The world in brief 世界简讯

The annual shareholders’ meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by Warren Buffett, has been dubbed “Woodstock for capitalists”, so large is the throng it usually attracts. This year’s gathering, which kicks off on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska, will lack one of its signature headliners. It will be the first in decades without Charlie Munger, the company’s long-standing vice-chair, who died last November.
由沃伦·巴菲特（Warren Buffett）经营的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）的年度股东大会被称为“资本家的伍德斯托克”（Woodstock for Capitalists），它通常吸引的人群如此之大。今年的聚会将于周六在内布拉斯加州奥马哈拉开帷幕，将缺少其标志性的头条新闻之一。这将是几十年来第一次没有去年11月去世的公司长期副主席查理·芒格（Charlie Munger）。

Mr Munger’s absence will inevitably raise questions over what will happen when Mr Buffett, who is 93, is gone. His most likely successor is Greg Abel, the 61-year-old head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations. Investors are jittery because Berkshire’s recent record has been less than stellar; over the past decade its investments have often underperformed the S&P 500. The company has taken flak for largely missing out on the tech boom, and faces increased competition from private equity. That has left some wondering if Berkshire’s greatest hits are a thing of the past.
芒格的缺席将不可避免地引发人们的疑问，即当93岁的巴菲特离开时会发生什么。他最有可能的继任者是61岁的伯克希尔非保险业务负责人格雷格·阿贝尔（Greg Abel）。投资者感到不安，因为伯克希尔最近的记录并不出色;在过去十年中，其投资的表现往往落后于标准普尔500指数。该公司因在很大程度上错过了科技热潮而受到抨击，并面临来自私募股权的日益激烈的竞争。这让一些人怀疑伯克希尔最伟大的成功是否已成为过去。

When leaders from the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation last gathered for a summit, the war in Gaza was barely a month old. This weekend, when the club of 57 mostly Muslim-majority countries meets in the Gambia, the war will be nearing its eighth month. Countries will urge one another to push for a lasting ceasefire.
伊斯兰合作组织（Organization of Islamic Co-operation）的领导人上一次齐聚一堂参加峰会时，加沙的战争还不到一个月。本周末，当由57个穆斯林占多数的国家组成的俱乐部在冈比亚举行会议时，战争将接近第八个月。各国将相互敦促，推动持久停火。

Members have already put pressure on Israel. Turkey, one of Israel’s largest trading partners, recently halted all commerce with Israel (worth $6.2bn in 2023) until the country allows more aid into Gaza. Iran has encouraged its network of proxy militias to attack Israel and, last month, did so directly. Arab countries have mostly settled for diplomacy. None of this has convinced Israel to stop fighting.
成员们已经向以色列施加了压力。土耳其是以色列最大的贸易伙伴之一，最近停止了与以色列的所有贸易（2023 年价值 62 亿美元），直到该国允许向加沙提供更多援助。伊朗鼓励其代理民兵网络攻击以色列，并在上个月直接这样做。阿拉伯国家大多满足于外交。这些都没有说服以色列停止战斗。

The unco-ordinated strategy shows that the Muslim world is not a monolith. Gulf states, for example, hardly cheer attacks sponsored by Iran. For all the talk about the Gaza war at OIC summits, the real power to end it lies elsewhere.

On Saturday punters in seersucker finery and bountiful hats will sip mint juleps and sing “My Old Kentucky Home” at the 150th Kentucky Derby—an event that has been called “the greatest two minutes in sports”. But the pageantry of the Derby, and the other two races that make up the Triple Crown, mask an industry unable to trot, much less gallop.

Racing’s shrinking fan base means fewer tracks and fewer foals. Forty-five tracks have closed since 2000. According to the Jockey Club, the foal crop fell from 35,000 in 2005 to 17,200 in 2023. Doping scandals and horse deaths—12 died in a single month last year at Churchill Downs, home to the Derby—have not helped. Oversight by a newish federal regulator, which began enforcing safety rules at some tracks in 2022, is a good start.

Bookies make Fierceness, a three-year-old colt, favourite for this Derby. But the sport of kings itself is still far from a safe bet.

