   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S19Afcon: everything you need to know about a record year for Africa's biggest football event   Africa’s biggest football festival – the men’s Africa Cup of Nations 2023 – is being hosted by Côte d'Ivoire in west Africa and will culminate in its final match on 11 February 2024.More than ever before, the world will be watching the action at the 34th edition of the cup, given that some of football’s greatest athletes will be participating. Add to this the fact that the tournament takes place in the European winter and so it doesn’t face competition from any other major international tournaments except the AFC Asian Cup.
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S62The Strategic Pivot: Rules for Entrepreneurs and Other Innovators  Silicon Valley culture is built around great pivots — a sudden shift in strategy that turns a mediocre idea into a billion-dollar company. Groupon began not as a local coupon business, but as a platform for collective action. Pay Pal started back in 1999 as a way to “beam” money between mobile phones, Palm Pilots, […]
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S41The 2024 Primaries That Weren't  With former President Donald Trump dominating the polls in Iowa and other early-primary states, this primary season looks like it may be brief and uncompetitive. "We'll see what happens when the voters actually get a say, but it's fair to say already that the political story of 2023 was Donald Trump's consolidation of the Republican Party behind him," the New Yorker staff writer Susan B. Glasser says. Meanwhile, President Biden, despite his low approval ratings, has had only "token" opposition inside the Democratic Party, Glasser says, referring to Dean Phillips of Minnesota, whose Presidential campaign has not gained traction. The New Yorker staff writers Jane Mayer and Evan Osnos join Glasser to discuss the absence of a competitive 2024 primary, the effort by some Democrats to test the waters rather than declare a campaign, and what the coming months may bring in this historic race for the Presidency.By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
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S422024's Wildest Action Thriller Could Launch an Epic Franchise, Director Says  While the director might be best known by some as the director of DC’s infamous supervillain movie The Suicide Squad, Ayer feels more comfortable writing and directing gritty crime thrillers like Training Day. With his latest movie, The Beekeeper, he’s treading new waters again with a gonzo action flick starring tough-guy actor Jason Statham and his legendary Cockney growl.“Normally, I make more serious dramas,” Ayer says. “This is just a fun, escapist thrill ride.”
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S20Weird, twisted, powerful films - what you should watch this week  This article was first published in our email newsletter Something Good, which every fortnight brings you a summary of the best things to watch, visit and read, as recommended and analysed by academic experts. Click here to receive the newsletter direct to your inboxI love Yorgos Llanithmos’s films. They are wonderfully weird (Dogtooth) and have a unique visceral quality that leaves me feeling all odd (Killing of a Sacred Deer). He has this way of digging into the mire of the human psyche and showing us its ugliest (The Favourite) and most peculiar (The Lobster) parts. So, I was very excited when I heard he had a new film out called Poor Things.
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S34What delays to the Artemis II and III missions mean for Canada  On Jan. 9, NASA announced it would be shifting the launch of Artemis II to September 2025. Artemis III — the first mission to land humans on the surface of the moon since 1972 — was moved to September 2026. I am a professor, an explorer and a planetary geologist. For the past decade, I have been helping to train Canadian and U.S. astronauts in geology. I am also the principal investigator for Canada’s first ever rover mission, and a member of the Artemis III Geology Team.
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S49'FFXIV' Patch 6.55: Release Date, New Quests, New Main Character, and More Updates  With the latest entry Dawntrail set to release in Summer 2024, Final Fantasy XIV is gearing up for a new era, with director Naoki Yoshida even saying that he sees the expansion as a “second rebirth” for the massively multiplayer online game. While fans have a bit to wait for the full expansion, the first step toward Dawntrail is set to arrive with Patch 6.55, which is being billed as Part 2 of the “Growing Light” story introduced with 6.5. Here’s everything you need to know about FFXIV’s Patch 6.55, from its release date to new content. Let’s dive right in. Patch 6.55 is scheduled to release on January 16, 2024. Although Square Enix hasn’t provided the exact time yet, maintenance usually starts around 6 am ET. We’ll update this article once a firm time has been set.
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S31US-UK airstrikes risk strengthening Houthi rebels' position in Yemen and the region  The U.S.- and U.K.-led strikes on the rebel Houthi group in Yemen represent a dramatic new turn in the Middle East conflict – one that could have implications throughout the region.The attacks of Jan. 11, 2024, hit around 60 targets at 16 sites, according to the U.S. Air Force’s Mideast command, including in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, the main port of Hodeida and Saada, the birthplace of the Houthis in the country’s northwest.
