ON THE EVE of America’s presidential election, many people around the world are waiting on edge. Although non-Americans do not get a vote, the outcome of the election will have ramifications far beyond America’s borders on issues such as international trade, the credibility of Western defence alliances and the rise of China. In order to gauge where public opinion sits, The Economist, working with Globescan, a consulting and polling firm, asked 30,000 people worldwide for their views.

WHEN THE Bank for International Settlements (BIS) launched mBridge in 2021, a project aimed at revolutionising cross-border payments, it did so with much fanfare and, among some people, high expectations. The new system, which it was developing with China and others, would harness the power of digital currencies and the trustworthiness of central banks to make international financial flows faster, simpler and cheaper, it said. Yet when the BIS withdrew from the project, it slunk away in the midst of a geopolitical stink. On October 31st Agustín Carstens, the boss of the BIS, announced that the organisation was leaving mBridge in response to a question near the end of a “fireside chat” at a banking conference in Madrid.

IMAGINE A LAND untouched by war, unspoilt by humans, where all nationalities are welcome—a veritable Shangri-La. Such a place exists in Antarctica, the Earth’s southernmost region. Home to 40m penguins and a mere 1,000 people, the continent is owned by no one.

IN FEBRUARY 1946, in the depths of a Moscow winter, an American diplomat sent a remarkable cable to Washington. On paper, George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” was a reply to a query about the Soviet worldview. In reality, Kennan was proposing a strategy for managing superpower competition—an approach that he later called “containment”. The Soviet Union had no interest in friendship, but did not seek a third world war, Kennan explained. Communist rulers were impervious to the “logic of reason”, but understood the “logic of force” and knew their regime to be weaker than a united West. If Soviet expansionism were countered around the world, then a “general military conflict” could be avoided, until one day the USSR either mellowed or crumbled.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia’s president, was cock-a-hoop on October 22nd when he welcomed world leaders including Narendra Modi of India and Xi Jinping of China at the BRICS summit in Kazan on the Volga river. Last year, when the bloc met in South Africa and expanded from five to ten members, Mr Putin had to stay home to avoid being arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This time he played host to a rapidly growing club that is challenging the dominance of the Western-led order.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia’s president, is sure to be cock-a-hoop on October 22nd when he poses for photographs with the leaders of perhaps 24 countries including Narendra Modi of India and Xi Jinping of China at the BRICS summit in Kazan on the Volga river. Last year, when the bloc met in Johannesburg and expanded from five to ten members, Mr Putin had to stay home to avoid being arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This time he will hope to be seen playing a leading role in a rapidly growing club that is challenging the dominance of the Western-led order.

“We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more: dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness,” warned Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counter-intelligence agency, of the threat posed by Russia and the GRU, its military-intelligence agency. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets,” he said on October 8th. Other European intelligence agencies are equally concerned. On October 14th Bruno Kahl, Germany’s spy chief, said that Russia’s covert measures had reached a “level previously unseen”. Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence services, told lawmakers that an act of sabotage had almost caused a plane to crash earlier this year as he warned that “aggressive behaviour” by Russian spies was putting lives at risk.

In little less than a month, when Americans go to the polls to choose their next president, democracy will face its most important test in a year in which it is being put through its paces like never before. What happens in America—a superpower that embodies liberty for many people—could sway perceptions of the health of democracies around the world. A messy or violent outcome would inspire autocrats everywhere and undermine faith in the ideal of rule by the people. Conversely, a well-run election in which the loser gracefully concedes would strengthen the green shoots of a democratic recovery evident in some countries amid the biggest year of elections in history.

In little less than a month, when Americans go to the polls to choose their next president, democracy will face its most important test in a year in which it is being put through its paces like never before. What happens in America—a superpower that embodies liberty for many people—could sway perceptions of the health of democracies around the world. A messy or violent outcome would inspire autocrats everywhere and undermine faith in the ideal of rule by the people. Conversely, a well-run election in which the loser gracefully concedes would strengthen the green shoots of a democratic recovery evident in some countries amid the biggest year of elections in history.

Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, was unusually blunt on a recent visit to Europe: “One of the reasons that [Vladimir] Putin is able to continue this aggression is because of the provision of support from the People’s Republic of China,” he said. China was, he added, “the biggest supplier of machine tools, the biggest supplier of microelectronics, all of which are helping Russia sustain its defence industrial base”. American officials are reluctant to discuss details of what they think Russia is giving its friends, but Kurt Campbell, deputy secretary of state, recently said Russia has provided China with submarine, missile and other military technology. Separately, America says that Iran has been busy sending Russia hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles.

