THE JOURNEY FROM TAWNY EARTH TO COPPER WIRE begins with an explosion. Or 2,697 explosions, to be precise. At the 1,100-acre main pit of Kansanshi copper mine in northern Zambia, a lattice of six-inch

We are in a real-life game of Risk. In 2019, Fiona Hill, an official at the US National Security Council during Donald Trump’s first term, said the Russians had informally proposed a plan whereby they

Issue of the week: Venezuela and the markets ...

FOUR WEEKS BEFORE THE BEGINNING of his second term as President, Donald Trump abruptly floated the idea of taking back the Panama Canal. It had been a quarter-century since the U.S. formally ceded to

About a quarter of the size it used to be. Venezuela has the world’s biggest proven reserves of oil, estimated at more than 300 billion barrels, or around 17% of the global total. The oil lies onshore

Peace talks took place in Miami just before Christmas, described as “productive and constructive” in a joint US and Ukrainian statement, but there is still no major breakthrough in ending the war in U