7 d. ago Digital euro ‘only defence’ against deepening US control of money, economists warn

Academics including France’s Thomas Piketty press MEPs to resist ‘shortsighted’ lobbying against the project

Events

1 week ago The Spin | Revealed after 100 years: how a corrupt official robbed Percy Fender of the England captaincy

Documentary makers seeking funds to finish making film of an extraordinary man and his influence on the gameAfter a mere 100 years the Spin, always first with the news, is finally able to reveal the details of one of the more extraordinary secrets in the history of English cricket. The story comes from the private family archives of the former Surrey captain Percy Fender, which are being compiled into a fascinating new documentary film. It has always been a mystery that Fender, who was described by Wisden as “the shrewdest county captain of his generation” was never picked to lead England. After all these years, it now appears he was blackmailed out of the job by a corrupt cricket official.In a private audio recording made shortly before his death in 1985, Fender explains that in May 1924 he was approached “by a gentleman who was very well known in the cricket world” who, during the course of a conversation over two half-bottles of champagne in Fender’s flat at the Adelphi, offered ...

Politics

2 w. ago The Guardian view on the new space race: humanity risks exporting its old politics to the moon | Editorial

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we look skyward, where a new lunar contest mirrors humanity’s struggle to live within planetary limitsDuring the cold war’s space race, the Apollo moon missions were driven by the need to prove American superiority. Having made that political and technological point with the 1969 moon landing, the contest between Moscow and Washington petered out. A new dash across the skies kicks off in 2026, reigniting geopolitical competition under the guise of “peaceful exploration”. The moon’s south pole is emerging as the most valuable real estate in the solar system, offering “peaks of eternal light” for solar arrays and ice deposits in craters shielded from the sun.The US and a China-led bloc are eyeing the lunar surface and its potential to control a post-terrestrial economy. Space had been humanity’s last commons, supposedly shielded by the 1967 UN outer space treaty that bans state ...

Politics

3 w. ago Russia's 'tourism drive' to bring visitors to areas devastated by war in Ukraine

Authorities in Kremlin-controlled Donetsk believe "war tourism" will boost the local economy even as the conflict rages on following Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Events

3 w. ago Capitalism by Sven Beckert review – an extraordinary history of the economic system that controls our lives

The Harvard professor provides a ceaseless flow of startling details in this exhaustively researched, 1000-year account In the early 17th century, the Peruvian city of Potosí billed itself as the “treasure of the world” and “envy of kings”. Sprouting at the foot of the Cerro Rico, South America’s most populous settlement produced 60% of the world’s silver, which not only enabled Spain to wage its wars and service its debts, but also accelerated the economic development of India and China. The city’s wealthy elites could enjoy crystal from Venice and diamonds from Ceylon while one in four of its mostly indigenous miners perished. Cerro Rico became known as “the mountain that eats men”.The story of Potosí, in what is now southern Bolivia, contains the core elements of Sven Beckert’s mammoth history of capitalism: extravagant wealth, immense suffering, complex international networks, a world transformed. The Eurocentric version of capitalism’s history holds that it grew out of democrac...

Economics

4 w. ago The West Bank brewery battling Israeli blocks to export rare Palestinian beer to the UK

Taybeh Brewery, which exports to the UK and beyond, has seen sales plummet by 70 per cent since 7 October. Its staff tell The Independent about how Israeli export controls, settler attacks and a struggling local economy have made business difficult

Politics