The Economist Continental Europe Edition November 19, 2022

The G20 summit in Bali concluded with a strongly worded statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding its immediate withdrawal. Russia managed to insert the phrase that there are “other views and different assessments of the situation” into the document. The Kremlin did, however, publish the statement in full, including the references to war and invasion. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister (pictured above), attended the gathering, and criticised it for being too politicised. A day before the summit, Joe Biden met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. After months of tension, they pledged to resume high-level dialogue on issues such as food security and economic affairs. But when it came to more divisive topics, such as Taiwan, there was little agreement. A missile struck a farm in Poland, close to the border…

Regulators around the world opened investigations into FTX, after the crypto exchange and its sprawling network of affiliated firms filed for bankruptcy protection. Traders withdrew $6bn from the platform in just 72 hours amid claims that it had mishandled customers’ investments. FTX could owe money to as many as 1m people. Its spectacular collapse has prompted calls for tougher rules to regulate markets in digital assets. After it declared bankruptcy in America a hacker, possibly an insider, stole around $470m from the exchange. Diverging economies Stockmarkets staged their biggest rally in more than two years on November 10th, after figures for American consumer prices were published. Annual inflation slowed to 7.7% in October, its lowest level since January. The S&P 500 surged by 5.5%, the NASDAQ by 7.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial…

THE FALL from grace was hard and fast. Only a fortnight ago Sam Bankman-Fried was in the stratosphere. FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, then the third-largest, was valued at $32bn; his own wealth was estimated at $16bn. To the gushing venture capitalists (VCs) of Silicon Valley he was the financial genius who could wow investors while playing video games, destined, perhaps, to become the world’s first trillionaire. In Washington he was the acceptable face of crypto, communing with lawmakers and bankrolling efforts to influence its regulation. Today there is nothing left but 1m furious creditors, dozens of shaky crypto firms and a proliferation of regulatory and criminal probes. The high-speed implosion of FTX has dealt a catastrophic blow to an industry with a history of failure and scandals. Never before has crypto…

THIS WEEK’S G20 meeting took place in Indonesia, the most important country that people routinely overlook. The last time its economy and politics were in the global spotlight was during the mayhem of the 1990s when a crony-capitalist system collapsed amid the Asian financial crisis, causing the fall of the 32-year-long dictatorship of Suharto. A quarter of a century on, Indonesia matters once again. It is the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, its third-biggest democracy and its fourth-most-populous country. With 276m people spread across thousands of islands that stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, it is caught up in the strategic contest between America and China. And like India and other emerging markets, it is adapting to a new world order in which globalisation and Western supremacy are in retreat. Over…

A RARE SURGE of optimism is running through financial markets. For most of the year America’s high inflation has proved troublingly persistent, Europe’s energy crisis has threatened a deep recession and China’s economy has been plagued by covid-19 lockdowns and a property bust. Investors are now cheering developments on all three fronts. America’s annual inflation fell from 8.2% to 7.7% in October. Europe’s natural-gas prices are down by two-thirds from their peak in August. China has loosened some restrictions associated with its “zero-covid” policy and on November 11th unveiled measures to ease the financial pressure on embattled property developers. This flurry of news has sent global stocks up by 13% since mid-October, as traders priced in fewer interest-rate rises by central banks and caused the dollar to fall. Alas, investors are…

THE ROCKET that landed in Poland on November 15th, killing two people, was mercifully not a missile from Russia. But the Ukrainian interceptor which fell to the ground would never have been launched were it not for Russia’s brutal aerial assault on Ukraine that day—its biggest barrage of missiles against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure so far. Russia is escalating because it is losing. The West must keep its cool and intensify its support for Ukraine. This is a time for bold steps. Poland and its allies deserve praise for their calm response. As Russia’s state media gloated over the death of Poles and accused its enemies of a “provocation”, NATO governments collected evidence and avoided raising the temperature. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, made a rare misstep in painting the accident as…