financial contributions are specified in the MOUs along with America’s. The third is that the MOUs are time-limited. They last until 2030, with at least the aspiration that from then on American assistance will shift to being technical rather than financial. Some see a good-faith attempt both to do the best with available resources and to execute at last the handover, long-promised, of responsibility from donors to recipients. Others see a sleight of hand intended to shuffle off budgetary responsibility in as seemly a manner as possible. So far 34 countries have signed an MOU. Kenya’s government has promised to pitch in $850m to its plan, compared with America’s $1.5bn; Nigeria will contribute $3bn to America’s $2bn. Some countries, such as Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, are refusing to sign, citing what they say are demands for unreasonable levels of data sharing, and amid reports of pressure to concede mineral rights—things that Mr Graham denies are true. How the new policy pans out will depend on whether the recipients are able to honour their sides of the bargain and the attitude of America’s next president. Mr Graham was vague about what would happen to places which did not stump up their agreed sums, suggesting it would depend on the circumstances. The future of the White House is anyone’s guess. On the matter of tools, all eyes are focused on PrEP, which both protects individuals from infection and helps break the chain of transmission. The first PrEP drug was a daily pill called Truvada. That was followed by Cabotegravir, an injection given every two months. The current star is Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection to which America’s Food and Drug Administration gave its blessing in June 2025. There is also much excitement about Alimatravir, a monthly pill. Although it has yet to finish its clinical trials Merck, which makes it, has already signed deals in several parts of the world, including Africa, to produce it for sale cheaply. Lencapavir’s ascent is being helped by the Global Fund, an AIDS-fighting organisation funded partly by America in an arrangement separate from its deals with individual countries. The fund announced in July 2025 that it had arranged with Lenacapavir’s maker, Gilead Sciences, to buy enough doses for 2m people—a number raised this April, with extra American money, to
3m. But it would be good if that number went up still further, for UNAIDS estimates that, around the world, some 20m people would benefit from PrEP. Prevention and treatment, though, are not the same as cure, something that has eluded scientists for decades. But maybe, just maybe, not for much longer. The key, as a panel moderated by Sarah Fidler, of Imperial College, London, discussed, may be a group of molecules called broadly neutralising antibodies (bNAbs). Most of the antibodies people’s immune systems generate in response to HIV are specific to a particular strain of the virus, and thus lose their potency as it virus evolves. But bNAbs target bits of the virus that are so crucial that evolution has much less leeway to change them. The idea of using bNAbs as drugs to control hidden reservoirs of HIV within the body that conventional medicines cannot reach has been around for many years. Trials now suggest there might be something in the idea. Though most participants receive only temporary relief, in some of them the effects last longer. In a few cases recipients continue to have no detectable virus load after almost two years. That is far longer than the antibodies themselves could hang around, which suggests they have somehow trained the immune system to carry on the good work in their absence. This may, depending on your level of optimism, be either clutching at straws, or a straw in the wind. Even if it is the latter, it is a long way from an actual medicine. But it is hope. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/08/03/how-poor-countries-are- dealing-with-americas-aids-cuts
Science & technology | Well Informed How to stop procrastinating Thwarting the thief of time Aug 6th 2026 PUTTING THINGS off exacts a hefty toll. One study published in 2013 ranked 22,053 people on a procrastination scale of one to five. Each increase of one point was associated with a drop of nearly $15,000 in annual earnings. Those who habitually engage in “self-regulatory failure”, as procrastination is also known, are more prone to delaying medical treatment. A study of 3,525 Swedish university students published in 2023 found that those who scored highly for procrastination were more likely to suffer debilitating pain. It gets worse. The same Swedish study also found procrastinators more prone to anxiety, stress and loneliness. A 2025 meta-analysis, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry and covering 88 studies involving 63,323 people in