England’s Premier League is the most popular football league in the world—thanks in part to marketing that relentlessly reminds viewers of quite how competitive it is. Over the few remaining weeks of the current season, such rhetoric will be ramped up. With good reason: Arsenal sit just one point ahead of Manchester City at the top of the table. The title race stands out when compared with other big European leagues where competition has been lacklustre.

It is likely to go down to the wire. On Saturday Arsenal face Bournemouth and City face Wolves. They are expected to win these matches comfortably. Still, Manchester City are heavily favoured by the bookies. They have a game in hand over Arsenal and the pedigree as defending champions. That could dent the league’s prided competitiveness: it would be City’s fourth consecutive title.

Marcos Galperin is by most definitions hyper-successful. The 52-year-old founder of Mercado Libre, Latin America’s dominant e-commerce and payments firm, has a net worth of over $6bn, making him Argentina’s richest man. He has turned Mercado Libre (which he started in a garage, naturally) into Latin America’s second-most valuable publicly traded company. Its payments arm, Mercado Pago, is flourishing. Locals use it for everything from buying fruit on the roadside to paying electricity bills. Last year it processed $183bn of transactions, of which about 75% were made outside Mercado Libre’s own platform. Yet one achievement has eluded Mr Galperin: playing for Los Pumas, Argentina’s national rugby team.

Back when he was 17 that was no pipe dream. He was a handy fly-half who had toured Australia and New Zealand, two rugby powerhouses, with a team selected from Argentine secondary schools. “It was rough…not the best results,” he recalls, laughing. Still, he was good enough that he had a real choice to make when he was offered a place to study business at the University of Pennsylvania—a spot he ultimately took. “If I were to be born again I would definitely go for a sports career,” he quips.

His rugby days were not wasted. “Competitive rugby is as good a training as you can get,” he says. Oval-ball analogies crop up frequently as he discusses Mercado Libre's success. “We always want to have the best players in the best positions,” he says. Some may be better placed “supporting in the stands”.

Mr Galperin is increasingly influential beyond business. He is scathing about Argentina’s economy, likening it to an ex-sports star who suffers from obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, cancer and AIDS. He openly supports the libertarian president, Javier Milei. Mr Galperin is similarly frank on X, a social network, where he tangles with public figures and random accounts, mocking critics with memes, kiss emojis and questions about whether they own shares in Mercado Libre. A secular Jew, he is vociferous in his support of Israel in its war in Gaza.

He waves away the possibility that his outspokenness might pose a risk to his firm. The company is booming. On April 17th it said it would hire another 18,000 people, taking its total workforce to 76,000. That is one way to kick his online critics into touch.

Our crossword has two sets of clues, one for seasoned cruciverbalists and the other for less experienced solvers. Both give the same answers, all of which feature in articles in this week’s edition of The Economist:

Cryptic clues

1 down Ha! Fractious, chaotic state (5,6)

1 across Adder season (6)

2 across Grown-up has odd ardour (lots) (5)

3 across Going grey from long time in front of guillotine (6)

Factual clues

1 down Where apartheid ended 30 years ago (5,6)

1 across When Emmanuel Macron says France will make fresh deliveries of artillery to Ukraine before (6)

2 across The type of film or television content that might be labelled “R” (5)

3 across One way to describe America’s population (6)

Email all four answers, along with your home city and country, by 9am GMT on Monday to crossword@economist.com. We will pick randomly from those with the right answers and crown three winners in next week’s edition.

Thank you to everyone who took part in this week’s quiz. The winners, chosen at random, were:

Ailsa Green, Choma, Zambia

Mariusz Piontas, Sopot, Poland

Peter Casson, Cambridge, Britain

They all gave the correct answers of Minnesota Twins, product recall, kindergarten, Conan O’Brien and predator drone. The theme was Arnold Schwarzenegger movies: “Twins”, “Total Recall”, “Kindergarten Cop”, “Conan the Barbarian” and “Predator”

The questions were:

Monday: When the Washington Senators left their home town after the 1960 season, they became which baseball team?

Tuesday: What term is used for a request from a manufacturer or retailer to return an item because of safety issues?

Wednesday: Which term for early childhood education was originally a German word?

Thursday: Which comedian hosted late-night talk shows on NBC and TBS between 1993 and 2021?

Friday: What was the common name for the remotely-powered aircraft that was used by the US military between 1995 and 2018?