Operation Blind Fury

Issue Date: March 21, 2026

Table of Contents

The world this week Leaders Letters By Invitation Briefing Britain Europe United States Middle East & Africa The Americas Asia China International Business Finance & economics Science & technology Culture Economic & financial indicators Obituary

The world this week

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Ali Larijani gives a press conference in Tehran, Iran.

Politics

The world this week

A picture of Qatar Energy's operating facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar

Business

The world this week

The weekly cartoon

The world this week

Leaders

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Donald Trump wearing a military helmet backwards, covering his eyes

War in Iran is making Donald Trump weaker—and angrier

Operation Blind Fury

A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, March 14th 2026

Lebanon’s leaders must take on Hizbullah

Lebanon’s last chance

A worker arranges pepper plants in a greenhouse that uses agri-tech in Jos, Nigeria

Africa after aid is more resilient than you might think

Open for business

A Cuban and a US flag flutter on the roof of a tricycle in Havana, Cuba

A dirty deal with Cuba would be better than the alternatives

Dealing with Havana

A woman walks her dog on the beach in front of an offshore wind farm.

Gas will not be killed off by renewables any time soon

Lingering fumes

Letters

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This illustration shows a small alien-like figure piloting a red spacecraft that’s attached to a satellite or computer system in space. It suggests themes of technology and control—possibly hinting that advanced systems

Are data centres in space less crazy than we think?

A selection of correspondence

By Invitation

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A portrait of Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi

America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war

Shocking war

Briefing

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Satellite image shows smoke rising from UAE's Fujairah port

There is plenty of scope for the Iran war to intensify

Double deadlock

Munitions, believed to be JDAM bunker-busting bombs, are loaded into a US Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber

The Iran war could sap American military power for years

Fire-retardant spray

An Iranian holds a portrait of Iran's newly nominated supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei ROTEST

The assassination of senior leaders weakens Iran—but at a cost

No quarter

Britain

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Rachel Reeves, interviewed for the Economist, London, UK, March 17th 2026

Britain’s chancellor starts a tilt towards Europe

Destination Brussels

Overhead aerial view of moving traffic in Britain

By our calculations, motoring in Britain has rarely been so cheap

U-turn if you want to

The job centre plus offices in Accrington, Lancashire, UK

Britain’s youngsters are increasingly out of work

Not so NEET

Three teenage boys ictured during a hike in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme Expedition, 1961

The Duke of Edinburgh’s award is more popular than ever

Rational recreation

Archbishop Sarah Mullally

The new Archbishop of Canterbury inherits a church in turmoil

Holy divided

A massive mound of illegally dumped rubbish in a field near Kidlington, Oxfordshire

Industrial-scale fly-tipping is spreading across Britain

Scrapheap Britain

Illustration of 3 building blocks with the letters BBC on

CBeebies or barbarism!

Bagehot

Europe

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The Iran war is forcing Europe to confront its energy problem

Low on gas

Russia's President Vladimir Putin smiles looking up to the sky as he attends his ceremonial reception at India's presidential palace, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi.

Vladimir Putin enjoys a huge windfall from the Iran war

Barrels of laughs

Mother with two children walking in Budapest, Hungary

Viktor Orban’s pro-natalist policies are not working

Yeah, baby

President of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), Janez Jansa, presents the party's election candidates in Ljubljana, Slovenia,

A spy scandal upends Slovenia’s election campaign

Catfishing in the Alps

The quiet recovery of Ireland’s ancient tongue

The Kneecap effect

How Ukraine and Europe got caught in a geopolitical lovers’ tiff

Charlemagne

United States

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Donald Trump throwing a small fighter jet like a paper airplane that's looping around and about to hit the back of his head

How the Iran war is hurting Donald Trump

The man with no plan

Tucker Carlson speaks with Zanny Minton Beddoes (out of shot) during an interview

Tucker Carlson on whether Donald Trump has betrayed his base

Conversation with an apostate

A muddled war and rising prices are boosting Democrats’ midterm hopes

Collateral advantage

A farmer plants rice at a farm.

American farmers are feeling the squeeze

From Hormuz to the heartland

A masked U.S. Border Patrol agent during an arrest in Minneapolis.

Is an obsession with immigration leaving America exposed?

Distracted defences

Illustration of Trump being carried on a throne-like palanquin by 4 men in red baseball caps while a sad looking elephant behind them paints the word MID on to a sign above a ballot box

Does Donald Trump even care about the midterms?

Lexington

Middle East & Africa

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Portrait of Aliko Dangote.

Africa’s richest man has ambitious plans for the continent

Aliko Dangote

A displaced family, accompanied by their children and livestock, in Abwegera, South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The war in eastern Congo is escalating far from view

No peace in sight

People read the Daily Nation Newspaper.

A shake-up at Africa’s spikiest media group

Rocking the Nation

A man looks at the site of overnight Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon on March 12, 2026

Israel contemplates a ground invasion of Lebanon

Israel and Hizbullah

The Americas

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A man repairs a bicycle tire on the sidewalk

Cuba’s broken economy leaves it at Donald Trump’s mercy

Blackout economics

Asia

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South Korean Buddhist monks and members of civic groups bow and prostrate themselves as they march towards the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, to protest against President Donald Trump, March 17, 2026.

