Deerness Valley, County Durham: Rushes were matches before matches were invented, vital to the rural poor for a little light in the dark. Time to give them a try myself From a distance, with a little imagination, they look like a prickle of porcupines. Closer, they are spiky clumps of soft-rush Juncus effusus : prolific seed-setters, invaders with relentlessly spreading rhizomes, which seem to cre...
Deerness Valley, County Durham: Rushes were matches before matches were invented, vital to the rural poor for a little light in the dark. Time to give them a try myself From a distance, with a little imagination, they look like a prickle of porcupines. Closer, they are spiky clumps of soft-rush Juncus effusus : prolific seed-setters, invaders with relentlessly spreading rhizomes, which seem to creep further across this pasture with every passing year. A native plant revelling in our new climate, after another mild, wet winter tips the struggle for domination of waterlogged grazing land even further in its favour. Superficially, this is one of the least charismatic members of our native flora, with its bundles of long, olive green, quill-like leaves, but splitting these open reveals hidden beauty. Inside lies pith packed with tiny silver star-shaped cells, with their rays joined at their tips, forming a three-dimensional lattice: Stellate parenchyma in botanical parlance. Continue reading...
Hi, this is Andrea in Prague. Welcome to our weekly newsletter on what’s shaping economics and investments from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. You can subscribe here . We will be taking a break next week due to the Easter holiday. Eastern Europe Edition will resume on April 10. New Pillar For years, Slovakia has been the world’s biggest per-capita car producer along with the Czech Republic. But no...
Hi, this is Andrea in Prague. Welcome to our weekly newsletter on what’s shaping economics and investments from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. You can subscribe here . We will be taking a break next week due to the Easter holiday. Eastern Europe Edition will resume on April 10. New Pillar For years, Slovakia has been the world’s biggest per-capita car producer along with the Czech Republic. But now war is turning the tiny nation into a critical ammunition powerhouse , underpinned by a close alliance between Czech arms billionaire Michal Strnad and Slovak Defense Minister Robert Kalinak. The government wants defense to become another pillar of the economy, as Kalinak told me and my colleague Daniel Hornak in an interview in Bratislava. For Strnad and his company CSG, the Slovak business helps fuel breakneck growth and a surge in his wealth that’s made him the region’s richest man. CSG said this week it expects record sales again this year, with revenue climbing to €7.6 billion ($8.8 billion) after jumping 72% last year. In its first earnings statement since debuting on the stock exchange in January, the company said it has a €15 billion backlog. Strnad says he gets strong support from the government, while his company is one of the biggest taxpayers. Indeed, Slovakia now makes hundreds of thousands of shells a year compared with just some 30,000 before Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine. Over the past four years, exports of defense products have risen a staggering 2,200%. If the trend continues, the defense industry might account for as much as 3% of gross domestic product, according to Kalinak. While the auto industry makes up about 10% of GDP, its output has stagnated at roughly 1 million vehicles a year. Now with war in the Middle East as well as Ukraine, the world perhaps has more demand for ammunition right now than cars. Around the Region Hungary: Opposition leader Peter Magyar said he will oust Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s key allies if his party w...
The economic toll of the Iran war is hitting home in Europe, where more muted growth and faster inflation risk deepening industrial, fiscal and political pressures across the region. Donald Trump ’s military campaign, whose conclusion remains as unclear as when the first attacks were launched a month ago, is prompting countries to slash their expectations for output while bracing for an energy-dri...
The economic toll of the Iran war is hitting home in Europe, where more muted growth and faster inflation risk deepening industrial, fiscal and political pressures across the region. Donald Trump ’s military campaign, whose conclusion remains as unclear as when the first attacks were launched a month ago, is prompting countries to slash their expectations for output while bracing for an energy-driven upswing in prices. The upshot for a continent that was just finally shaking off the effects of the conflict in Ukraine appears to be a partial return to the policy settings used to vanquish that crisis as households are offered aid and central banks pivot toward interest-rate hikes. For companies, while the fallout is already straining resource-hungry sectors — including German chemical makers — there’s a growing danger it will spread more broadly as personal incomes are eroded. All that will be on the minds of European Union finance ministers convening Friday . They’ll be briefed by International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol in a hastily arranged video call to assess the war’s impact and how to better coordinate relief. “It’s very clearly the energy-intensive sectors that are hurt first and foremost,” said Christian Keller , Barclays’s head of economics research. “But the longer it lasts, it will go into every sector, every input price.” As oil and gas markets push higher and sentiment indicators plunge, Germany and Italy are among countries weighing cuts to their official growth projections, following a more somber outlook last week from the European Central Bank . The current shock “is probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment,” Christine Lagarde said in an Economist podcast released Thursday. This “leads to a sort of a delayed assessment of how serious this current crisis is.” The German chemical industry — hit hard by the last spike in energy costs in 2022 — has warned of output cuts with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively shut. Production at the cou...