Englund

The Italian Grand Prix takes place this weekend at Monza, arguably the most historic venue on the calendar. Monza has hosted Formula 1 races more times than any other circuit, staging grands prix in all but one year since the inaugural season in 1950. Ferrari's Giuseppe Farina (nearest the camera), Maserati's Juan Manuel Fangio and Ferrari's Alberto Ascari, on the far side, line up before the start of the 1953 race. These three men shared the first eight Formula 1 world championships.   https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/ckg8w8qj5z9o Valets viktigaste fråga präglas av felaktig information I en medievärld där vetenskap reduceras till åsikter och konkurrerar med sociala mediers ekokammare behöver Sverige ett nationellt informationsunderlag om klimatkrisen, skriver Johan Rockström, chef för Potsdaminstitutet för klimatforskning (PIK). DI  26 augusti 2026 https://www.di.se/debatt/valets-viktigaste-fraga-praglas-av-felaktig-information/   Europe; Record heat with...

Statstelevisionens sändningar rapporteras ha avbrutits och enligt en säkerhetskälla har ”terrorister” försökt bryta sig in i säkerhetszonen runt presidentpalatset, skriver Reuters. – Det kan tyda på ett kuppförsök, säger SVT:s Afrikakorrespondent Johan Ripås. SvT 29 augusti 2026 med bra karta  https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/attack-mot-nigers-huvudstad Nearly 200,000 forced deportees received by Haiti Deutsche Welle 29 August 2026 https://www.dw.com/en/nearly-200000-forced-deportees-received-by-haiti-un-says/a-78554006 Ebba Busch går in i valspurten som en möjlig nyckelspelare efter valet. https://www.di.se/nyheter/busch-starker-greppet-i-valspurten-kan-ta-hem-det/ RE: Ebba är duktig politiker. Men också totalt skamlös. Kanse det enga hänger ihop med det andra? Ebba Busch vill göra sänkt eller slopad skatt på bostadsvinster till en valfråga 2026. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/11/ebba-busch-vill-gora-sankt-eller-slopad.html

This is a ghastly moment to lead a liberal democracy  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/this-is-ghastly-moment-to-lead-liberal.html Ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is hampering the Ebola outbreak response, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The Congolese health authorities say around 1,000 people are currently showing symptoms consistent with Ebola. BBC 27 May 2026 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxpdex062yo Det största hotet mot den svenska ekonomins återhämtning kommer inte från Hormuzsundet eller Trump. Nej, det kommer från de rödgröna partierna i Sverige.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/det-storsta-hotet-mot-den-svenska.html Baer Merchant Bank liquidation, Hong Kong Overtakes Switzerland https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/04/mbaer-merchant-bank-liquidation-us.html How a stock market ‘melt-up’ could carry the S&P 500 to 8,000 or beyond från nu 7.519 The S&P 500 has achieved an eight-week wi...

Två misstänkta fall av ebola har upptäckts i Milano, Italien, rapporterar den italienska tidningen Corriere della sera.  Det uppges vara två personer hemmahörande i orten Como som återvänt till Italien från Uganda. https://www.dn.se/direkt/2026-05-25/misstankta-fall-av-ebola-i-milano/ Varför dyker så många dödliga virusutbrott upp just i östra Kongo‑Kinshasa? https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/darfor-uppstar-dodliga-virusutbrott-i-ostra-kongo Police in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo fired shots in the air after angry crowds attempted to reclaim the bodies of loved ones who had died at an Ebola treatment centre in Mongwalu, two local journalists told the BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l22pz6nw6o

Ethiopia’s PM Abiy and Nigerian business tycoon, with Chinese engineering, are driving industrialization in Ogaden/Somali region of Ethiopia.  - Michael Masri’s reporting for Africa Report is fascinating. https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/top-links-1112-semiconductor-decoupling How Tiny Djibouti Said ‘No’ to the US It’s home to Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese and US military bases.  Germany would like its own naval base in the country too, according to diplomats in the region. Tokyo has recently supplied new coastguard patrol vessels. Imagine a Cold War, Berlin on the Horn of Africa, but this time acting as an intersection between the West and the Arab world.  The up market Djibouti Palace Kempinski Hotel is popular with the tight-knit intelligence community. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/05/how-tiny-djibouti-said-no-to-us.html The power struggle in the world’s narrow seas, typ Hormuz https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-power-struggle-in-worlds-narrow...

