Niall Ferguson and Nick Kumleben

Why Ukraine’s minerals matter, the NHS’s sterilisation problem & remembering the worst poet in history

From our UK edition

42 min listen

This week: the carve-up of Ukraine’s natural resources From the success of Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington to the squabbling we saw in the Oval Office and the breakdown of security guarantees for Ukraine – we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of geopolitics in the last week, say Niall Ferguson and Nicholas Kulish in this week’s cover piece. They argue that what Donald Trump is really concerned with when it comes to Ukraine is rare earth minerals – which Ukraine has in abundance under its soil. The conventional wisdom is that the US is desperately short of these crucial minerals and, as Niall and Nicholas point out, the dealmaking president is driven by a nagging sense of inferiority in comparison to rare earth minerals powerhouse China.

Dirty deal: what Trump really wants from Ukraine’s natural resources

From our UK edition

In Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Blondie, played by Clint Eastwood, and Tuco, played by Eli Wallach, are rival hunters for stolen Confederate gold. The treasure, they discover, is buried in a huge Civil War cemetery. Unfortunately, they have no idea exactly where. Having earlier taken the precaution of emptying Tuco’s revolver, Blondie turns to him and utters the immortal lines: ‘You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns. And those who dig. You dig.’ This week has seen good, bad and ugly moments in geopolitics. And it’s ended with Donald Trump playing Blondie and Volodymyr Zelensky as Tuco. Trump has the weapons, so Zelensky has to dig.