“THE RUSSIANS are not the bad guys any more. Now it’s the Americans.” Thus, explains a European diplomat at the UN, the war in Gaza is eclipsing the one in Ukraine. These days many countries are wary of criticising Russia’s aggression. Instead their outrage is directed at Israel and, increasingly, at America for arming and protecting the Jewish state. The accusation of Western double standards, gleefully amplified by Russia and China, resonated across the halls of UN headquarters on September 18th as the General Assembly adopted a far-reaching resolution to exert pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories within a year. It passed with an overwhelming 124 votes in favour to 14 against (and 43 abstentions).

“One player gonna die,” complained Daniil Medvedev in the middle of a match on the hottest day of the US Open in New York last year, as the temperature soared to 34°C. “It’s been brutal…it ruins everything.” Similar temperatures—combined with higher humidity—sometimes made conditions even more punishing at this year’s tournament that ended on September 8th. Players struggled and vomited; in the breaks they packed bags of ice around their necks and heads, or stuck hoses blowing cold air down their shirts in an effort to cool down. Sweltering in the steeply sloping cheaper seats was the largest crowd ever: in all, some 1m spectators attended the competition, fulfilling a goal the organisers had set in 2019.

IT IS ILLEGAL for Americans to export weapons without a licence. You may not FedEx a ballistic missile to Europe or post a frigate to Asia. But in the 1990s the country’s labyrinthine arms-export controls covered something more unusual: cryptographic software that could make messages unreadable to anyone other than the intended recipients. When American programmers built tools that could encode a newfangled message, the email, their government investigated them as illegal arms dealers. The result was Kafkaesque. In 1996 a court ruled that “Applied Cryptography”, a popular textbook, could be exported—but deemed an accompanying disk to be an export-controlled munition.

THE WATER thieves come at night. They arrive in trucks, suck water out of irrigation canals and drive off. This infuriates Alejandro Meneses, who owns a big vegetable farm in Coquimbo, a parched province of Chile. In theory his landholding comes with the right to pour 40 litres of river-water a second on his fields. But thanks to drought, exacerbated by theft, he can get just a tenth of that, which he must negotiate with his neighbours. If the price of food goes up because farmers like him cannot grow enough, “there will be a big social problem,” he says.

INDIAN EXPRESS on a Friday evening is always bustling. Diners from all corners of India dig in to kebabs and curries. Kingfisher, an Indian lager, flows freely, and Bollywood music blares from the speakers. A similar (if slightly more abstemious) scene plays out down the road at Radha Krishna, a vegetarian eatery. One might be in any of a dozen cities in India. But this paratha party is happening in Bangkok.

JUST BEFORE Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president, the party published its foreign-policy goals: “Prevent world war three, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great Iron Dome missile-defence shield over our entire country”. The last of those promises has become a staple of the Trump campaign. In his speech accepting the nomination, he promised that an American missile shield will ensure “no enemy can strike our homeland”,  adding that it would be “built entirely in the USA”.

SUZIE JIMENEZ cried as she waited in the car park. Her 14-year-old son was in the emergency department, suffering from stomach pains. He felt humiliated when doctors in Austin, Texas, told him that because of his bigger body he would need to have a CT scan rather than an ultrasound. He was scared to tell them he weighed 360 pounds (163kg). A shortage of Wegovy had meant that despite being approved for the weight-loss drug, he had not yet been able to start it. Ms Jimenez, at times the sole breadwinner for her family of five, says they sometimes ate fast food for “comfort”.

THE OLYMPIC flame will illuminate the City of Light from July 26th, when the world’s greatest sporting spectacle gets under way in Paris. Although France still lacks a government after a snap national parliamentary vote in recent weeks, its capital will host the 33rd Olympiad in style. Dressage events will take place in the magnificent grounds of Versailles; volleyballs will whizz over nets by the Eiffel Tower. Organisers hope to show the best of France to visiting sports fans, business executives and foreign politicians. One of the thousands of volunteers involved describes “an infectious positive energy”.

GLOOM WILL accompany the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions next month. Debates rage as to whether this batch of treaties, which govern how wars may be fought, and later protocols, which ban genocide, torture and more, remain fit for purpose. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned of “increasing elasticity” in how countries apply the laws of war, which the conventions underpin.

