The emergency goes on

Recently: What has the Iran war done to the global economy? Martin Wolf on what can happen when you shock a system defined by uncertainty.

Today: One populist-right leader tightens his grip in San Salvador as another loses his in Budapest. … Hundreds of drones over Kyiv, with air defenses running low. … &c.

For members: How is new technology reshaping the battlefield? Matthew Ford on why the most sophisticated weapons systems can’t overcome the oldest problems in warfare. ... & Why is the new Chinese embassy in London so controversial? Martin Thorley’s new book, All That Glistens.

+ New music from Loukeman …

Four years in

On Wednesday in San Salvador, Nayib Bukele signed constitutional reforms allowing life sentences for children as young as 12, for crimes including homicide, rape, gang membership, or complicity in any of those. The previous maximum was 60 years for adults, less for minors. The new law, which also creates new courts to try its cases, takes effect on April 26.

It is Bukele’s fourth year of emergency rule. His government has detained roughly 91,650 people—more than 1 percent of El Salvador’s population—often on vague charges, in mass trials where lawyers lose track of their clients. Homicide rates collapsed years ago, and the gangs are, by the government’s own account, broken. Last year, Bukele’s party eliminated presidential term limits; it has exiled or jailed his critics; and it pushed the new reforms through a Legislative Assembly it controls entirely.

This same week, Hungarians turned the populist-right prime minister Viktor Orbán out of office after 16 years, handing the opposition the supermajority it needs to dismantle the authoritarian legal architecture he’d built. In Poland, the country’s governing coalition, two years after taking power, is still trying to undo the institutional capture engineered by its populist-right predecessors. On Tuesday in Budapest, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance had rallied for Orbán. On Wednesday in Washington, the U.S. administration registered no public opposition to Bukele’s new law.

Salvadoran approval for Bukele remains above 80 percent.

Meanwhile

• A ceasefire by telephone. U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, beginning at 5 p.m. ET—two days after the countries’ first direct diplomatic talks in decades. The deal came together over calls with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun; Netanyahu’s security cabinet learned of it during the vote meant to approve it. Israel keeps the right to strike “in self-defense, at any time.”
• Another night. Russia fired nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles at Ukraine overnight Wednesday into Thursday—its biggest barrage in weeks—killing at least 16 and wounding more than 100. A drone crashed into an 18-story residential building in Kyiv; nine died in Odesa. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who spent the week touring Germany, Norway, and Italy pressing for air-defense munitions, wrote on X: “Another night has proven that Russia does not deserve any easing of global policy or lifting of sanctions.”
• ‘A world turned upside down.’ Sudan’s civil war entered its fourth year on Wednesday, with donors in Berlin pledging US$1.5 billion against a need roughly twice that. … The U.S. Senate has rejected a war-powers resolution on Iran for the fourth time, 47-52, as the April 29 deadline under America’s 1973 War Powers Act approaches. … U.S. House Democrats have filed six articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. … Vietnam’s leader, Tô Lâm, and Chinese officials pledged closer security cooperation during a visit to Beijing. … In Cameroon on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV decried a “handful of tyrants” for ravaging the world with war.

Feature

Unmatched speed

How is new technology reshaping the battlefield? Matthew Ford on why the most sophisticated weapons systems can’t overcome the oldest problems in warfare.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the United States bombed Caracas and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. President Donald Trump called the operation, which killed scores of Maduro’s security personnel, “brilliant.”

Soon after, the American AI company Anthropic said it was concerned that the U.S. government may have used its software in the Maduro raid in ways that violated its red lines—namely, that the software must not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.

Meanwhile, a range of new technology companies have entered the defense sector—notably Palantir and Anduril—with Palantir CEO Alex Karp saying these new intelligent weapons systems have “shifted the way in which war is fought.”

Have they—and if so, how?

Matthew Ford is an associate professor at the Swedish Defence University and the author of War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity and the Crises at Our Fingertips. Ford says new technology has changed modern warfare in two critical ways: It has radically sped up the process of target generation, making it possible for the U.S. to strike far more targets in far shorter time than before. And it has opened up new ways of collecting and processing intelligence—the effectiveness of which is now visible in Iran.

But Ford says Iran is also showing that new technology has real limitations. To hit targets, you need someone hitting them—which means legacy aircraft like the F-15 and the B-52. Modern warfare, Ford says, is principally characterized by the uneven combination of old and new technologies. And it’s often the cheap, mass-produced equipment that wins wars—not the latest ultra-sophisticated weapons systems. That’s something the Pentagon sometimes forgets—but Iran has remembered …

Books

Get a lord on the board

Why is the new Chinese embassy in London so controversial? Martin Thorley’s All That Glistens.

After repeated postponements, the U.K. government recently approved plans for a new Chinese “mega embassy” at the Royal Mint Court in central London. Prime Minister Keir Starmer then visited Beijing—the first such prime-ministerial visit since 2018—seeking to reinvigorate the Sino-British relationship. Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel called it “a shameful super embassy surrender,” accusing Starmer of selling off national security to the Chinese Communist Party. Several large protests have taken place near Royal Mint Court, with opposition leader Kemi Badenoch taking to the stage to oppose the move.

New music

‘To the Sky’

Luke Fenton is a Toronto-based producer, writer, and artist known for blending IDM, British electronica, and progressive rap with fuzzy, fractured beats. He records as Loukeman—and has caught the eye of Fred Again, Mura Masa, among others. Here’s the opening track on his new album, Sd-3, out April 24.