Any travel nerd will tell you the best time to fly is right after the holidays: lower prices, quieter lounges, fewer tantrums. World leader entourages are more likely to serve the tantrums than suffer them, but several are still travelling right now so let’s look at three:  China’s year of the fire horse involves a […]

Boards are some of our favourite things: surfboards, hoverboards, smorgasbords… But there’s a new board in town: President Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza. He proposed it back in October as part of the Israel-Hamas truce, but headlines dried up (we were all a little distracted tbh) until last week, when the US shared more […]

The Jewish community’s Hanukkah flyer invited locals to “fill Bondi with joy and light.” Instead, father-son duo Sajid (50) and Naveed (24) Akram opened fire in an attack that’s left at least 16 dead (including Sajid) and ~50 more in hospital. So let’s get you up to speed on eight of the reasons why this […]

Two crucial but seemingly unconnected things happened this week: Now let’s connect some dots: Dot 1 – Tuesday 10 December: the US attorney-general publishes a video of US troops descending from a chopper onto an oil tanker, with a caption that they “executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned […]

US stocks and the US dollar plunged again on Monday after the president colourfully called on Jerome Powell, the Fed Chair, to cut rates.  Anyway, while this monetary soap opera plays out on the world stage, it’s reignited a debate that everyone thought was resolved decades ago: the notion that central banks must be independent from politics.  Why? The […]

We’ve been writing about bonds before they were the flavour of the week. And events now dictate that we revisit bonds again. Who are we to argue with events, dear Intriguer? Typically if US stocks tank, spooked investors will shift their cash over into bonds — the ultimate safe-haven. Why? When you buy bonds (loan the US government money), […]

Just after our last edition hit your inbox, Donald Trump decided to: Of course, markets breathed a semi-sigh of relief. But… did Trump blink? Here are the three main arguments you need to know: Treasury Secretary Bessent argues this was all part of Trump’s successful strategy, with 75 countries now reportedly lining up to negotiate […]

We’ve already explored Trump’s tariffs, but it’s worth a quick recap of his rationale before we tour today’s wild ripple effects: And while he’s now slapped tariffs on everyone (otherwise he says China just reroutes via third countries), the big kahuna tariffs are now really on China. Building on earlier tariff rounds during Trump 1.0 and Biden… The […]

Just days after Netflix announced its $83B offer for Hollywood’s legendary Warner Bros studio, rival Paramount has now entered the fray with its own hostile $108B bid.  And we haven’t seen a better love triangle since Edward and Jacob battled it out for Bella’s heart in the Twilight saga.  But the world is now watching […]

In a shock tweet, President Trump has announced he’ll now allow Nvidia to sell its cutting-edge H200 AI chips to China after all, in return for a 25% cut payable to Uncle Sam. These chips are ~ten times faster than the throttled H20 chips Trump re-authorised in July. Intrigue’s initial take: This administration has wavered […]

If your feeds seem a little off this week, it could be because hundreds of thousands of Aussies will soon go offline under Australia’s world-first social media ban for U16s. Why do this? Canberra says it’s about protecting children: whether it’s the WHO addictive use data or Jonathan Haidt’s best-selling book The Anxious Generation, there’s […]

Remember the fury when Apple pre-downloaded a U2 album on everyone’s iPhones? Well imagine a repeat, but instead of Apple it’s India, and instead of that sweet Celtic blend of Bono’s messianic baritone with The Edge’s angelic delay-chimes, it’s a government-controlled cybersecurity app you can never ditch. India launched its new Sanchar Saathi (aka ‘communication […]