17 countries, found procrastination and its resulting erosion of self-esteem to be a predictor of future depression. How might procrastination be curbed? Mental exercises appear to help. One set is known as mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). Popularised in a number of smartphone apps, the idea is simple: picture the benefits of achieving a goal; contrast that image with the main obstacle; and devise a tactic to overcome it. In two randomised trials reported in 2020 undergraduates were given online MCII exercises designed to reduce the delaying of bedtime, which research has linked to procrastination in general. They missed their intended bedtimes by around 38 minutes less each night than those in a control group given advice about healthy sleeping habits. Exercise shows promise too. A Chinese trial published in March assessed procrastination in 77 male teenagers. Those randomly assigned to 12 weeks of strength training, high-intensity interval training, or a combination of the two, showed “significant reductions” in putting things off. An earlier study of 564 Chinese university students, published in 2022, found that the most physically active also procrastinated less. The researchers speculated that overcoming the stress of exertion gave them a “sense of mastery” that boosted confidence and motivation. Then there is the question of diet and other habits. A 2024 study of Italian university students found higher procrastination among breakfast-skippers, heavy drinkers and poor sleepers. The researchers speculated that missing the energy from breakfast might hinder “motivation and ability to focus on tasks”. But the skipped breakfasts may have been a consequence of procrastination, rather than a cause: studies have yet to show convincingly that diet affects it. As for medications, none as yet targets procrastination. But an intriguing finding emerged in 2021 from an American randomised controlled trial. Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder showed significant gains in cognitive executive function, including the ability to get started on tasks, while taking the stimulant lisdexamfetamine rather than a placebo. These days, opportunities for procrastination are greater than before. Many people work from home, out of the boss’s sight. Smartphones offer endless
distractions. In one review published in 2022, each of the 18 studies assessed linked excessive smartphone use to procrastination. Scrolling often delays bedtime, too. Lack of sleep impedes executive function, leading to more failures of self-regulation. It would be helpful if the scientists involved could stop dawdling.■ After a free, evidence-based guide to health and wellness? Sign up to our weekly Well Informed newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/07/31/how-to-stop- procrastinating
Why you should sit through 15 hours of opera A long-lost memoir brings the horrors of atomic warfare to life The rock-star chef is off the menu at Noma Hollywood’s latest obsession: older women and younger men The problem with AI companion toys for children
Why you should sit through 15 hours of opera At 150 years old, Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle still commands attention Aug 6th 2026 KAISER WILHELM I was there. So was Ludwig II of Bavaria, who had footed much of the bill. Dom Pedro II of Brazil had sailed over. Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher, was also present—though he pretended he hadn’t been. Bayreuth was a Bavarian backwater, but 150 years ago it seemed like the centre of the world. The “Ring of the Nibelung” (known as the “Ring” cycle), which Richard Wagner had composed and written over 26 years, had its first complete performance in August 1876 in the opera house that he had built to present the monumental work. In his influence, audacity and divisiveness, Wagner was art’s analogue of Elon Musk. His ideas “overran intellectual discourse for several generations”, writes Alex Ross in “Wagnerism”. His works remain lodged in
Western culture’s subconscious, revealing both the human condition and the age that encounters them. That is especially true of the “Ring”, the most magnum of Wagner’s opuses. If you’ve read or watched “The Lord of the Rings”, you’ve fallen under its spell at second hand. If you experience it you may find yourself obsessing the way Wagner’s contemporaries did. Though royalty attended its birth, the “Ring” is a child of revolution. In 1849, a year of European insurgency, Wagner was doing his bit to dethrone the king of Saxony by reporting troop movements. He fled to Zurich soon after starting work on the “Ring” cycle. His starting point was Germanic and Scandinavian legends written down in the 13th century, in particular the “Nibelungenlied”, the Icelandic Eddas and the Volsunga saga. This was natural source material for a revolutionary who wanted Germany’s patchwork of principalities to become a nation state. From this Wagner fashioned a tale of gods, heroes, dwarves and giants that stretches out over four “music dramas”—15 hours of opera in all. It begins when Alberich, a Nibelung (dwarf), spurned by the Rhine maidens, renounces love in order to seize their gold. He forges a ring that gives him world-ruling power. When Wotan, the chief god, wrests the ring from him, Alberich curses anyone who possesses it. The thefts and the curse bring