Last year, when Brazil's left wing president Luis Inacio Lula was elected to a third term, plenty of Brazilians were ecstatic. But investors shuddered. They feared Lula would prioritize social spending over fiscal responsibility. Eight months into his term, markets are warming up to Lula's administration.
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman says a presence in top-level global sport is one route to modernising; critics call the effort a distraction from the country’s appalling human-rights record. Brazil’s government is pushing reforms that are clearly calming investors, who had fretted about a return to ruinously spendthrift policies (9:20). And how speedy “first-person-view” drones are changing the fight in Ukraine (16:25).
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