July 27th 2023

Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief

Welcome to The Economist’s second-ever summer double issue. As well as our usual nourishing fare of news and analysis, you’ll find a 48-page supplement of meaty features from 1843 magazine, The Economist’s sister publication, which normally appears only online.

Our cover this week looks at overstretched CEOs. Chief executives are being pulled in many directions—by the demands of environmental, social and governance principles, and by governments and politicians trying to manipulate corporate behaviour. There is perhaps no better example of this than Larry Fink, the boss of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager. Mr Fink, who is the subject of an in-depth profile this week, set himself up as the cheerleader for environmentally friendly investing but attracted the ire of the Republican right in America.

Elsewhere in the special section we follow the money stolen in the greatest bank heist ever—$2.5bn nicked in broad daylight from an Iraqi bank. Our correspondents travel to the jungles of Myanmar to meet the country’s Gen Z rebels and to Ukraine to learn how a non-existent navy sank Russia’s flagship. And we ponder the great matter of what will happen to Tibetan Buddhism when the Dalai Lama dies.

There will be no print edition next week but we’ll continue to publish online and in our app every day—and send you our newsletters. You can read more of 1843’s narrative journalism here. And if you’re intrigued by these stories, sign up to 1843’s newsletter, The Extraordinary Story. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

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