Governments and drugmakers spent years building Ebola defenses after the 2014 crisis.  A rare strain now spreading in Congo is exposing their limits. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-05-22/how-years-of-ebola-preparation-left-congo-uganda-unprepared-for-bundibugyo A heavily-mutated Covid variant emerges in southern Africa  November 2021 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/11/dow-futures-tumble-over-800-points-on.html

Fredspristagaren Desmond Tutu denna internationella gigant som tillsammans med Nelson Mandela lett kampen mot apartheid. SVT-produktion, ”Fördomsshowen”. Liberalernas partiledare Simona Mohamsson skulle försöka lista ut om Desmond Tutu var känd som en ond eller god person.  Det var uppenbart att hon aldrig hade hört fredspristagarens namn, och chansade på ”ond”. Man ska inte sparka på den som ligger, utbildningsminister Simona Mohamsson har redan fått utstå hård kritik för att hon inte kunde Sveriges fyra grundlagar. Och visst är det billiga poäng när journalister håller läxförhör med politiker, jag har själv fallit för frestelsen.  När Mats Knutson och jag intervjuade partiledarna inför valet 2010 lånade vi ett stycke ur högskoleprovet och testade utbildningsminister Jan Björklunds ordförståelse. Naturligtvis var det bingo när folkpartiledaren – som alltid gnällde på ”flumskolans” urusla resultat – bara fick ett rätt av tre möjliga. Ändå kan jag inte låta bli att undra hur Si...

Burundi an extreme example of how population pressure is changing African societies. For most of history Africa has been sparsely populated, and much of it remains so. But the continent has ten times as many people as a century ago,  78% of farmers own less than a quarter of a hectare of land, about the size of four tennis courts. By 2050, there will be 10m more mouths to feed.  Unless, that is, the fertility rate falls quickly. The Economist 4 January 2026 https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/01/04/burundi-is-running-out-of-space

Sunlight is abundant, economies crave reliable power sources, and the technology is becoming massively cheap. An aerial view of the 100 MW solar thermal power project  built by a Chinese company in South Africa's Northern Cape Province According to 2024 data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), solar ranks among the cheapest energy sources worldwide, costing just $0.044 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) after prices for solar photovoltaic (PV) modules dropped by 90% in only 13 years. 25 November https://www.dw.com/en/africas-solar-power-revolution-is-finally-happening/a-74795571 Solen räddar världen In one of his final budgets, President Jimmy Carter proposed funding to help America get 20 percent of its energy from the sun by 2000. But then his successor, Ronald Reagan, shut down that process, going so far as to rip the solar panels off the White House roof.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/07/solen-raddar-varlden.html

  A Madagascar army unit which played a key role in the nation’s 2009 coup has declared its support for anti-government demonstrators. Members of the Army Personnel Administration Center — known as CAPSAT — voiced concern on Saturday at the growing instability and worsening living conditions on on the island nation, located in the Indian Ocean off Mozambique. “The country is facing a collapse of basic services and livelihoods,” CAPSAT said. Madagascar has been rocked by several coups since gaining independence from France in 1960. Kamlesh Bhuckory Bloomberg October 11, 2025 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-11/army-faction-declares-support-for-madagascar-s-gen-z-protesters From Morocco to Madagascar, Gen Z is taking digital dissent offline https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/04/world/gen-z-protest-movement-explainer-intl

  https://www.postfactum.co.uk/sahel-geopolitics-explained-mali-niger-burkina-faso-alliance-of-states-ecowas-africa-france-russia-wagner-group-corps-militant-islamist-groups-tuareg-rebellion-why-what-results-consequences-trend-long-term

  In July, the French military left its last base in Senegal  and is now absent in west and central Africa The political leaders of francophone Africa increasingly turning their backs on their former colonial rulers,  Often described as neocolonial, France's Africa policy is under massive political and popular pressure, and the fight against it is openly challenging Paris' military, diplomatic and economic footprint in Africa. The Sahel region stretches from the Sahara Desert in the north to the savannas in the south, encompassing several countries, including Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad. Deutsche Welle 27 July 2025 https://www.dw.com/en/as-frances-africa-policy-collapses-how-do-companies-adjust/a-73388353

  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/14/demographics-birth-rates-africa-sahel-misery/ By mid-century (2050) Nigeria is projected to be  as populous as the US https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/07/by-mid-century-2050-nigeria-is.html

