
Advertise on podcast: The Weekend Intelligence from The Economist
Rating
4.1from
Categories
This podcast has
140 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
The EconomistExplicit
No
Date created
2025/11/05
Latest episode
2026/10/17
Average duration
18 min.
Release period
7 days
Description
One story, vividly told. Join The Economist’s correspondents from around the world as they step back from the news to report on the people, places and ideas that matter most to them and shape all our lives. Published every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page at https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/What-is-Economist-Podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Check latest episodes from The Weekend Intelligence from The Economist podcast
The town that Disney built
2026/10/17
Can a nostalgic throwback also be a bold urban planning experiment? The Disney Corporation thought so. In 1996 they built the town of Celebration, Florida as a model neighborhood blending the traditional charm of old-town life with radical urban design. On its 30th anniversary, Leo Mirani visits “the town that Disney built” to ask whether the experiment worked.
Topics covered:
Disney
Celebration, Florida
New urbanism
Suburbia
Links to articles:
Celebration in 2016
Epcot
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
And Tango Makes Three
2026/10/09
This is the story of one of the most challenged books in America, and the feathered-freedom fighters caught up in America’s culture wars.
*This episode was first published in December 2023.
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
Music by bluedot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. AND TANGO MAKES THREE Copyright © 2005 by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. Audio excerpts courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. read by Neil Patrick Harris from the audiobook by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
Memory lane
2026/09/28
Now every fact is a click away, the role of memory has changed. On The Weekend Intelligence, Rosie Blau profiles an eight-times world memory champion, a woman suffering from early-onset dementia and Artificial Intelligence to find out what matters: the information itself, or the journey we take to retrieve it?
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
Music by bluedot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
Shire folk: The prophet
2026/09/24
In our third and final episode of Shire folk, our series on the rise of Tommy Robinson, Georgia follows Tommy across the Atlantic to find out why so many powerful Americans are suddenly interested in his version of Britain, and what they stand to gain from endorsing it.
Topics covered:
Christian nationalism
Anti-Islam sentiment
Mass deportations
Danny Tommo
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.
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Music by bluedot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
Shire folk: Rebel, Rebel
2026/09/17
In our second episode of “Shire folk; the Tommy Robinson story”, Georgia Banjo revisits the late 2010s to chart how Britain’s grooming gangs scandal shaped Robinson’s rise, from Luton football hooligan to Europe correspondent for Rebel Media.
Topics covered:
Terror attacks
Grooming gangs
Alternative media
Southport riots
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.
TRAIL: Shire folk
2026/09/13
Shire Folk is the story of how some of the most powerful people in America came to see Britain—and Islam—through the eyes of a fringe football hooligan.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Shire folk: Episode 1 - Tommy's Town
2026/09/12
For 15 years, the British media dismissed Tommy Robinson as a far-right extremist. We kept him off our televisions, and out of our newspapers.
Today his rallies attract tens of thousands of followers and he has the ear of the world’s richest man.
Shire Folk is the story of how some of the most powerful people in America came to see Britain—and Islam—through the eyes of a fringe football hooligan.
Topics covered:
Radical IslamGangsEnglish Defence League
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
TRAILER: Shire folk
2026/09/10
Shire Folk is the story of how some of the most powerful people in America came to see Britain—and Islam—through the eyes of a fringe football hooligan.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Radio Kudirat
2026/09/04
In the 1990s, as Nigeria was under a brutal military dictatorship, Radio Kudirat emerged as a glimmer of hope. The clandestine project united journalists, activists and engineers, who risked their lives to give Nigerians a voice even when a $5 million bounty was put out on their heads. Over 30 years later, Africa correspondent Ore Ogunbiyi re-unites some of the people who brought Radio Kudirat to life.
Topics covered:
Nigeria
Democracy
Authoritarianism
Propaganda
Radio Kudirat
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
Laugh, think, move
2026/08/29
FOR 35 years the Ig Nobel prizes—given for “research that makes people laugh, then think”—have been awarded at a madcap ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The “laugh” part highlights the sillier side of science; the “think” part reveals the same creative inquiry that drives the more dour-seeming side. Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”, speaks to the prizes’ founder and past winners about the grave reasons the ceremony is moving this year to Zurich.
