This weekend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore is bringing together defence officials, military chiefs, diplomats, journalists and weapons-makers from around the world to discuss security in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tensions between America and China will dominate discussion. But there won’t be much dialogue between the world’s two largest economies. China declined a request from the Pentagon for a meeting in Singapore between Lloyd Austin, America’s defence secretary, and Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister (pictured). China has demanded that America lift sanctions imposed on Mr Li in 2018—when he oversaw arms purchases from Russia—before a meeting can take place. Speaking at the summit, Mr Austin said he was “deeply concerned” that China was unwilling to discuss “mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries”.

President Joe Biden now faces a difficult choice: risk appearing soft on China by lifting the sanctions, or keep them and forfeit military talks. Relations between the two countries are at a low ebb. If China and America do not start a dialogue, the risks of miscommunication and accidental confrontation will only grow.

At least 200 mayors from cities across America are gathering this weekend in Columbus, Ohio, for an annual shindig, the United States Conference of Mayors. Violent crime is likely to dominate the conversation. Though murder rates seem to be dropping again in many of America’s biggest cities, they remain far higher than they were before the pandemic. Homelessness and mental health, intertwined challenges that have prompted new policies to compel treatment in New York City and in California, will also be big topics of discussion.

The meeting will probably conclude with a demand for policy changes from the federal government: in particular, for stricter rules on the purchase of guns. In this realm and others, America’s mayors—most of whom are Democrats—are in lock step with the Biden administration. Last month, the largest city with a Republican mayor, Jacksonville in Florida, voted him out. Of America’s 40 biggest cities, only five have Republican leaders; not one city with a population of more than 1m is run by a Republican.

The United Arab Emirates Space Agency is only nine years old, but it had an auspicious start when its probe Hope reached Mars in 2021. Now the Emiratis want to go farther, beyond the red planet to the rock-strewn hinterland called the asteroid belt. Their mission, announced earlier this week and to be launched in 2028, will take the form of a grand tour of seven asteroids in seven years, none of which has yet been explored.

The MBR Explorer (named after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, UAE’s prime minister) will be made mostly at home by local startups. Its final destination, in 2035, will be the curiously red asteroid Justitia, thought to harbour ice below its surface, and—maybe—clues to the origins of life. As well as solving the mystery of Justitia, the mission represents a new player betting big on space.

Which European football team can claim to have won all but two of its league matches this year? For all of Manchester City’s success this season, it cannot match the dominance of Barcelona Femení, who on Saturday play in the Women’s Champions League final against VfL Wolfsburg.

Barcelona, as with its all-conquering men’s team of the late 2000s, has achieved success in its own way. Though the club could afford to recruit any player it would like, Spanish footballers dominate the squad. The emergence of talents like Vicky López and Cláudia Pina from the club’s youth system suggests a desire to build from within. When coach Lluís Cortés resigned in 2021, he was replaced by his 29-year-old assistant, Jonatan Giráldez. Wolfsburg will not be a pushover: it won 19 of its 22 matches in the Frauen-Bundesliga, coming second to Bayern Munich. But Barça is the heavy favourite, poised to deliver a win to its own blueprint.

Many Spaniards could be forgiven for heading to Google last weekend, after Alberto Núnez Feijóo led the centre-right People’s Party to sweeping regional-election success. The result prompted Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s socialist prime minister, to call early national elections. About Mr Sánchez, everyone in Spain seems to have a firm and unmovable opinion. The same can hardly be said of Mr Feijóo, who has been on the national political scene for just over a year.

The previous PP leader, Pablo Casado, was young, clever and fiery. The party’s other biggest figure, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, leader of the Madrid region, is a polarising attention-machine. The wry Mr Feijóo might be the first to acknowledge he is not known for these qualities. For 13 years he ran the north-western region of Galicia. Long known for isolation and poverty, it has gradually approached Spain’s national average in GDP per person. He won four absolute majorities for the PP in the region. So when Mr Casado was ousted last year during a tussle with Ms Ayuso, the party quickly rallied around the adult-seeming, quietly victorious Mr Feijóo.

Born in 1961 in Os Peares, a town in Galicia, he lived with his parents and grandparents in a house with no bathroom. His father, a construction foreman, was unemployed when Mr Feijoo graduated in law from university. Aspirations of becoming a judge went by the wayside; he got a job in the civil service before climbing the ranks of the PP.

In his year-and-a-bit of party leadership he has mostly employed a moderate tone rarely heard in today’s toxic Spanish politics. He has been pragmatic on policy, promising that his (traditionally Catholic-affiliated) party would peacefully accept the Constitutional Court’s ruling guaranteeing a right to abortion. He swears off dealing with the political heirs of ETA, a Basque separatist group that inflicted decades of terrorism on Spain. A Galician speaker, he promotes Spain’s regional languages, calling for “cordial bilingualism”. This may have helped him boost the PP’s usually dismal vote in Catalonia.

