Gas prices are very high, and electricity prices for next year have increased fifteenfold. That risks putting end to some businesses because they can't pay their energy bills. In july, industry consumed 21 % less gas than in the same month last year. And that was in part because firms used their energy more efficiently but it was also because business as just cut back production.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president, looks well-placed to win a third term. But which Lula would Brazil get—the fiscal conservative or the populist spendthrift? Germany has an earned reputation as an industrial powerhouse, but its dependence on Russian gas and Chinese demand are hobbling it. And why the propaganda-spewing loudspeakers in Vietnam’s capital are firing up again.
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