US producer price inflation rose to its highest level since 2022 in April amid rising energy & transportation costs • Producer price index rose by 6% year on year in April • With mid-terms less than six months away, data highlight impact of war in Iran on US economy www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The outbreak of #Ebola #Bundibugyo is now the 3rd largest on record. The #WHO country rep in DRC, Anne Ancia, told the World Health Assembly today that the suspected case count is now over 500, with 130 suspected deaths. This will be hugely difficult to contain. www.unognewsroom.org/story/en/312...

Hormuz disruptions are fuelling coal shipments globally • Freight rates from Indonesia, the world’s largest coal exporter, were 60-75% higher in May vs. February • Global market for thermal coal was already tight when Iran war began due to Indonesian export restrictions www.ft.com/content/9434...

Just re-reading the EU-US Turnberry Agreement and there's no way either side was negotiating in good faith. Purely tactical, something which European critics in particular never seemed to understand.

“for the longest time the question of European strategic autonomy has been a French obsession, a German embarrassment, a British irritation — and that today, nolens volens, it has become a European necessity.” franziska-brantner.de/news/the-lon...

There’s a LOT going on as researchers and public health experts race to respond to the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak in DRC and Uganda before it grows bigger. Some really important questions still open, but also a few answers coming into view🧪 My overview in @science.org is here (and thread coming):

At US$2.8bn in 2024, China's aid budget is fraction of USAID’s pre-Trump spending • Roughly 85% of China’s overseas financing is issued as loans rather than aid • Accounting for loans, China's official financial flows to developing economies are higher than US's www.economist.com/asia/2026/05...

Le déficit fiscal russe a doublé en janvier-avril par rapport à 2025 et les réserves liquides du fonds souverain ne représentent plus que trois mois de déficit - pour @lemonde.fr j'analyse pourquoi la Russie n'est pas le grand gagnant annoncé de la guerre en Iran www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...

Move over, Mythos: Open-source AI systems have been finding serious bugs in critical software for months. I wrote about how a recent DARPA challenge sparked a sea change in AI's bug-finding power, and how it could especially help critical infrastructure. www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/ai-vuln...

Le déficit fiscal russe a doublé en janvier-avril par rapport à 2025 et les réserves liquides du fonds souverain ne représentent plus que trois mois de déficit - pour @lemonde.fr j'analyse pourquoi la Russie n'est pas le grand gagnant annoncé de la guerre en Iran www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...

Europe's economy will survive the rise of China as the US has done, but it will adjust, some people will gain and some people lose from this, government efforts to force the process will by and large not succeed because they don't run business. www.ft.com/content/57b4...

KAL's cartoon in The Economist this week

Calm-mongers: "There is no asymptomatic transmission of hantavirus." Precaution-pushers: "How do you know that?" CM: "We've never seen it." PP: "Do you test asymptomatic people who have been exposed?" CM: "No." PP: "Why not?" CM: "Because there is no asymptomatic transmission of hantavirus."

I'm not particularly worried there will be much onward spread of hantavirus from M/V Hondius passengers. But I am concerned that authorities are making confident statements based on VERY LIMITED data. IMO, there's too little data to say need symptoms to transmit or need close, prolonged contact.

US is dominating global stablecoin landscape • Roughly 99% of US$322bn in stablecoins in circulation are pegged to greenback • World’s largest stablecoin Tether holds US$117bn worth of Treasuries; stablecoins are backed dollar for dollar by short-dated US Treasuries www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Du front à l’arrière, une “économie de la mort” En Russie, le passage à une économie de guerre soutient l'effort sur le front et maintient l'économie à flots. Mais ce modèle a des conséquences sociales délétères et n'enraye pas le ralentissement de l'économie. 🎧 @franceculture.fr urls.fr/weBm8G

US, China, Germany and Japan account for roughly two-thirds of global imbalances • US transitioned from surplus to deficit in 1970s, while Germany and Japan moved into surplus • Robust consumption (= low savings) and investment underpin US current account deficit www.ft.com/content/72ab...

🤨 www.bbc.com/news/article...

IMF reckons streamlined regulation & deeper integration could boost EU GDP by 3% over next decade • Flagship proposal entails creating 28th legal regime for EU-wide firms • Bloc is also pushing passporting proposal for telecoms services, now regulated nationally www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Iran war-fuelled rise in oil prices is not translating in financial bonanza for Kremlin • Oil revenues have risen, but they remain far below peaks from recent years • On annual basis, Russia’s oil revenues declined by 28% in April amid high subsidies to refineries www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My Trade Secrets. Xi Jinping had big plans last year for placating Trump by delivering $1 trillion in investment to the US. Trump chose trade war instead. With things a bit calmer, this week's Xi-Trump meeting might be a chance for another go. But the US biz environment is now much more hostile.

How is the Iran war preventing Europe’s #LNG plans? New analysis from @agathedemarais.com#LNGexplores how the Iran war is disrupting global gas flows, putting Europe’s energy diversification plans at risk. 👉 Read the full commentary: https://bit.ly/3QQQ9Q8

As Presidents Xi and Trump prepare for the their summit next week, @agathedemarais.com and Daniel Gros propose a simple way to counter China's chokehold over the supply of critical materials: The Europeans and their partners should be building stockpiles of them. ip-quarterly.com/en/case-sett...