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S22S40How Israel's Inspection Process Is Obstructing Aid Delivery  Last week, the Democratic senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen travelled to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt, the entry point for many of the aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than twenty-three thousand people are estimated to have been killed in Israel's military campaign, is extremely dire, and the number of trucks full of food and medicine and other vital goods is insufficient. As recently as Thursday, the United Nations reported that only a hundred and forty-five trucks entered Gaza through Rafah and Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing, which is close to Rafah, but on the Israeli side; human-rights groups have stated that more than three times that many are required. Israel contends that aid trucks have to be closely scrutinized to insure that weapons are not being smuggled into Gaza, but after watching the inspection process at Rafah, Merkley and Van Hollen called the Israeli approach "arbitrary."I recently spoke by phone with Senator Van Hollen, of Maryland, who was elected to the position in 2016, after serving seven terms in the House of Representatives. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his view of the problems with the American-Israeli relationship, why so little aid is reaching Gazans, and whether Israel is concerned with the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
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S29US election: how a Trump victory could embolden Russia, China and Israel  A potential second term as president for Donald Trump is likely to result in an America-first, America-alone foreign policy. The ramifications for the rest of the world could be huge, potentially endangering international security around the globe. So it’s no wonder that the result of the November vote seems of more interest than normal to non-Americans.
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S37Working with Joan Acocella  Not long ago, I became a kind of undertaker. I was a fact checker at this magazine until recently and, in the final months of my tenure, it felt as if death was pouring in. I fielded the obituaries of some cherished colleagues—Roger Angell, Martin Baron, John Bennet, each one of them a braid in a rope pulling us back to the past. When they died, I got the copy. I called the families and the old acquaintances and asked this and that, trying, as best I could, to comfort them or make them laugh, while making sure that our facts were straight. Now another braid in the rope is gone: Joan Acocella.Joan lived in a big, woody loft north of Union Square, in an old building where the elevator opened into the living room. When you arrived, Joan displayed the unyielding generosity of the Ghost of Christmas Present. She promptly asked you what you wanted to drink, unscrewed the bottle cap, and didn’t stop pouring. As well read and impressively educated as she was, she wore her learning lightly, a baseball cap tipped back so far it might tumble away in a strong wind.
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S51S58Entrepreneurs Need a Better Way to Cash Out The most successful, visionary entrepreneurs dream not of millions of dollars, but of a world where their products change culture. But in technology startups, particularly venture-backed technology startups, the current investment climate does not always support that vision. Conventional wisdom suggests that there are only two ways to exit a company: either it grows such that it can hold an initial public offering, or it gets acquired by or merges with a strategic partner. For as long as it has been an industry, these have been the only two ways for a venture capital-backed company to succeed. There has to be a better way.
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S32S33A 'giant' of Canadian politics: Ed Broadbent's mixed legacy on social democracy and free trade  News of his death at age 87, announced on Jan. 11, has inspired a wave of tributes, including from former political opponents. Brian Mulroney called Broadbent a “giant in the Canadian political scene” and rightly said he would have been prime minister had he led any other party. I still smile thinking about a photograph taken during the 1988 election when Broadbent gamely had the Vachon brothers, beloved wrestlers from Québec who were NDP candidates, in a double headlock. It was silly, and great political theatre.
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S52Hands Down, the 50 Best Home Upgrades Under $30 on Amazon Prime  I love adding little upgrades to my home as much as the next person, but as a budget-conscious consumer, I don’t like spending a lot of money to do it. Fortunately for me and all my other frugal shoppers out there, home improvement doesn’t have to cost a fortune. I’ve done some digging to find the coolest home upgrades on Amazon under $30 that will add charm and practicality to your space. An elevated home is just a Prime delivery away. Reviewers rave about these glass meal prep containers, giving them a 4.7-star overall rating. Made with borosilicate glass, these can handle temperature changes without warping or cracking, making them great for freezing soups, reheating leftovers, or storing meals for the future. The airtight seal keeps everything fresh while preventing leaks, and the containers are dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning.
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S35Red Sea crisis: expert unpacks Houthi attacks and other security threats  Recent attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militia in the Red Sea have put the vital shipping region in the spotlight. The Yemen-based rebels claim to be targeting Israeli-linked vessels, in protest at Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The UN Security Council recently passed a resolution demanding an immediate end to the Houthi attacks, while the US and UK have launched a series of strikes on Yemen against the rebels.Burak Şakir Şeker, who has studied security issues in the Red Sea, shares his insights on the global importance of the region, the security issues that exist and how these must be addressed.