NOT LONG ago a part of the British government asked RAND Europe, a think-tank in Cambridge, England, to conduct some research on undersea critical infrastructure. The think-tank studied publicly available maps of internet and electricity cables. It interviewed experts. It held focus groups. Halfway through the process Ruth Harris, the leader of the project, realised that she had inadvertently unearthed many sensitive details that could be exploited by Russia or other adversaries. When she approached the unnamed government department, they were shocked. The reaction, she recalls, was: “Oh my god. This is secret.” When they learned that Ms Harris’s team was drawn from all over Europe, they demanded that it be overhauled, she says: “This needs to be UK eyes only.”

AT HIS FIRST summit with European leaders in 2021, after years of upheaval under Donald Trump, Joe Biden exulted: “America is back.” To which Emmanuel Macron of France asked: “For how long?” The question will resonate more loudly than ever as NATO leaders meet in Washington on July 9th-11th. Mr Biden is limping behind Mr Trump in the race for the White House. Mr Macron himself is being overwhelmed by a populist wave. And the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is languishing in the polls. Sir Keir Starmer, set to become Britain’s new prime minister this week, may feel he is joining NATO’s last supper, not its 75th birthday party.

It was all supposed to be very different: a celebration of the world’s most successful alliance, created in 1949 in the early days of the cold war. Its longevity has defied naysayers for decades. And its purpose has been bitterly re-affirmed by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Yet NATO again lives in dread for its future. Partly this is owing to external threats, but mainly it is because of the internal convulsions that will result if NATO-sceptics such as Mr Trump and Marine Le Pen, leader of the hard-right National Rally, come to power next year and in 2027, respectively.

The uncertainty will spread beyond NATO to America’s globe-spanning alliances, and could scarcely come at a worse moment. The dangers to the democratic world are greater than at any time since the cold war’s end. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and has threatened to use nuclear weapons. China menaces Taiwan, a self-governing island it claims as its own, and is bullying neighbours such as the Philippines. Russia and China have intensified their “no limits” partnership, and both have drawn closer to other Eurasian autocracies. Iran and its proxies are engaged in a deepening conflict with Israel and American forces. Iran has also sold drones and ballistic missiles to Russia. Similarly, North Korea has shipped hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and just signed a mutual-defence pact with Russia.

AT HIS FIRST summit with European leaders in 2021, after years of upheaval under Donald Trump, Joe Biden exulted: “America is back.” To which Emmanuel Macron of France asked: “For how long?” The question will resonate more loudly than ever as NATO leaders meet in Washington on July 9th-11th. Mr Biden is limping behind Mr Trump in the race for the White House. Mr Macron himself is being overwhelmed by a populist wave. And the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is languishing in the polls. Sir Keir Starmer, set to become Britain’s new prime minister this week, may feel he is joining NATO’s last supper, not its 75th birthday party.

It was all supposed to be very different: a celebration of the world’s most successful alliance, created in 1949 in the early days of the cold war. Its longevity has defied naysayers for decades. And its purpose has been bitterly re-affirmed by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Yet NATO again lives in dread for its future. Partly this is owing to external threats, but mainly it is because of the internal convulsions that will result if NATO-sceptics such as Mr Trump and Marine Le Pen, leader of the hard-right National Rally, come to power next year and in 2027, respectively.

In Japan it starts with the pulsating song of cicadas; in Alaska, with salmon swimming upstream. However it begins, summer in the northern hemisphere—where more than 85% of the world’s population live—soon involves dangerous levels of heat. This year is no exception—indeed, it carries the trend further. In Saudi Arabia more than 1,300 pilgrims died during the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, as temperatures exceeded 50°C. India’s capital, Delhi, endured 40 days above 40°C between May and June. And in Mexico scores of howler monkeys have been falling dead from the trees with heatstroke.

OVER THE past two decades the number of people studying in countries other than their own has tripled, to more than 6m. International students from China have caused most of that increase. Youngsters flocked to universities in English-speaking countries to expand both their minds and their opportunities. In return they brought valuable brainpower and large piles of foreign cash. Governments have sometimes viewed this bounty as a reason to put less of their own money into higher education. Institutions in Australia, Britain and Canada have grown increasingly reliant on foreign flows to subsidise research and to cover the costs of educating local scholars.