Brussels has started working on 2028-34 vintage of Common Agricultural Policy • Negotiations pit those who reckon EU should finance innovation vs those who think agriculture remains priority • Political pressure from farmers can be huge, as EU-Mercosur trade deal has shown www.ft.com/content/276d...

Step 1: Run regression of [scary Y] on [trendy X] using observational data Step 2: Magically "adjust" for the 20 bajillion imperfectly-measured confounders Step 3: Wait for a credulous journalist to write it up as causal www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Chinese firms operate or have financial stake in 129 ports outside China • Chinese companies have spent >US$80bn on global port projects • More than third of China’s overseas ports are near maritime chokepoints like Suez Canal or straits of Malacca and Hormuz www.economist.com/internationa...

Reducing reliance on Chinese critical minerals is the latest buzzword in America and Europe - in @ipq.bsky.social Daniel Gros and I argue that the US and the EU have a fast, cheap and effective option to tackle this challenge: setting up a critical minerals stockpile ip-quarterly.com/en/case-sett...

Behind the diplomatic platitudes, both Beijing and Washington are quietly preparing for something harsher — a prolonged economic war, mapping vulnerabilities and sharpening tools to inflict pain on the other. by Alexandra Stevenson & Murphy Zhao

Liquid reserves from Russia's sovereign fund have shrunk by nearly two-thirds since early 2022 • Kremlin needs to tap into rainy-day savings to finance war-fuelled fiscal deficit • War in Iran-fuelled rise in oil prices will not be enough to fix Russia's fiscal woes www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

LOL. Mildly positive.

Reducing reliance on Chinese critical minerals is the latest buzzword in America and Europe - in @ipq.bsky.social Daniel Gros and I argue that the US and the EU have a fast, cheap and effective option to tackle this challenge: setting up a critical minerals stockpile ip-quarterly.com/en/case-sett...

A little summary of some events. Version 1.

"How China is winning the global AI race" -> a thoughtful piece by @agathedemarais.com in @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/07/a...

KAL's cartoon in The Economist this week

In recent weeks the most used AI globally was one few westerners know of: China's open-source Kimi K2.6 - in @foreignpolicy.com I outline how Beijing is quietly building an ecosystem of cheap, good-enough models like Kimi or Qwen, and what this means for US AI firms foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/07/a...

Hantavirus: No vaccine any time soon.

Okay, so a few things 🧵 1. There is in vitro evidence that ivermectin can inhibit importins (proteins that import things into the nucleus). However, hantaviruses, like Andes virus, do not have a phase of their replication cycle that requires them to go to the nucleus. ictv.global/report/chapt...

In recent weeks the most used AI globally was one few westerners know of: China's open-source Kimi K2.6 - in @foreignpolicy.com I outline how Beijing is quietly building an ecosystem of cheap, good-enough models like Kimi or Qwen, and what this means for US AI firms foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/07/a...

“.. hyperscalers’ earnings growth this quarter was boosted by an unusually large contribution from equity stakes in private companies .. another sign of just how comically codependent the AI tech industry has become.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/be97...

As an outbreak, #hantavirus on a cruise ship is more interesting than alarming. But it should serve as a warning sign to the US, which by withdrawing from #WHO has cut itself off from WHO's outbreak intelligence network, writes @krutikakuppalli.bsky.social. www.statnews.com/2026/05/05/h...

AI boom is making US farmland increasingly valuable • Land with sufficient capacity to build data centre and power access can sell for five to ten times more • Data centre construction accounted for 80% of US private sector growth in first half of 2025 www.ft.com/content/ba4e...

Cruise ship outbreaks are back in the news, but how do people interact? A few years ago, we analysed almost 4m social interactions during multi-day cruises. Passengers had median of 20 (IQR 10–36) unique close contacts per day, and over 60% of contact episodes were in dining or sports areas:

"Two British people are self-isolating at home in the UK after potential exposure to hantavirus on the cruise ship struck by an outbreak, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said."

Around 40% of South Koreans and more than 25% of Japanese aged >65 still work • Data show financial necessity, for many older people, to keep working • Others do not want to retire; Seoul bus drivers went on strike earlier this year to demand raise in retirement age www.economist.com/asia/2026/04...

Over past decade healthy life expectancy in UK fell by two years, to 61 years • UK is outlier among rich countries, which mostly post rises in healthy life expectancy • Healthy life expectancy stands at just 51 years in poorest areas vs 70 years in wealthier places www.health.org.uk/reports-and-...

RFK Jr is a liar 🆕A new systematic review of 274 studies finds that HPV vaccines: ⬇️the risk of cervical cancer by 80% in women vaccinated by age 16 ⬇️the risk of cervical cancer by 66% in those vaccinated after 16 ❌ are not linked with serious side effects 1/2 www.cidrap.umn.edu/human-papill...

Relentless assault on science "The withdrawal of the studies is the latest step by the administration to try to limit access to vaccines" www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

"The private credit industry’s role in fuelling the AI boom could backfire, with a sharp correction leading to 'sizeable' losses, the Financial Stability Board has warned."