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S60Out of the Blue and into the Black The date, I’ll never forget, was July 30, 1981. The place was New York’s Park Lane Hotel. The event was a press conference called by my company, Landmark Communications, to announce what we planned to do with our newly acquired satellite transponder. Even then, well before cable television became the powerhouse it is today, a transponder was an asset any media company would prize. Sitting on a communications satellite, receiving signals from a single source on earth, and bouncing them back to a number of receiving stations on the ground, this small device enables even pint-sized cable programmers to send signals from coast to coast.
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S39Donald Trump's Victim Shtick Is Getting Old  Four days before Iowa's Republican caucuses, and the beginning of the 2024 Presidential election cycle, Donald Trump's New York civil fraud trial ended in much the same manner it began last Octoberâwith the former President of the United States crying witch hunt. "We have a situation where I'm an innocent man. I've been persecuted by someone running for office," Trump told the court, on Thursday, from his seat at the defense table. He was referring to Letitia James, the Democratic New York attorney general, who brought charges against Trump in September, 2022, when James was seeking reëlection. (The investigation began long before then.) Addressing Judge Arthur F. Engoron, Trump went on, "What's happened here, sir, is a fraud on me. They want to make sure that I don't win again, and this is partially election interference."Trump hadn't been expected to speak during closing arguments, which took place on Thursday. Earlier this week, his lawyers refused to agree to a stipulation from Engoron, another septuagenarian product of Queens, that Trump confine his remarks to the substance of the case against him, which centers on the question of whether the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of its assets in order to obtain favorable terms on loans and insurance. When Trump's lawyers didn't agree to the restrictions, Engoron barred Trump from talking during the defense's closing statements. But, just before the court went on a lunch break, Trump's lead lawyer, Chris Kise, asked Engoron to reconsider, and to allow his client to speak for a few minutes. Engoron, who has presided over the trial with patience and good humor despite being the target of various insults and threatsâthe latest of which was a fake bomb threat at his house on Thursday morningâasked that Trump stick to the facts and the law.
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S63Covid-19 Vaccine Trials Are a Case Study on the Challenges of Data Literacy  It’s dangerously easy to misinterpret data, especially when it’s reported in percentages rather than absolute numbers. The author showcases a number of dangers by focusing on the vaccine-efficacy results reported in November of 2020. He then shows how similar dangers can apply in business contexts, and offers three main lessons for managers hoping to make good decisions using data: be wary of big data, be wary of precision, and beware of post-diction.
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S68S30S55Messages born of melody - hear the whistled language of the Hmong people | Aeon Videos  In rural stretches of northern Laos, several scattered practitioners keep one of the world’s few remaining whistled languages alive. An ancient tradition among the Hmong people, this unique form of communication originated as a means of helping hunters, farmers and shepherds communicate across vast, open distances. It’s also used in courting rituals and as a means of communicating with the spirit world. At once speech and music, this system of whistles can be augmented when blown through a leaf, a bamboo flute or a traditional instrument known as a qeej. However, as Birdsong (2023) details, modernity and especially urbanisation have driven this ancient Hmong tradition to the verge of extinction. Profiling three whistlers from the village of Long Lan, the short documentary offers a fascinating peek into a disappearing world, alongside insights into the evolution and extraordinary diversity of language.
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S50S61The CEO of New Mountain Capital on Using PE Management to Ignite Growth  Twelve years ago, in 2010, the private equity firm New Mountain Capital acquired a little-known Wisconsin software company, RedPrairie, for $565 million. In September 2021 it sold that same company, now named Blue Yonder, for $8.5 billion to Panasonic. About $5.7 billion of the gain had come from organic growth, not acquisitions. That success wasn’t driven by any specific lucky break, technology breakthrough, or new product. Rather, it was the result of continual investment and improvement in the company’s management, strategy, and governance—the same approach that best-in-class private equity firms have employed for years across dozens of industries and thousands of companies. By explaining how New Mountain transformed Blue Yonder, this article shows how private equity firms create value for businesses and for the economy. And it underscores how much the PE industry has evolved since its inception.
