The Economist Asia Edition July 2, 2022

Finland and Sweden were formally invited to join NATO. Turkey, a member of the alliance, had been blocking their membership bids, claiming that they were too hospitable towards Kurdish separatists (whom Turkey considers terrorists). Turkey backed down after the two Nordic countries promised to be tougher on terrorism. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, called Russia the alliance’s “most significant and direct threat”. NATO will increase the number of its troops ready to deploy at short notice from 40,000 to 300,000. President Joe Biden announced new land, air and sea deployments across Europe, including a permanent army HQ in Poland, America’s first on NATO’s eastern flank. Russian missiles hit a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, a city in central Ukraine. At least 18 people have been confirmed killed. At a meeting in Germany…

Several American companies responded to a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the ruling that declared abortion a constitutional right in 1973. Amazon, Apple, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft and Nike were among those that pledged to cover travel costs for employees seeking abortions and other medical care not available in their state. Consumer confidence in America fell to its lowest point in over a year in June amid concerns about inflation, according to a survey by the Conference Board, a research organisation. The six-month outlook of consumers on the state of the economy and labour market was the bleakest in nearly a decade. In Britain, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since records began in 1974, data published by GfK, a consumer-goods research company, showed. Lufthansa, a…

UKRAINE WON the short war. Mobile and resourceful, its troops inflicted terrible losses and confounded Russian plans to take Kyiv. Now comes the long war. It will drain weapons, lives and money until one side loses the will to fight on. So far, this is a war that Russia is winning. In recent days its forces have taken the eastern city of Severodonetsk. They are advancing on Lysychansk and may soon control all of Luhansk province. They also threaten Slovyansk, in the north of next-door Donetsk. Ukrainian leaders say they are outgunned and lack ammunition. Their government reckons as many as 200 of its troops are dying each day. Fortunately for Ukraine, that is not the end. The Russian advance is slow and costly. With NATOcalibre weapons, fresh tactics and…

IT WAS HARDLY a surprise. The Supreme Court’s move to overturn Roe v Wade, the decision in 1973 that American women had a constitutional right to abortion, had been expected since a draft majority opinion was leaked in early May. And drama from the court was almost inevitable after Donald Trump seated three justices, giving it a 6-3 conservative supermajority instead of the 5-4 balance, with a swing vote in the middle, that had prevailed since the 1970s. Even so, when the ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation came on June 24th, it was a shattering blow to those, like this newspaper, who believe in the right to abortion. Chief Justice John Roberts, who cautioned against a “dramatic step”, could not prevent the court from withdrawing a right…

THE VENTURE-CAPITAL bull run of the past two decades transformed what was once a cottage industry in Silicon Valley into a huge machine for building globally dominant companies. Over $600bn of venture funds were invested worldwide last year, nearly ten times the level a decade ago. Venture capital (VC) spread into new sectors, drew in new participants and became more global. Valuations rocketed as a sense took hold that the good times would never end. Now the war in Ukraine, China’s purging of its tech industry and rising interest rates mean capitalism’s moon-shot machine is earthbound (see Business section). Public markets were the first to be hit. The NASDAQ index, which is weighted towards technology companies, has fallen by nearly 30% so far this year in a gruesome reckoning. The…

INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL centres play a crucial role in the world economy. They act as launching pads for ideas and bring together expertise, capital and entrepreneurs. Right now the map of Asian financial hubs is being redrawn (see Finance & economics section). The city-state of Singapore looks to be the main beneficiary—provided it can handle some of the downsides of being a global centre for other people’s business. Asia makes up more than a third of global GDP and its weight in the world economy is continuing to rise. The role of entrepots is especially important in the region, which hosts a baffling mix of political and legal systems. Plenty of economies are smothered by their regulatory regimes, and the region’s two emerging giants, China and India, have partial capital controls.…