This

“There would be trips back to the earth for sentimental reasons, to see the place where one's ancestors were born and had lived, to goggle at the monument which marked the point from which the first spaceship had taken off for the moon, to visit old museums and see old cities and breathe the air that men and women had breathed for thousands of years before they found the power to take them anywhere. In the end, earth would be just a worn-out planet.”

“Think of what criminal uses could be made of the tele-transport. No vault, no net of charged wires, nothing could stop a thief from taking anything he wanted. Prisons would cease to be prisons. Criminals could reach in and pick up their friends, no matter how many guards there were. Prisons and bank vaults and national treasuries could be cleaned out in a single day.”

“Simple, said Craven. They were just fields that had more energy packed into a certain portion of space than space could take. Space-fields that had far more than their share of energy, more than they could hold. A super-saturated solution will crystallize almost immediately after the tiniest crystal put into it. Those fields acted the same way. They crystallized instantly into hyperspace the moment they came into contact with other energy.”

“China is more influential today than at any point in modern history. Its economy drives global growth, its technology shapes industries everywhere, and under Xi Jinping, an increasingly confident China is challenging the established world order.”

“But behind that rise lies a country in the throes of social change, with a slowing economy, an aging population, and widening inequality. Understanding the rhythms of life in China has never been as important.”

“I am currently sitting in Yihang's flying taxi, which is about to take off. I am slightly nervous. I'm Sarah Wu, the Economist China correspondent, based in the capital of Beijing after years in Taipei and Hong Kong.”

“From the party's agenda to advances in AI. I've seen what's happened over the past 20 years, and I think China still has the ability to surprise us on this front.”

“The conflict in the Middle East is evolving with incredible speed, creating a landscape where the complexities of understanding both immediate and long-term outcomes have never been greater.”

“That's why we're launching a new limited series, the Iran Conflict Brief. It's a rapid response podcast hosted by Daniel Sternoff and other experts from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.”

“In conversations with other leading voices, we're going to help answer the biggest questions of the day in 30 minutes or less. From the latest on policy shifts to global energy markets and geopolitical dynamics, we're tracking it all.”

“We will still be here every Tuesday for our deep-dive conversations on the global energy landscape. But the speed of events in Iran and across the region demands a different kind of coverage.”

“So there are always two questions with these American companies. Data, which is what we've traditionally worried about, can they read our private data? But I'm more worried about the second question, which is sovereignty and control and The US's ability, you know, president Trump's ability to say to Google, I'm switching off the accounts of the head of the International Criminal Court, and Google complies.”

“Karp surrounds himself by Germans. A lot of his staff are either Germans or Norwegians, and he talks. He spends about half the day talking in German. He's also obviously somebody who is very driven by fear. He's somebody who believes that the world is out to get him and out to get the West, and he particularly felt this after October 7.”

“And, of course, the most powerful people pointing out that those people are evil are those people themselves. So Musk points out that Altman's evil. Altman points out Musk is evil. They all point out Zuckerberg's evil. A huge amount of what Alex Karp does is attack Facebook and Zuckerberg. So quite a lot of what's going on is I have to get there first because I'm good, and all the others are evil.”

“Front office has quietly closed its unit responsible for tracking potential breaches of international law, including by Israel and Gaza and most recent 11. First obvious thing to say in relation to Gemma, I think, is that this is a cut that's not gonna save much money. And it's interesting that of the things they chose to cut, they chose to cut this. And I wonder whether it isn't that it's a little bit uncomfortable having a whole section whose job is to keep telling ministers, this may be against international humanitarian law, so you can't sell these weapons, you can't allow these overflights, etcetera, and that maybe not having someone saying that might be a bit convenient.”