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S38How Donald Trump Broke the Iowa Caucuses and Owns the G.O.P.  This time last year, Republicans were reeling from a poorer-than-expected performance in the 2022 midterm elections; many questioned, again, whether it was time to move on from their two-time Presidential standard-bearer. But Donald Trump is so far ahead in the polls that it would be shocking if he did not clinch the first 2024 contest, in Iowa. Three New Yorker political writers—Susan B. Glasser, Robert Samuels, and Benjamin Wallace-Wells—explain why Trump is still the top dog, and why his legal troubles enhance his standing among Republicans. Plus, the actress Danielle Brooks talks about filling Oprah Winfrey’s shoes in a new adaptation of “The Color Purple,” and how the film’s millennial cast and director reimagined the feel of the story.Whether he wins as expected or somehow underperforms, Donald Trump has upended the state’s Republican caucuses without participating in a single debate and barely campaigning on the ground.
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S46How a Classic Sci-Fi Movie Inspired HBO's Best Noir Thriller  With True Detective Season 4, writer and director Issa López isn’t shying away from The Thing comparisons. In fact, with the supernatural horror-tinged season of the crime anthology show, she’s embracing it.“The Thing is a huge [inspiration], and I’m not shy about it,” López tells Inverse ahead of the show’s January premiere. “I’m super proud about it.”
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S56How Infinite Jest tethered me to life when I almost let it go | Aeon Essays  is a philosopher, writer, legal scholar and associate professor at Columbia Law School in New York. She is also co-director of the Columbia law and philosophy programme and on the board of trustees of the Journal of Philosophy.In the surreal aftermath of my suicide attempt and amid the haze of my own processing, my best friend visited me in the hospital with a (soft-bound and thus mental-patient-safe) copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest under his arm. It was the spring of 2021. A couple months earlier, I had slipped in a tub, suffered a concussion, and triggered my first episode of major depression, and those had been the most difficult months of my life.
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S45Did The 'Monarch' Finale Actually Change Godzilla Canon?  In the finale of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, three generations of monster hunters were united and two famous monsters made surprising appearances. After all the globe-spanning adventures and time-skipping shenanigans, has the canon of Godzilla, King Kong, and the “Monsterverse” films been altered?At the end of the Monarch Season 1 finale, “Beyond Logic,” the answer is... kind of. In its 10 episodes, Monarch redefined the history of its titular monster-hunting organization, while delivering a twist ending that dropped a Kong-sized bomb. But how much did the show actually change? Let’s dig in.
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S532024 Could Be a Banner Year For RPGs  2023 was a whirlwind year for gaming, with nearly every single month seeing multiple massive, critically acclaimed releases. It’s hard to see 2024 keeping up that cadence, and from a cursory glance at the current schedule, it won’t. This year seems destined to be trapped in the previous year’s shadow, except in one regard: RPGs. The first four months of 2024 are stacked with role-playing games, and even after that, there’s a lot to suggest the year will be a banner one for the genre. Other genres might slow down, but this year could mark the height of another renaissance for RPG fans. Before looking forward, it’s important to recognize that 2023’s hottest games were complex RPGs. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the obvious star that dominated the second half of the year and garnered Game of the Year at The Game Awards. But Starfield, Phantom Liberty, Sea of Stars, and Octopath Traveler 2 all received a lot of attention, too. Importantly, all those games are also very different. Riding on players’ unparalleled enthusiasm for the genre last year, 2024 is now the moment for role-playing games to shine.
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S59The Key to Retaining Employees After an Acquisition I’ve been the CEO of three start-ups, two of which have been acquired by great companies (Yahoo and Google). What I’ve learned about keeping a team cohesive after an acquisition is that ultimately, it’s not what you do to try to retain everyone — after an acquisition you can only do so much — but about the type of people that you choose to hire in the first place.
