/2025/07...

The untold story of Bolsonaro’s weird and wild coup attempt How Brazil’s ex-president and his cronies tried to take down democracy

1843 is now publishing regularly in the print Economist as well as digitally. Our debut is this blockbuster investigation into the coup Bolsonaro was plotting, the details of which are INSANE. Kind of like the Battle for Chile as scripted by Armando Iannucci

www.economist.com/1843/2025/08...

They Were Treated Like Orphans. But They Knew the Truth.

This is a really painful read, but fantastic digging by Shane Bauer into the children of political dissidents in Syria, disappeared by the security services into orphanages and made to forget the existence of their parents www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/m...

Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia The long read: When Ian Foxley found evidence of corruption while working at a British company in Riyadh, he alerted the MoD. He didn’t know he’d stumbled upon one of its most closely guarded secrets

"If the princess rings the police...you're dead. I mean literally". Superb long read on the whistleblower who exposed epic British-Saudi corruption. Someone should make into a film www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

The hunt for Austin Tice, part 3 Bird in the cage

Fellow Syria obsessives, if you have not listened to the final part of my colleague Gareth's incredible investigation into the fate of Austen Tice I strongly recommend you do so. A chilling journey into the dark heart of the regime

www.economist.com/podcasts/202...

One William Woods was telling the truth. The other was living his life How a decades-long deception saw an innocent man end up in jail

Previous posts are from the Economist's summer double issue which is on stands today and which contains four fantastic pieces of reportage from 1843, including this absolutely wild tale of identity theft www.economist.com/interactive/...

Would you pass the world’s toughest exam? Thirty million Indians want a job on the railways, but a fiendish general-knowledge test stands in their way

Every few years about 30m Indians compete for 90K jobs on the railways. To be eg a ticket inspector you must do an insane exam on things like algebra, & the WTO. An entire town has sprung up where ppl do nothing but cram for it. Amazing story (includes sample test) www.economist.com/interactive/...

Last year the South African government blockaded an abandoned mine where hundreds of illegal miners, mainly immigrants, were scouting for gold. This is the story of what went on in the darkness during those months, and it is haunting. www.economist.com/interactive/...

How Foreign Agendas Hijacked a Local Crisis in Syria Seven months after Assad’s fall, an analysis of the violence in Sweida shows how international interference and internal paralysis are pushing the country back toward chaos

really good rundown of Sweida and what the latest sectarian violence in Syria is about

newlinesmag.com/argument/how...

Inside Gaza’s ‘death traps’ A US-backed scheme forces hungry Palestinians to trek kilometres for food aid. Many never make it back

This is a really excellent use of graphics and videos to explain what is going on with GHF's aid distribution model in Gaza www.ft.com/content/6c74...

Wet Leg: Moisturizer review – Doritos, Davina McCall and dumb fun from British indie’s big breakout band After winning multiple Grammys and Brits, the Isle of Wight band explore love and sexuality on their second LP – but there’s still room for some barbed put-downs

album of the summer imo

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

So many extraordinary details in this unforgettable in-depth account of being a hostage in Gaza - the first of our summer issue pieces. Omer became the chef of the Hamas cell that was holding him

www.economist.com/1843/2025/07...

Gaza’s controversial aid scheme fuels black market for vital goods Extreme shortages and dangers securing supplies drive trade in food distributed by US-backed foundation

@financialtimes.com's @malaikatapper.bsky.social on how Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has created a whole new predatory black market for food aid: www.ft.com/content/2593...

The @financialtimes.com continues to cover the BCG-Gaza story, and BCG leadership continues to insist that they're friendly, clueless dopes who had no idea that designing a tool for how to seize control over a starving enclave's access to food could be controversial. www.ft.com/content/6ddd...

Testimonies: IDF responsible for lethal shootings near U.S.-led aid site in Gaza ***

The GHF ignored weeks of warnings that its model would mean overwhelming crowds. And then the inevitable result: "Senior commanders had considered managing the crowds through the use of live fire. 'The intent was to direct the population using gunfire.'" www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...

Last straw.

AFP’s Fida Hussain photographs farmers transporting wheat straw on a tractor in Jacobabad, Sindh province, Pakistan

The rise, fall and contested future of Hizbullah Lebanon has spent years under the militant group’s dominance. Could it be coming to an end?

"Hizbullah gaslit us!" Supporters are cursing it, opponents sense an opportunity. @lizsly.bsky.social profiles the most successful militia in the world as it hits an existential crossroad www.economist.com/1843/2025/05...

The great pretender: how Ahmed al-Sharaa won Syria Syria’s new president is a chameleon. Is that enough to rule the Middle East’s most volatile country?

As Syria's ex al Qaeda president prepares to meet with Trump seems a good time to re-up Nicolas Pelham's superlative story of how he made that journey (and why being a great political chameleon doesn't necessarily make you great at running a post civil war country) www.economist.com/1843/2025/03...

The Enshittification Files

'Children handcuffed and shot' - ex-UK Special Forces break silence on war crime claims Veterans who served with the SAS and SBS give BBC Panorama eyewitness accounts of alleged executions.

Deeply disturbing and demands accountability, not cover ups. “Giving their accounts publicly for the first time, the veterans described seeing members of the SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, including children.” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The terrible secrets of Taiwan’s Stasi files Researchers have unearthed the surveillance records of Taiwan’s former dictatorship. But the revelations inside could tear society apart

If you were told you had been secretly surveilled by a dictatorship and some of your best friends had been reporting on you, would you want to read the file? Would you trust anyone again if you did? Riveting piece on Taiwan's reckoning with newly unearthed archives www.economist.com/1843/2025/05...