Now the market for international study is about to undergo a huge change. Chinese school-leavers are growing gradually less keen to travel; in their place, Indian students are becoming the main engine of growth. In 2022 Britain issued more student visas to Indian citizens than they doled out to Chinese ones (see chart 1). So did America. In both countries, it was the first time in years that had occurred.

THE ISLAND of Guam, a tiny American territory that lies more than 6,000km west of Hawaii, has long known that it would take a battering in any Sino-American war. The island’s expanding airfields and ports serve as springboards for American ships, subs and bombers. In the opening hours of a conflict, these would be subject to wave after wave of Chinese missiles. But an advance party of attackers seems to have lurked quietly within Guam’s infrastructure for years. In mid-2021 a Chinese hacking group—later dubbed Volt Typhoon—burrowed deep inside the island’s communication systems. The intrusions had no obvious utility for espionage. They were intended, as America’s government would later conclude, for “disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks against…critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict”. Sabotage, in short.

For many years, Sino-American skirmishing in the cyber domain was largely about stealing secrets. In 2013 Edward Snowden, a contractor, revealed that the National Security Agency (nsa), America’s signals-intelligence agency, had targeted Chinese mobile-phone firms, universities and undersea cables. China, in turn, has spent decades stealing vast quantities of intellectual property from American firms, a process that Keith Alexander, then head of the NSA, once called the “greatest transfer of wealth in history”. In recent years this dynamic has changed. Chinese cyber-espionage has continued, but its operations have also grown more ambitious and aggressive. Russia, too, has intensified its cyber-activities in Ukraine, with Russia-linked groups also targeting water facilities in Europe. These campaigns hint at a new era of wartime cyber-sabotage.

An entire generation of tenants is tearing its hair out. Across the rich world—from America to New Zealand—millions spend more than a third of their disposable income on rent. The squeeze extends from social democracies that prize strong tenancy rights to Anglophone countries that prefer homeownership—and it is mostly getting worse. The good news for anxious renters is that they are gaining a louder voice as their numbers swell. The bad news is that campaigners and politicians mostly focus on the wrong kinds of solutions to their woes.

The 20th century saw an astonishing rise in homeownership. In 1920 about 20% of Britons owned their own home; by 2000, 70% did. Many Anglophone countries followed a similar path. Even in countries less attached to the idea of owning, private renting became less common after a boom in social housing.

ON MAY 6TH Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), travelled to Tehran and met Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister. Less than two weeks later, on May 19th, Mr Amirabdollahian was dead, killed in a helicopter crash that also took the life of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, among others.

Their deaths throw Iran’s sclerotic theocracy into a moment of confusion and uncertainty, one with far-reaching implications for the country’s nuclear programme. Mr Grossi, fresh from his trip to Iran, recently spoke to The Economist about the Iranian nuclear file, as well as the other items on his forbidding to-do list, from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear-power plant in Ukraine to the “growing attraction” of nuclear weapons worldwide.

SAILING AROUND the northern point of Dadan island, the extent of the geopolitical challenge facing Taiwan becomes glaringly clear: to starboard a small military outpost guards Taiwan’s Kinmen islands and their 140,000-odd residents; to port a pair of curved skyscrapers tower over the Chinese city of Xiamen, whose 5m people stretch all round the bay.

So close are the two sides that the winners of an annual swimming relay race cover the few kilometres between them in less than 90 minutes. A Chinese takeover of Kinmen might not take much longer, such is the disparity in power. The boat’s owner is not keen on mainlanders fishing and dredging sand in Taiwan’s waters. But, having witnessed the artillery duels of the past, nor is he keen to fight to preserve his country’s democracy. “If Taiwanese soldiers left Kinmen, there would be no war,” he avers. And if China ruled Kinmen? “We would be richer and nobody would dare mess with us.” Such ambiguity in Taiwan gives China a vulnerability to try to exploit.

RARELY HAVE international courts been busier. In The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is considering war-crimes prosecutions against Israeli leaders, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, over the conflict in Gaza. It has already issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, for war crimes in Ukraine. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also in The Hague, is weighing genocide charges against Israel. In Strasbourg the European Court of Human Rights will hear a request in June for Russia to pay compensation to Ukraine.

And yet, for all the legal action, rarely have activists seemed gloomier about holding rulers to account for heinous acts. “We are at the gates of hell,” says Agnès Callamard, head of Amnesty International. Countries are destroying international law, built over more than seven decades, in service of “the higher god of military necessity, or geostrategic domination”.