Unlike the smooth-talking Mr Sánchez, Mr Feijóo does not speak English (a handicap that will be all the more noticeable if he becomes prime minister during Spain’s European Union presidency, which begins on July 1st). Asked if he was taking classes in the language last year, he said with a self-deprecating laugh that he was “taking classes in everything” since assuming national leadership. He may have to hurry his studies further still.

On Thursday Yevgeny Prigozhin—whose Wagner Group recently claimed a Pyrrhic victory in Bakhmut—said his forces had begun withdrawing from the Ukrainian city, soon to be replaced by official Russian soldiers. Wagner’s “win” came at an immense cost: at least 10,000 of the 50,000 men whom it recruited from Russian prisons and a similar number of regular fighters died there, according to Mr Prigozhin.

Outside Bakhmut, the attention of Russian military bloggers has focused on the cross-border raid by pro-Ukrainian militias in Russia’s Belgorod region. Russia says it expelled the groups responsible. Whether or not Kyiv was behind the raid, the humiliation has worsened Russian morale. Now the battlefield has the feel of the lull before a storm—in this case, Ukraine’s much-anticipated counter-offensive.

On Saturday Henry Kissinger turns 100. As national security adviser and then secretary of state, Mr Kissinger orchestrated America’s rapprochement with China in 1972 and arms-control treaties with the Soviet Union. But he is also a deeply polarising figure, accused of enabling human-rights abuses in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile and elsewhere. In 1973 he controversially won a Nobel peace prize for negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam war.

Although he has not held public office for 46 years, China’s rise makes Mr Kissinger’s analysis of great powers increasingly relevant. Ahead of his centenary he spent more than eight hours in conversation with The Economist. He outlined his deep concerns about the state of relations between America and China. “We are on the path to… confrontation”, he warned, because “both sides have convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger”. But Mr Kissinger also laid out his strategy for avoiding world war three—through realism, dialogue and leadership.

On Saturday the main prizes will be handed out at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival, including the coveted best-in-show award, the Palme d’Or.

One hotly tipped contender is “The Zone of Interest”, which dramatises the daily lives of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, a favourite in the Best Actress category). Directed by Jonathan Glazer, it was adapted from the novel by Martin Amis, who died on the day of its premiere, May 19th.

Several of the festival’s highest-profile films were shown “out of competition”, so are not eligible for awards. They include “Killers Of The Flower Moon”, a true-crime saga directed by Martin Scorsese, and “Jeanne du Barry”, a French costume drama starring Johnny Depp, who has had two recent court battles relating to domestic-abuse allegations. Protesters were unhappy that Cannes gave him the red-carpet treatment, even if it can’t give him a prize.

Few athletes have dominated an event like Rafael Nadal at the French Open. Mr Nadal has won the grand-slam title, one of tennis’s four most prestigious prizes, 14 times. But for the first time since 2004 the Spaniard, who is injured, will not feature in this year’s tournament, which starts on Sunday. His absence opens the door for his great nemesis, Novak Djokovic. Should the Serb win, he would overtake Mr Nadal as the man with the most grand-slam titles (23) and cement his claim as the greatest male tennis player ever.

But Mr Djokovic is himself battling injuries. He will also have to overcome a new generation of young prodigies, led by Carlos Alcaraz, a 20-year-old who is the world’s top-ranked player and the bookies’ favourite. Many consider the Spaniard the heir to Mr Nadal. The crown could soon be passed.

When Bola Tinubu is inaugurated as Nigeria’s president on Monday, he will move into the official residence. Among his baggage will be plenty of the political and legal sort. The wealthy 71-year-old styles himself as the “Godfather of Lagos”, Nigeria’s sprawling commercial capital, where he was governor for eight years until 2007. His backers say that he cleaned up the city, increased the tax take nearly six-fold and built infrastructure.

Yet his record invites questions. His rivals are still disputing his election win in court and claim it was rigged. Some Nigerians suspect that he pulled strings in dubious ways in the past to help his predecessor as president, Muhammadu Buhari, get elected. Back in 2019, when Mr Buhari was running for a second term, onlookers spotted two armoured vehicles, similar to those used by banks to transport cash, driving into Mr Tinubu’s compound in Lagos. He dismissed any suggestion that he had bought votes. “If I have money…I give it to the people free of charge, as long as [it’s] not to buy votes,” Mr Tinubu explained, less than reassuringly.

Some wonder where his money comes from. His explanations have varied from inheritance and real estate to a large bonus earned while working as an auditor at Deloitte, an accounting firm. In the 1990s the American government froze his assets over his alleged links to the heroin trade. Mr Tinubu denied wrongdoing and reached a settlement with the Americans whereby he forfeited $460,000.