Will America’s Asian allies get dragged into the Iran war?

Holding fire

People queue to buy liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders for domestic use, at a gas agency office in Chennai on March 11, 2026.

Panicked Indians are scrambling to buy gas

The energy shock in India

An illustration of a person walking along beneath streetlights that are getting ever brighter along the path.

What Nitish Kumar did for Bihar, India’s poorest state

Banyan

A fish vendor waits for customers at her market stall in Yangon on January 23, 2026.

Life in Myanmar’s biggest city is increasingly grim

Burmese days

Afghan rescue teams and Taliban security personnel search for bodies under the rubble of a damaged building after an airstrike hit the Secondary Rehabilitation Services, in Kabul on March 16, 2026.

A deadly strike in Kabul could have big knock-on effects

Playing with fire

China

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An engineer debugs robots at the factory of AgiBot, a leading robotics company specializing in embodied intelligence, on December 8, 2025 in Shanghai, China.

Is cheap energy the key to China gaining AI supremacy?

Cake, robots and electrons

A visitor presses her hand together in prayer towards the Guanyin of the South Sea statue in China

Public opinion in China is hardening on America and Taiwan

A hawkish turn

A man wears a protective mask to protect against the spread of COVID-19 as he looks up at buildings obscured by smog and fog in the Central Business District on November 20, 2022 on a polluted day in Beijing, China.

Why China’s fight on air pollution has slowed

Clear the skies

A Maoist survival guide to the Iranian energy crisis

Chaguan

International

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Blast furnaces, in a copper smelter where copper ore is smelted and raw copper sheets are cast.

The future of Africa will be shaped by investment rather than aid

Get paid, not aid

An illustration of Donald Trumo dressed as Napoleon, in front of a fleet of US boats. The writing on his hat says 'Make Empires Great Again'.

America’s failing gunboat diplomacy

The Telegram

Business

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Nvidia is expanding its empire

Space Nvader

Trouble is brewing among America’s corporate borrowers

Of cockroaches, canaries and termites

An Emirates Airbus A380 aircraft prepares for landing as a smoke plume rises from an ongoing fire near Dubai International Airport

War may bring lasting change to the airline business

Clearing the air

The new BASF HDM production unit at the Alsachimie and Butachimie Plany in France

The Iran war casts a shadow over BASF’s nascent revival

Noises off

Indian tech workers

Why AI has not yet upset India’s IT industry

Coding against the machine

Shoppers outside a Zara fashion store

How Zara fought off H&M and Shein

En vogue

Illustration of a man wearing a banana costume holding up a happy face in one hand and a sad face in the other

The secrets to a good employee survey

Bartleby

Illustration of hands playing chess with pieces that look like businessmen

Elliott Management and the art of telling bosses they’re wrong

Schumpeter

Finance & economics

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A worker changes the prices for gas at a 76 station in Beverly Hills, California, USA.

America may be a petrostate. But the energy shock still hurts

Disunited petro-states of America

Floorhands work on a drilling rig contracted to Shell in the Delaware Basin, near Wink, Texas.

What if Donald Trump decided to ban oil exports?

Terminal solution

Aerial view of a 260MW solar farm spanning 4 square kilometers of aquatic farming water bodies in Dangtu County, central China's Anhui Province.

China cannot escape the energy shock

Green, brown and red

A man takes his children to school on a motorcycle.

Which country is the biggest loser from the energy shock?

The darkest hours

Orange digger buckets moving yellow sulphur, with a worker in the background - Nantong, Jiangsu, China.

The Iran war is roiling commodities far beyond oil

Scattershock

The flag of South Korea made into a bull and bear fighting each other with lightning bolts around.

Will South Korea’s epic bull market survive the energy shock?

Buttonwood

Illustration of pink handcuffs with the chainin the middle making it look like a percentage symbol.

The new economics of sex work

Free Exchange

Science & technology

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In front of the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s first tokamak donated to the Institute by the Soviet Union.

China is a serious contender in the race for fusion energy

Chasing the sun

Worker holds a Cerebras chip.

The next phase of artificial intelligence may require very different processors

Chips away

Man charging electric car on a public charging station

Rapid-charging EV batteries are on the way

Leading the charge

A birthday cake with GLP1 injectors as the candles

Should you take GLP-1 drugs for longevity?

Well Informed

Culture

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Empty beds are pictured before high-rise buildings along a beach at Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) in Dubai.

War is only the starkest way that politics is disrupting tourism

Wanderlust and lost

Bottles of Topo Chico carbonated mineral water are shown.

Which is the best sparkling water?

World in a dish

Leon Trotsky, Russian Communist leader, here during exile period.

Re-examining one of the world’s most notorious assassinations

Hatchet job

Mafia boss Charles 'Lucky' Luciano (third right) walking with his henchmen in Sicily, Italy,

It’s strictly business: the enduring allure of mafiosi in culture

The gang’s all here

Hotel Lutetia, Paris, France.

Looking for a Paris hotel with a past?

Rooms with a view

Economic & financial indicators

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Economic data, commodities and markets

Indicators

Obituary

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Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas hoped rational discussion could save the world

The Mole of Reason