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S69Four Economic Benchmarks We Need Now Should governments accept the dictates of markets? It’s the question raging across the econoverse in the wake of demands for austerity from bondholders. But it’s the wrong question. The right question is: are organizations and markets making decisions that help make people, communities, and society better off in the long run, by allocating their scarce […]
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S36The Expansive Musical Range of Ryuichi Sakamoto  If your first thought, as we ushered in the New Year, was not of fresh starts and resolutions but of the crises looming in 2024 and beyond, the best antidote, culturally speaking, might be to lean into catastrophe. Metrograph has catered to the pessimists among us by curating a series entitled “The Future Looks Bright from Afar” (through Feb. 4), which promises a suite of sci-fi films marked by “grim prognostications” about mankind’s trajectory. (The options are not limited to the obvious dystopias: the final night of the program features a rare showing of “Alphaville,” Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 neo-noir take on the threat of a fascist A.I.) This weekend’s offerings include the gorgeously animated cult classic “Ghost in the Shell,” which grapples with questions of sentience and selfhood in a high-tech society; later in the month, they’ll screen “Snowpiercer,” Bong Joon-ho’s wildly entertaining, climate-crisis-inflected thriller.As it happens, the great new crowd-pleaser of the moment is also a disaster story, albeit one set firmly in the past. “Godzilla Minus One” follows a kamikaze pilot who shirks his duty in the final days of the Second World War—a decision that puts him in the path of the eponymous monster and, years later, leaves him uniquely motivated to stop its rampage through postwar Tokyo. Elevated by emotional and historical specificity as well as set pieces that belie its modest fifteen-million-dollar budget, Takashi Yamazaki’s contribution to the Godzilla canon is simultaneously a study in survivor’s guilt and a “Jaws”-style blockbuster, complete with the revelation that our protagonists are going to need a bigger boat. The movie, which opened in the U.S. in December, became a word-of-mouth phenomenon whose twists had audiences shouting at the screen; it’s now one of the highest-grossing foreign-language films of all time. A little catharsis, it seems, goes a long way.
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S445 Years Ago, Nintendo Broke the Most Important Mario Rule -- And Redefined an Iconic Character  Look, friends, there are a lot of RPGs out there. So many, in fact, that it’s difficult to stand out amongst the rest of the pack. Whether it be the longstanding Final Fantasy franchise or the Elder Scrolls and Fallout juggernauts from Bethesda studios, choosing the appropriate realm of RPGs to dive into is not for the faint of heart. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is a dark horse candidate, not for how it embodies the classical, hardcore RPG mold, but because of how it subverts expectations with its uncanny sense of humor and genuine joy protruding from every nook and cranny of the experience.Developed by the now-defunct AlphaDream and originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2009, Bowser’s Inside Story was the third game in the developer’s Mario & Luigi series that first started on the Gameboy Advance in 2003. Best described as an action-RPG, this particular title stood out thanks to its large focus on Bowser — not just for the story or myriad of comedic possibilities, but for the gameplay, too.
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S28The Houthis: four things you will want to know about the Yemeni militia targeted by UK and US military strikes  The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (or “supporters of God”), are a violent militia group that currently exercise de facto control over much of northern Yemen. Formed in the 1990s, the group was named after its founder, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, and they follow the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam which represents 20-30% of Yemen’s population. The group’s leadership has been drawn from the Houthi tribe, which is part of one of the three major tribal confederations in Yemen: the Hashid, the Madhaj and the Bakil. The Houthis are part of the Bakil confederation, the largest tribal group in Yemen. As the UK and US launch military strikes on the Yemeni group, after a spate of attacks by the Iran-backed militia on Red Sea shipping, here’s four things that you need to know about them.
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S48New Research Reveals a Curious Connection Between Hibernation and Longevity  When the cold and dark winter is setting in, some of us envy animals that can hibernate. This long, deep rest is an example of how nature develops clever solutions to difficult problems. In this case, how to survive a long, cold, and dark period without much food and water.An article in a copy of the British Medical Journal from 1900 describes a strange human dormancy-like hibernation called “lotska” that was common among farmers in Pskov, Russia. In this area, food was so scarce during the winter that the problem was solved by sleeping through the dark part of the year.
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S47The MCU's Next Big Villain is Repeating a Huge Star Wars Mistake  While Marvel’s cinematic universe scrambles to fill a Kang-shaped void on the big screen, the stars are aligning on the streaming front. Thanks to the new series Echo, the MCU is headed toward a fresh(ish) start. Marvel has launched a new offshoot of its 15-year-old franchise, Spotlight, which is essentially a continuation of the street-level universe introduced in Netflix’s old Marvel shows. Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez (aka Echo) is now one of the Defenders, a group of gritty superheroes who count Daredevil and Luke Cage among their members. The Defenders also share an antagonist in Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of New York’s criminal underbelly and the latest MCU threat.
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S25S57The Worldwide Web of Chinese Business Most discussion of today’s global economy centers on three powerhouses: North America, Europe, and Japan. In turn, economists usually divide Asia into Japan, a People’s Republic of China that is rapidly changing and on the rise, and the industrialized “dragons” of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Yet this standard economic definition doesn’t match Pacific Rim realities. In fact, Chinese businesses—many of which are located outside the People’s Republic itself—make up the world’s fourth economic power.
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