Others question how he so impressively increased Lagos’s tax take. Last year he settled a lawsuit accusing him of secretly owning most of a firm that had won a contract to collect taxes on behalf of Lagos state during his governorship. Court papers alleged that it earned a commission of 10% on all revenues collected there. Mr Tinubu again denied wrongdoing.

Mr Tinubu now faces one of the world’s toughest in-trays. Many Nigerians also question whether he has the energy—and health—to tackle it. He is often abroad for medical trips, including a recent stay in Paris. As the presidential race last year heated up Mr Tinubu had been absent from the public eye for so long that he released a video on Twitter of himself pedalling an exercise bike. “Many have said I have died”, he posted. “Well…Nope”.

On Wednesday the IMF’s board is expected to approve a $3bn bailout for Ghana—the country’s 17th. After months of wrangling, Ghana’s bilateral creditors, including China, promised to negotiate a debt restructuring. A $600m tranche is expected immediately. Though more work will be required to unlock further funding, the news has already boosted Ghana’s struggling government bonds and flagging currency.

Ghana’s progress, and China’s willingness to engage, is a hopeful sign for other heavily indebted African countries that may need help in the future, such as Kenya. Many are in deep trouble caused by overspending, covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, which drained foreign-currency reserves through higher fuel costs. This year, on average, 17% of government revenues in Africa will go on servicing external debt, the highest share since 1999 (after which rich countries made big write-offs). Domestic debt servicing will also chew up cash needed for schools and hospitals. African governments face a damaging new age of austerity.

In January next year Taiwanese will vote in a successor to President Tsai Ing-wen, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, who is ineligible for another term. The Kuomintang, Taiwan’s main opposition party, announced its candidate for the job on Wednesday: Hou Yu-ih, the moderate mayor of New Taipei City. He has occasionally come ahead of Lai Ching-te, the DPP’s candidate, in public opinion polls. Mr Hou’s main contender for the role had been Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Foxconn, the main supplier to Apple.

One crucial factor in the election will be the positions the candidates take on Taiwan’s sovereignty. Mr Lai and the DPP support strengthening the island’s de facto independence. Mr Hou has not yet said where he stands. But the Kuomintang itself maintains that China and Taiwan are loosely one country. Given voters’ fear of China’s increased territorial aggression, that is likely to scupper KMT’s chances.

“Upfronts” week, when studios and streamers pitch future content to advertisers, is normally an excuse for New York’s glitterati to party. This year, though, it is haunted by pay disputes. Members of the Writers Guild of America, the trade union for television and film writers, have been on strike since May 2nd. They are picketing companies’ presentations throughout the week. On Wednesday they are expected to demonstrate at events for Warner Brothers and YouTube. Netflix moved online its soirée planned for that evening to avoid a ruckus.

The strike is a consequence of the way in which streaming has upended entertainment business models, damaging writers’ salaries and working conditions. It is snarling large parts of the industry. Some shows and films have halted production. Ceremonies for the Peabody and Tony awards, which celebrate the best of broadcasting and Broadway, respectively, will be watered-down affairs. Writers used to working behind the scenes now seem to be starring in their own Hollywood drama.

On Wednesday the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation will deliver its predictions for the next five years. They are unlikely to be reassuring. In the forecast for 2022 to 2026 that it issued last year, the WMO put at 48% the odds that, for at least one of those years, average global temperatures would be 1.5°C higher than pre-industrial levels. In 2015 the odds of that happening were close to zero. They seem almost certain to rise again, not least because El Niño, a weather pattern that contributes to higher global temperatures, is about to take hold.

Keeping long-term global warming below 1.5°C was the more ambitious target of the Paris agreement signed in 2015. Temporarily higher temperatures alone do not prove that goal is out of reach, but it increasingly appears to be so. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that no matter what action humanity takes it is now more likely than not that the 1.5°C threshold will be enduringly breached by 2040.

Diane von Furstenberg, a Belgian fashion designer, has labelled Joel Arthur Rosenthal “the Fabergé of our time”. The extravagant pieces created by JAR, as he is known, are so prized that fine-jewellery collectors (a typically refined crowd) almost descend into brawls when they come up for auction.

Mr Rosenthal, an American based in Paris, never advertises and sells mostly by word-of-mouth. On Wednesday, though, the largest collection of JAR jewels ever auctioned will appear at Christie’s in Geneva. The collection, from a private owner, showcases the bold, three-dimensional designs that are Mr Rosenthal’s signature. The 25 pieces include a pair of pansy-shaped earrings in multi-coloured gemstones and a pair of geraniums made from carved nephrite jade. A pair of diamond ivy-leaf earrings, designed in 1991, have an estimate of CHF300,000-500,000 ($334,500-557,540). But JAR has some catching up to do: his most expensive piece at auction (a ruby-studded brooch) fetched $4.3m in 2012; Fabergé’s “Rothschild” egg sold for $12.6m at Christie’s in 2007.