  New York Times 25 March 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/travel/south-africa-blue-train.html

  The leader of a war-torn African nation has put a deal on the table for President Trump: Help his country defeat a powerful rebel force in exchange for access to a trove of minerals needed by U.S. high-tech firms. In a Feb. 8 letter to Trump, Félix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, offered mining opportunities for the U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund, an entity Trump had launched a few days earlier. The latest clashes constitute aftershocks from the 31-year-old Rwandan genocide, in which ethnic Hutus slaughtered Tutsis by the hundreds of thousands.  When Tutsi forces under current Rwandan President Paul Kagame defeated their Hutu rivals in 1994, many Hutu extremists fled across the border into Congo. Rwanda has denied providing military backing to M23, whose members are predominantly Tutsis, and says its only interest is in securing its own borders and protecting ethnic kinsmen from persecution in Congo.  Wall Street Journal 19 March 2025 https://www....

  Niger accounts for less than 5% of the uranium produced globally, in 2022 it accounted for a quarter of the supply to nuclear power plants across Europe. For French President Emmanuel Macron, already wrestling with political crisis at home, the potential departure of Orano from Niger is certainly awkward in image terms. For it coincides with bruising news from other long-standing African partners - Chad has suddenly announced the ending of a defence agreement with Paris,  while Senegal has confirmed its insistence on the eventual closure of the French military base in Dakar. BBC 8 december 2024 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjd70mzge2o Task Force Takuba är en multinationell specialförbandsstyrka som leds av Frankrike. Det svenska bidraget till Task Force Takuba är en helikopterburen snabbinsatsstyrka https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/var-verksamhet/insatser-utomlands/avslutade-internationella-insatser/mali-task-force-takuba/ EPF Europeiska fredsfaciliteten inrättades för...

Last year, a record number of solar panels were installed in Africa, and in April the World Bank and African Development Bank launched an initiative to expand electricity access to 300 million more people by 2030. It’s part of a global shift towards solar power. By the mid 2030s, solar energy is expected to become the largest source of electrical power, and by the 2040s, it may become the largest source of all energy.  Solar capacity is doubling roughly every three years, or around tenfold each decade. Telegraph 2 August 2024 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/why-africa-is-on-the-brink-of-solar-power-revolution/ Technology and markets are already solving the climate problem Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 5 December 2023 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/12/we-no-longer-need-cop-circus-technology.html Solar Power Englund (englundmacro.blogspot.com)

 Africa Is Heading Toward Another Deadly War It’s a repeat, like Israel-Hezbollah in 2006, of a war that raged between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda between August 1998 and July 2003.  By the time it ended, nine African countries and 20 rebel groups were involved. At least 5.4 million people died through fighting, disease and malnutrition. Seven million were displaced.  Africa’s World War — or the Great War of Africa, as it came to be known — was the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Justice Malala Bloomberg 31 juli 2024  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-07-31/drc-and-rwanda-conflict-africa-is-heading-toward-war Justice Malala is a political commentator and former editor of South Africa's This Day. He is the author of “The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation.”  

Kriget mellan den sudanesiska militären och en paramilitär grupp har pågått sedan april 2023.  Omkring 5,8 miljoner människor tvingades fly striderna under 2023.  Därtill tvingades ytterligare miljontals att fly från andra konflikter i landet, vilket resulterade i nio miljoner fördrivna sudaneser förra året DN 17 juni 2024 https://www.dn.se/varlden/sudan-genomgar-tva-av-varldens-varsta-kriser-samtidigt/ Bianca Ingrosso agerar mot kinesiska Shein DN 17 juni 2024 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/bianca-ingrosso-agerar-mot-kinesiska-shein/

  But enjoyed it only for five days. Then, on July 1, 1960, it united with Somalia Italiana and formed the Republic of Somalia.  It took Somaliland more than three decades to unilaterally declare its independence after the collapse of Mohamed Siad Barre's government in 1991. But the declaration was never recognized internationally. Deutsche Welle 17 May 2024 https://www.dw.com/en/somaliland-eyes-ethiopias-recognition-amid-somalia-tensions/a-69015111 Though not internationally recognised, Somaliland has a working political system, government institutions, a police force and its own currency. The former British protectorate has also escaped much of the chaos and violence that plague Somalia. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14115069 How Tiny Djibouti Said ‘No’ to the US https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/05/how-tiny-djibouti-said-no-to-us.html