Topics covered:
Ig Nobel prizes
Nobel prizes
scientific inquiry
American science policy
Guests:
Marc Abrahams, founder, Ig Nobel prizes
Marie Dacke, professor of sensory biology, Lund University
Sir Andre Geim, professor of physics, University of Manchester
David Kaiser, professor of physics and professor of the history of science, MIT
Luca Luiselli, president, Institute for Development, Ecology, Conservation and Co-operation
Links to other episodes:
The Weekend Intelligence: Science under siege
The Weekend Intelligence: The War on Animal Research
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
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This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
Grave friends
2026/08/21
Around 30% of Japan’s population is now over 65 and record numbers of people are dying. The weight of those deaths is falling on fewer shoulders, as births decline and the younger generation shrinks. On The Weekend Intelligence our East Asia reporter, Moeka Iida reports on kodokushi or "lonely deaths” and meets people finding ways to make the end of life less solitary.
Topics covered:
Aging society
Lonely death
Death cleaning
End-of-life planning
“Grave friends”
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
TikTok humanitarianism
2026/08/12
As aid systems come under growing strain, a new form of giving is emerging online. Catherine Brahic follows two people in Gaza who have come to rely on crowdfunding to survive. She also meets the volunteers who have become their fundraisers, and asks what happens when humanitarian aid is shaped by algorithms not institutions.
Guests and host:
Catherine Brahic, The Economist’s Environment Editor
Rosie Blau, co-host of ‘The Intelligence’
Sami Alshannat, agricultural engineer in Gaza
Alaa Jaber, teacher in Gaza
Natalie Naudus, audiobook narrator and donor
Josh Leigh, digital fundraising consultant
Olga Boichack, media scholar at the University of Sydney
Topics covered:
Charity
Crowdfunding
Social media
Gaza
Ukraine
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
Music by Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha & Gaza Birds Singing, blue dot and Epidemic.
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Attention, please!
2026/08/07
What do medieval monks, Brazilian leftists and New York academics have in common? They all want to know where our attention has gone. How can we regain our focus?
Barclay Bram visits The Strother School of Radical Attention in New York to find out. The founders hope to build a political movement to fight big tech’s domination of our attention. Their methods might not be what you expect.
Guests and host:
Barclay Bram, presenter and senior producer of ‘The Weekend Intelligence’
D Graham Burnett, historian and co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention
Alyssa Loh, filmmaker, writer, and faculty member at the Strother School of Radical Attention
Peter Schmidt, programme director at the Strother School of Radical Attention
Jamie Kreiner, historian of the early Middle Ages at UCLA
Tim Wu, professor of law at Columbia University
Topics covered:
The attention economy
The history of attention
Big tech
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
Music by bluedot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
Read more about how we are using AI.
The war on animal research
2026/07/31
PETA and other left-leaning groups have tried for decades to end research on animals. They mostly failed. Then a Republican strategist found a far more effective way to campaign. Daniella Raz examines how an activist group has gained enough power to challenge a critical part of America’s innovation economy–and what that means for the scientists now facing pressure from across the political spectrum.
Topics covered:
Animal testing
MAGA
MAHA
Biomedical research
Innovation economy
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.
Music by Blue dot and Epidemic
Transcripts are available on our website https://www.economist.com/podcasts
Sleepless in Havana
2026/07/24
All across the island of Cuba time has slowed down. With little access to fuel there is nowhere to go. With little access to power there is nothing to do, but wait— for the power to come back on, for America to tighten the screw further, and for the government to give in to their demands.
In June, Sarah Birke travelled to Cuba to ask how the island is coping under America’s fuel blockade. Everyone is ready for change, the question is, what change is coming?
Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.
Music by Blue dot and Epidemic
This podcast transcript is generated by third-party AI. It has not been reviewed prior to publication. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the transcript, its accuracy or its completeness, and we disclaim all liability regarding its receipt, content and use. If you have any concerns about the transcript, please email us at [email protected].
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