Women pay for the president’s conservative obsessions; Turkmenistan’s paranoia undermines its wish to be a transport hub; and the EU offers the methane polluter a chance to green its image. Our weekly briefing.
Putin hijacked a summit in Kazakhstan to spread a conspiracy theory, undermining his host’s efforts to get the world to take a grouping of Asian leaders seriously.
Because official statistics are nonsense, we look to personnel reshuffles to understand where the government recognizes it is underperforming. Our weekly briefing.